In August, Italy Goes to the Dogs : Animal abuse: As the entire nation vacations, pets are abandoned in droves. Now, Parliament is saying, ‘Enough!’

Faithful to a summer tradition of urban flight and seaside frolic that dates to Caesar’s day, Italy is closed this month. And once again during these sweltering dog days, it is the dogs who suffer most.

The annual August divorce between 60 million Italians and their cities is accompanied again this year by rampant dog abandonment that kills not only dogs but also people.

There’s a saying in Italy about dogs: “Under the tree at Christmas, onto the highway in August.” Typically, a vacation-bound family stops at some anonymous stretch of road, shoos Fido out and drives off to the beach.

The summer barbarity of abandoning pets, a cruelty echoed in other West European countries that also observe everybody-at-the-same-time summer vacations, has long angered many Italians. Now Parliament is fighting back with stiff fines for dog abuse.

In the last 10 years, 1.5 million abandoned dogs have caused 45,000 highway accidents, leaving 1,500 motorists injured and 80 dead, according to the company that manages Italy’s toll roads. For every 1,000 accidents on the toll roads, 15 are caused by stray animals, mostly dogs.

There are now an estimated 2 million stray dogs in Italy. The danger of hitting one on the road is highest in July and August and around Christmastime, said Antonio Iacoe, president of Italy’s Society for the Protection of Animals. Most of the abandoned dogs are bitches under a year old or more than 5 years old; 10% of them are pedigreed animals, officials say.

“We know that many of the people who come in August with dogs simply want to get rid of them and will never come back,” said Vincenzo Santucci, one of the few veterinarians working in Rome this month.

Indeed, Santucci is one of the few Romans who willingly works at all in August. Like every other big Italian city, Rome is shunned by its residents this time of year. The capital’s most notable August denizens are sweaty tourists and standby staffs of police, doctors, grousing museum guards and shopkeepers.

“Don’t get sick in August,” warned the newspaper La Repubblica. One major Roman hospital closes its obstetrics ward for the month, although it is still possible to get a summer abortion there, the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano noted critically.

For those who remain, newspapers publish survival pages listing essential services still to be found in the vacuum. But woe betide the Roman who needs an August plumber. Even if he finds one, it’ll take a second mortgage to pay the bill.

By municipal injunction, even in August, every city neighborhood must be served by a pharmacy, grocery, milk store and news vendor. On July 31, Rome’s City Council instructed the police to ensure that shops were fulfilling their summer duty--then solemnly adjourned until Sept. 2.

It is also the August duty of diminished police legions to check that the restaurants that remain open do not flood Roman sidewalks with more outdoor tables than they are allowed. By an early count, one al fresco table in three was illegal.

Italy’s rite of summer means that on the last weekend of July, an estimated 20 million vehicles stream from major cities to instantly overcrowded beaches. What triggers the lemming-like exodus is the simultaneous monthlong closure of most major factories and businesses, and a big chunk of the government.

August is the sometimes tender month when families reunite. Until then, summering wives and children typically laze at seaside second houses that Italians consider their birthright. In July, the bronzed women are joined on weekends by their husbands, who arrive from big cities on Friday night trains.

For years, there has been talk of staggered vacations, as in countries like the United States, to ease the crush. No way, Italians say. In a poll commissioned by the newspaper Corriere della Sera, 62% said they take August vacations, and nearly all said they like it that way.

It is an Italian rhythm as regular as the tides. In early August, national newscasts invariably open with horrific accounts of “The Exodus” traffic: 10-mile jams at tollbooths this year. In late August, it is “The Return” that dominates the news. In between, there is a “Jaws” scare--reports of a 15-foot shark off the Ligurian coast this year--and a whodunit murder or two that usually goes unsolved.

In many cities, entire apartment buildings are deserted in August. While that may be an annual blessed event for burglars, it is bad news for pets whose owners prefer to vacation without them.

But the Italian Parliament is at last saying “ Basta! “ to ingrained animal cruelty. A new law approved by lawmakers as they were leaving for summer recess would require national registration, licensing and racehorse-like tattooing of dogs. Anyone caught mistreating or abandoning a dog would face a fine of up to $2,500. Any summer entrepreneur caught rounding up a stray dog for sale to a laboratory that practices vivisection could be fined up to $8,000.

In their rush to escape city strictures, beach-bound Italians also sometimes let their canaries fly away and abandon their cats in the neighborhood piazza. No one weeps for them. The defenseless canaries come to a quick end. The cats usually survive. Stray cats, an enduring and beloved emblem of Rome, are among its wiliest and toughest inhabitants.

Snakes are another matter. One recent afternoon, an alarmed citizen who might have been the last Roman on the ancient Appian Way found a nine-foot snake in a tree peacefully digesting a toad. He called the police; logic dictated that the snake was one more victim of the heartless August abandonment.

Wrong. According to the skeleton reptile staff at the Rome Zoo, it was an indigenous, nonpoisonous and undomesticated Italian water snake. Return it to the wild or keep it at the zoo? That decision, like most others in Italy, will likely wait until September.