Toros 1 - Taurinos 0 - and other snippets of Animal Husbandry

After reading this post from my fellow expatriate, I felt compeled to write one of my own as this is something I feel quite strongly about

Very Bored in Catalunya: Correbous - A Load of Old Bull?

I watched the news yesterday, and was very pleased to hear that the Province of Catalunya have voted to stop bullfighting from 01.01.2012, and I feel sure that the rest of Spain will follow suit. 

In my local village they've not held an actual bullfight for the last 2 year's fiestas, although they did have this

Where the bulls are used as a sort of gym equipment.  Here, they also have a "playtime" (?) where they let very young bulls into the ring for the local lads to torment. One year there was outrage as one wannabe 'ardboy was unnecessarily rough to the cow. Although there is no bloodshed, I'm still not totally sure that correbous/corredores or this local "playtime" are necessary either. But then there are lot of animal welfare issues here that I'm not totally OK with either.

Animals here are either beloved pets 

Or tools - guard dogs are chained up 24/7, under fed horses and donkeys with over grown feet can be found pulling carts.  There are countless stray cats and dogs roaming the streets and lanes and I've even heard of people buying a puppy at the start of the summer and throwing it out once school starts again.  It's tough when you are an animal lover, but I'm starting to harden to it all, which is a real shame.  Not so much that I didn't find a home for these four

But enough that I tend to turn the other cheek at times - sad but true.