Animal help in the Dominican Republic - for a better cooperation between humans and animals
Tears of happiness, sadness and hope ...
Dear friends,
the last month has yet again been a roller coaster ride of emotions... The death of poor stray dog “Katastrophe” upset us all very much. Of course, we cannot rescue every animal and any animal welfare activist would advise you not to let things like that get to you, but still each and every loss of an animal is a real tragedy to me and breaks my heart every time :-((
Then we received the pleasant news that we were on the short-list for the Goldene Pfote (Golden Paw). We were on the edges of our seats with suspense during the whole voting phase. And animal-friend Winni was clicking his fingers sore day and night, to give us at least a small chance against those huge contestants, but after a couple of days the results were adjusted and multiple votes deleted. After the voting dead-line the jury voted us on place four and we were very disappointed – another hope destroyed. Just when I wanted to inform you by e-mail, we got a call from TASSO: place three had withdrawn its candidature; we had moved up and were now one of the winners at last. And again tears flew, but this time they were tears of joy and happiness!!! Since we couldn't attend the award ceremony in Pfullingen in person, I sent this short acknowledgement to TASSO.
One day later our monthly castration-campaign started. This time it took place in very „posh“ surroundings. We were allowed to work on the first floor of a private humane-clinic, because the boss of this clinic was so impressed by our work that he wanted to support it. And because the operations in our mobile animal-ambulance are pretty sweaty procedures regarding the local temperatures, we gladly accepted his generous offer. This kind of support is very special as Dominicans usually don't allow „dirty“ animals anywhere near such institutions...
This time we were able to castrate 10 female dogs and 4 cats (some of them pregnant) and to carry out diverse other medical treatments.
During the castration-campaign I spotted a stray female dog on the other side of the street. Of course we wanted to castrate her straight away. So I went over to her, lured her with some food and put her on the lead – All of this took its course without any problems. While examining her belly I saw that she had already been castrated...
Seeing how many dogs have already been castrated by us makes me very happy! The situation in Las Terrenas has improved so much for the animals, but the people profit by it as well – finally there is more cooperation between humans and animals!
To fill our collecting box, we now put up a little vending- and information stall every Saturday. We sell dog-food that we import from Germany in a container (a million thanks to Urs, who made this possible, to Sascha of BPS Beutler and special thanks to Xaver of Cayena Service), as well as animal accessories that we partly owe to generous donations or buy ourselves in Germany. Our French friend Tamalou attends to the stall and is actively supported by some Dominican kids.
What made me especially happy was the large interest in our sponsorships – for our permanent patient Mäuschen we have even had
three requests, she really is outstandingly cute :-))
Please keep an eye on our sponsorship page, it is
constantly updated with new emergencies. We don't have any minimum premiums for
the sponsors or donators, because for us even a donation of 5,- Euro / 7,- US$
/ 5,- £ is a large help.
And now to our newest patients:
You can read the story of Onyx here. Over the past three weeks he has gotten a lot better – he
will stay with us until he has recovered completely and we are already on the
look out for a caring home for him. Onyx is a great guard dog and a cuddly
giant baby at the same time.
Three days after Onyx arrived we got Dino – here you can read Dinos story. Dino will stay with us, because handicapped as he is he won't find anybody to take him in.
We were able to cure the paralysed puppy we took in last month after about two weeks and we returned him home to his owner all healed. He had probably eaten some sort of drug – yes, there are some of those over here as well unfortunately... – and the drugs triggered the paralysis. We detoxicated the midget and did some rehab-exercises with him.
And then, sadly, we lost another patient – Lila, the stray dog that had been struck by a motorbike and nursed by our friend Nicole. The day before she had been just fine, she was driving around with Nicole in her car (which she loved), had eaten well, had had her „bedtime sweet“, a serving of yoghurt (she loved that as well) and had fallen asleep. She didn't wake up again, it happened quickly and without any pain, certainly the best way for Lila.
We are all very sad and shocked because we had actually had large hopes that Lila would survive. Maybe she would never have been able to walk properly again, but she had still always communicated her will to live to us and wasn't really bothered at all about her handicap. Buschi wanted to make her a trolly and had already ordered tyres as you don’t get them here in Las Terrenas. Farewell, lovely Lila, you enriched our life.
We cannot always win – but we will always devote all our strength and love to the animals, because they deserve it.
In this spirit I send my love from Las Terrenas
Miriam
