While the move received favourable responses from most interest groups, local councils raised a number of concerns that still remain more than six months down the road.
Among them are that kennels will become overcrowded, diseases could spread far more easily, while obtaining funding to feed the abandoned animals will become increasingly challenging.
But lawmakers still ordered that the culling of an estimated 100,000 cats and dogs each year in Portugal was now illegal.
Instead, kennels and catteries are now first tasked with sterilising animals followed by putting them up for adoption. Actual culling of street animals will only be considered when the animal is found to be ill, in pain or have serious behavioural issues.
Municipal kennels will be known as Official Animal Collection Centres.
Abandoned animals who are placed in these centres, but who are not collected within 15 days, will automatically be sterilised and put up for adoption.
The animals can then be handed over to “new owners at no charge.”