I

I’ve been thinking lately about India. I wrote of her awhile ago. India was a street dog, a “perra callejera” as they call them here. She must once have been beautiful with her dark yellow eyes and thick shepherd coat. I first saw India sniffing around an informal market, looking for food scraps. She was ragged, starving and terrified. It took her awhile to find what was to become her permanent spot—a bit of pavement outside a disco. During her search for a safe place, she was hit by a car. For the rest of her life, her left rear leg hung limp from the hip joint.

India was my friend as much as she was able to be one. She knew my car and came as near to me as her fear allowed. She needed food and I brought it to her almost every day. But India never let me touch her. She trusted me but knew nothing of love.

For nearly two years, India lived on that little piece of pavement beside a busy road. Each day on my way up the mountain, I prayed she’d still be there. And she was. But I knew it wouldn’t always be this way.

About a month ago, I began to see the anti-rabico (anti-rabies) truck in the area. (I might add that rabies is very, very rare around here). The anti rabicos are the government’s answer to the city’s street dogs.  Dogs are grabbed with a noose on a long pole and thrown into the back of a big caged truck. Sometimes the men who catch the dogs smash them into the concrete  to stun them. The dogs are taken to one of the city’s many anti-rabico centers. These places are jammed with dogs, packed by the dozens into cages. They wait, in their own excrement, usually without food or water, until they are electrocuted. The methods of electrocution are so cruel and inhumane I don’t want to describe them in detail. The images haunt me everyday.

After I saw the anti-rabico truck, I feared for India. Then she was gone. I looked and looked but I knew what had happened. This was a dog who sought each day only to be alone, to stay away from humans.  I can hardly breathe when I think of her terrified in an overcrowded cage… until she was killed.

I wish beyond words that I could have saved her, given her a spot in a meadow under a tree like Ferdinand the Bull, a gentle place to live out her days. But I couldn’t. My guess is that India had never known kindness. She’d given up on people long before I first laid eyes on her. But she wasn’t harming anyone. If someone approached, she ran away. She was worn out and tired and wanted mostly just to sleep.

In a way, India was my touchstone. As long as she was there, I could believe dogs that didn’t bother humans could actually make it in this city. Maybe they’d just be left alone. Now I know now the truth. Most street dogs get caught, sooner or later. It doesn’t matter if they are purebreds or mutts, friendly or terrified. In the eyes of the city, they are all the same. They’ll have left behind litters of pups to take their place on the streets, but they will eventually die.  Some are hit by cars, many succumb to starvation, most get electrocuted by the anti rabicos. Street dogs do not live long lives.

I understand that places like Mexico City need to control their population of street dogs. What I cannot understand is why it is done with such cruelty.

There is an American vet who works up on Mexico’s northern border. She’s started a campaign for “humane euthansia.” It’s such a small thing to ask for. This is my wish for Mexico City– that people here will begin to understand that compassion extends to all creatures. If the dogs must die, if the city cannot organize an effective sterilization campaign (which it seems it cannot) then let them die with a degree of kindness. We humans are the stewards of this earth, we can do better than cause more pain to those who are already suffering.

I miss India. I miss her presence in my life. I miss the bond we had, frail as it was. It’s hard for me to accept that India is dead. Harder still to accept that she died in agony.  And so, these last few days I’ve been trying to form a new memory of this dog, one not of her past but of her future.

I like to believe that India is now far, far away from a world that offered her nothing but misery.  I like to think of her soul flying free, rising like a kite above the anti rabico, above the cars, the dirty air, the garbage and the cement slab in front of her disco. I like to think of her sailing away  into a deep blue sky.

Lilly

When I started picking up street dogs in Mexico, I kept using terms I now know to be false. I called Goldie, the first dog I brought home, “the skinniest ever.” Then came Milo, a dog even more emaciated than Goldie. “A dog couldn’t be any thinner than Milo,” I said. But Juno was thinner. She was so starved I could put two fingers in the space between each vertebrae. I couldn’t imagine it could get any worse. Again, I was wrong. I picked up an old Boxer. He was nothing but skin and bones except for an enormous tumor that hung from his belly, oozing pus. Despite his pain, he wagged his tail when I came up to him, and somehow, that made the situation even sadder.

After nearly four years in Mexico, I know a bit better now. There is no “worst.” Each time I think I’ve seen the worst starvation, the worst broken leg or a rope buried deep into the neck of a wandering dog, I find yet another dog that is farther gone, that is alive for some unknown reason when it seems to me, its suffering is too much to bear.

