The Ministry of Interior has issued a notice with two halves. One is for anyone who comes across a stray dog in the street. The other is for anyone who keeps an animal and can no longer look after it.
If you see a stray dog
The ministry asks for four things, in order: be careful, keep your distance and stay somewhere safe, fix the location clearly, then ring the emergency number 112. Fixing the location is the step people skip, and it is the one that makes a report usable — a plot number, a street name, or the nearest visible landmark, rather than the name of the area.
After the call, the response is arranged with the relevant authorities. That matters practically: 112 is a single point of entry, and the caller is not expected to work out which body is responsible.
If you can no longer keep your animal
This is the part of the notice that is new. The ministry states plainly that leaving an animal behind, or releasing it in a public place, is prohibited when the owner can no longer continue to care for it. The route it offers instead is the same number, 112, to have the animal dealt with or collected in coordination with the relevant authorities.
Put another way: not coping is not a defence for leaving an animal on a street, a car park or an empty lot. There is an official way to hand it over.
What owners are held to generally
The ministry also pressed owners to comply with the rules governing the keeping and care of animals, and framed that around public safety rather than the animal’s welfare alone. The logic runs one way: a dog left behind becomes a stray dog, so the first half of the notice is the consequence of the second.
The practical version
- You see a stray dog: move away, fix the location precisely, ring 112.
- You can no longer keep your animal: do not release it, ring 112 to arrange collection.
- You keep an animal: the rules on possession and care apply to you.
Photo: a stray cat on the rocks by the sea in Kuwait. By Tristan Ferris, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: Al-Jarida, 29 September 2026.
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