According to the 2023 Beach Notice, the “circulation and permanence of animals outside the authorised zones, except for trained or in training assistance dogs, duly certified, who accompany, guide and help people with disabilities” is forbidden.

But despite the law in effect, one can frequently see beachgoers with their dogs on concessioned beaches during the bathing season, disrespecting the signs disallowing dogs at the beach entrances, André Correia, the decade-long owner of the Costa Nova beach concession in Ílhavo, told Lusa.

“Effectively, there’s no respect for the beach, and the dogs walk around here, do their business in the sand and right afterwards kids will dig little holes and roll in the sand, put it in their mouth,” he stated.

The law

The businessman also commented some people “become very offended” because of animals not being allowed in the restaurant premises. “That isn’t an option for us. Animals aren’t allowed on the beach, and we’re located on the sand, we can’t go against the law,” he explained.

André Baroet, president of the Ílhavo Lifeguards Association, also confirmed that there are dogs on the beaches every day, although few beachgoers complain to lifeguards, and if they do it’s because they’re barking.

“When someone complains, we talk to the owner and tell him the dog is bothering other people, and the owner or controls the dog since they’re not even allowed on the beach, or they have to leave. What normally happens is that people settle their dog against the windshield, and they calm down, or they take their dog and leave,” he explained.

André Baroet also mentioned that they only contact the Maritime Police once a second complaint is made about the same animal on the same day.

Besides bothering other beachgoers, contact between dogs and the sand, mainly when it’s dry, is a concern to public health due to the diseases animals can transmit to humans through saliva and feces.

According to data shared by the National Maritime Authority (AMN), between 2020 and 2023 67 fines were handed out due to animals on the beach along the whole Portuguese coast, including the islands.

The AMN specifies that 34 fines were registered in 2020, 16 in 2021, 12 in 2022, and 5 so far in 2023.

Almost half the fines registered in 2020 were in the Command area of Cascais (18) and Vila Real de Santo António (10), an abnormally large number for which AMN doesn’t have an explanation currently.

Of the 28 local commands, only 13 emitted fines for animals on the beach since 2020 (Caminha, Viana do Castelo, Leixões, Douro, Figueira da Foz, Peniche, Cascais, Lisboa, Sines, Lagos, Portimão, Faro and Vila Real de Santo António).

Complaints

In a declaration to Lusa, Aveiro Port Captainship commander Vitor Conceição Dias said they’d been situations registered of people with animals on the beach, but that “there hadn’t been any consequences” because the Maritime Police’s acting “isn’t always immediate.”

“A lot of the time, when agents get to the location all the proof is already gone,” the same man answered, recognising the hard task of keeping watch of the beaches daily, taking into consideration how Aveiro council only 16 Maritime Police agents and the boss patrolling about 70 kilometres of coast and 110 kilometres of lagoon.

He also said that the Captainship receives “five to six varied complaints, more associated to fishing” every day, adding that “it’s not very frequent to have complaints about people bothered by seeing a dog on the beach.”