Lilly is a dog like this. Lilly is a small jewel, a petite German shepherd mix with the long thin legs of a deer. She is gentle and wise and painfully trusting. But she is also so frail and thin that sometimes I imagine she could  float away. Lilly  is  moving now between life and death. I cannot say yet where she will stay. I fiercely hope she remains with us, in our world of sun and grass and  sweet morning air.  But Lilly is weak and her body is tired.

When I found Lilly, she couldn’t walk or eat or drink. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused. She was bone and fur. Nothing more.  On the ride to the clinic, her body sagged against mine. She couldn’t hold her head up or stay awake. I was expecting the vet to tell me she was too far gone, that the best we could do for her was to help her die quickly. But he looked at this sad and lifeless dog and said, “I think I can help her.”  So I brought Lilly home, pumped up on vitamins and antibiotics. I made her a soft bed and hand-fed her boiled chicken. Lilly tried to regain her strength. She began wagging her tail and walking again, but clumsily. Sometimes, her legs would suddenly collapse under her and she’d fall over.  It was hard to watch. Still, she was trying. Lilly was at her finest when my boys pulled out the soccer ball. She is a skilled player, quick and agile and went fast for the ball, despite her fragile condition. But it is hard for a body to come back, to learn to work again.  I needed help with Lilly. I needed a quiet place for her to recover. A couple of new friends, Jo Anne and Ken, offered to help. They took her home.  They held her for hours at a time in their arms. They covered her with a fleece blanket and urged her to eat. Together, the three of us wrapped this weak and beautiful dog in love. But even love can’t always save a dog who’s been through so much.

Two weeks after Lilly came to us, diarrhea set in and then the vomiting began. By the time we got her to a vet hospital, Lilly was going into shock.  We weren’t sure she’d make it through the night.

She did. Like so many of the dogs that live on the streets here, Lilly is a survivor. She reminds me of the lines of a Dylan Thomas poem once quoted to me as I cried over the slow and painful death of a bird I’d found. Thomas writes: “…rage, rage against the dying of the light…do not go gentle into that good night.” The bird fought against death because life is beautiful. Lilly, too, won’t let go without a fight.

Lilly is back home now with Ken and Jo Anne. She’s a little better but her body is damaged and vulnerable.  She desperately needs to gain weight if she’s to survive.

I tell you of Lilly because, in the end,  hers is a story of hope. Lilly, once starving and alone on a garbage-strewn road, is now deeply loved. She is among friends.  Jo Anne told me that Lilly has been a gift. “My heart is full,” she said. And Ken told me, “We don’t want to give up on her.”  We don’t and we won’t. We will continue to believe that , for Lilly at least, the worst is  finally over.

I cannot  tell a sad story today. I need to dwell for a bit in happiness. So I will tell you a sweet story, a tale of two little dogs that found each other in this crazy megalopolis of winding streets, and traffic and thousands upon thousands of lost and homeless dogs.

About a year ago, I was driving on one of Mexican City’s major thoroughfares. It’s a monster of a road, with many lanes, speeding cars and way too much traffic. Luckily, on this day, the traffic was so heavy that commuters could only crawl along. This is the reason  the little dog I saw ahead of me was still alive. The dog was clearly terrified, darting between cars to the center bus lane and back. She appeared lost, confused and most noticeably, very tiny. She was just a speck of a thing.  I had in my car at that moment another dog I’d found not long before, an enormous German Shepherd. I was trying to find him a home but hadn’t yet. It wasn’t a good time to pick up yet another stray, but I knew this little dog in the road  wasn’t going to make it much longer.  And so I pulled over and plucked her out of the street. That is how Pipa arrived in our life.

It took Pipa about a day to settle in. But after a bath, some food and a night of sleep, this funny little chihuahua mix exploded into a ball of  burning energy. Pipa was everywhere, bouncing off the sofa, off beds, off my children’s laps. She taunted our Pit Bull mix into wrestling with her on the dog bed. They’d play for hours, teeth clashing. It was hard to tell who was tougher. Pipa was a small dog with a very big ego. Nothing could stop her.

Pipa needs a home

Now, I have a dog walker who helps me out with my pack. Her name is Jacqueline.  Jackie loves dogs and they love her.  Sometimes Jackie’s husband  Manuel also lends a hand with the dog walks. On one of these occasions he told me that after their very old Doberman died there would be no more dogs in his house. “I’m tired of the dogs, ” he said firmly.

The day came, too soon, when their Doberman, Viyeka, passed away.  I thought that would be it. No more dogs for Jackie and Manuel. But Pipa had different plans.

