Palma dog in bin: six-month jail term upheld

A man threw a sick English setter into a rubbish container in Palma on 12 March 2021. Waste-collection workers found the dog the next day, filthy, underfed and covered in wounds. The Balearic Provincial Court has now upheld his six-month prison sentence for animal cruelty.

Court cuts animal ban to two years

Palma Criminal Court No. 3 had sentenced the man in late September 2025 to six months in prison and banned him from keeping animals for three years. It also imposed a €1,800 fine and a further one-year ban for abandonment.

The Provincial Court partly accepted his appeal and cleared him of the separate abandonment offence, ruling that it was already covered by the animal-cruelty conviction. It reduced the ban on keeping animals to two years. The judges also considered his claim that he believed the dog was dead when he got rid of her and that he had provided money for her care.

Untreated illness and wounds across her body

The court found that the man knew during 2021 that the dog had leishmaniasis and needed veterinary treatment. He stopped that treatment despite knowing she would suffer without it. Her ribs could be seen and felt, and she was kept in dirt and malnourishment.

She also had muscle wasting, flaky skin and numerous wounds on her legs, back, ears, mouth and eyes. Her right eye was completely ulcerated and she lost sight in it.

After the waste workers found her, they alerted Palma Local Police. The Natura Parc Foundation then gave the dog veterinary treatment.

Topics: Court cases · Police · Palma

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com