From the moment Pipa set eyes on Manuel, she declared him, hers. She would snuggle in his arms like a contented child, calm and endearing. She’d stare up at him adoringly with her large brown bug eyes. Jackie was already taken with Pipa and Pipa seemed to know this. It was Manuel she had to win over. And she did, with wily skill. Soon enough, Manuel agreed that Pipa could come home with them for “a prueba,” a test. That was it. Pipa never returned to my house. So much for “no more dogs!”

Pipa and Manuel

This should be the end of the story, but it isn’t. All was well in Pipa’s life but Jackie was discontent. She felt Pipa needed a companion. (“No way,” said Manuel, “No way, two dogs.”) Still, in private, Jackie said to me, ” If you ever see a dog like Pipa on the street, tell me.” Of course, I knew that wouldn’t happen. I might find a small dog, but Pipa was a one-of-a-kind mutt, an unknown mix of chihuahua and something else. I was right.  I never saw a dog like Pipa. It was Jackie herself who did.

One day, as Jackie scrolled through dogs for adoption on an internet site, one caught her eye. The dog had been roaming the streets and a nice woman had picked her up. Now the dog needed a permanent home. This dog didn’t look like Pipa. She WAS Pipa. An identical match, down to the white spot on the chest, and the little white feet.  It was as if Pipa had been cloned. It was every mutt owner’s secret dream—to get a second one, exactly like the first. Jackie got Lilo.

It’s hard to explain how unlikely a scenario this is in a place like Mexico City. This is a city so huge and so chaotic, it’s like a bad science experiment grown out of control in a petri dish.  Besides the 20 plus million humans, there are an estimated 2 million homeless dogs roaming the streets. There is no system of registrations in this city, no lost and found call-in hotline. People, for the most part, reject identification tags. Microchips are practically nonexistent. Some groups post dogs for adoption, but it’s a random helter-skeleter process. So, for Jackie to find a site on the internet with Pipa’s long lost twin on it is simply miraculous. Jackie knew this, of course. As for Manuel, he didn’t stand a chance. Two days after Jackie saw Lilo’s photo, Lilo was home.

Like Pipa, Lilo knew how to play the game. Manuel was hers. She curled into him on the sofa, her body language clearly saying, “mine, mine, mine.”

A few days later, when I asked how Lilo was doing, Manuel told me, “Yes, Lilo is good, very good.” There was a note of pride in his voice.

Lilo and Manuel

I know good things come to good people. But I think life’s greatest rewards are reserved for good people who are good to the most vulnerable of this world—to the lost, the homeless, the abandoned—people like Jackie and Manuel. They  took in Pipa, who led them, in a way, to Lilo. Together, these two little dogs gave them a story of coincidence and connection, a story that will stay with them  always, and will always make them smile. And that’s more than enough. Really, is there anything better than a good story?

Pipa, Lilo, Jackie and Manuel

Marisol in the mountains near Mexico City

Marisol Esperanza was a little dog from Acapulco on a journey north. An Acapulco vet drove her to our house in Mexico City. A week later, I drove Marisol to San Miguel de Allende. From there, my friend Kelly, who runs the group “Save A Mexican Mutt” drove her another 10 hours north, to the border and on to San Antonio. In Texas, Marisol boarded a plane for the east coast. Her destination was a beautiful farm in the Pennsylvania mountains. The farm is an animal sanctuary (Indraloka Animal Sanctuary) and home to Indra, the woman who spotted Marisol on an Acapulco beach six months ago.

When Indra  found Marisol, the little black and white dog had just a wisp of life in her. She was starving, infested with parasites, lactating (though the pups could not be located) and both her back legs were broken. She’d survived, barely, by dragging herself along on her two front legs. Indra  and Marisol  exchanged a look and that was it. Indra connected to this little spirit in a deep and profound way. So she picked up the broken dog and carried her to a vet.   Indra left Marisol in the care of  the Acapulco vet, Dr. Gomez Duque, when her vacation was over. As the months passed, the bills for Marisol’s care and surgeries grew bigger and bigger. Somehow, Indra managed to find a way to pay for it all. Marisol had become Indra’s dog and Indra wanted to bring her home.

Six months later, Marisol was ready. She could walk now. Her walk isn’t perfect but it works for Marisol. However, flying a dog out of Mexico is complicated and expensive. And so Indra searched for people to help. She approached an animal rescue group in the U.S. They found her Kelly. Kelly found me. Dr. Gomez, the vet, agreed to drive the first six-hour leg, from Acapulco to Mexico City. And so, ride by ride, Marisol headed north.

Marisol arrived at our house on a rainy, wet Sunday. She was scared and shivering when she was brought from her carrier. I took her in my arms to bring her inside. Right away, I saw what Indra must have seen. Marisol’s eyes seem to carry in them an understanding of life. They are sad eyes and show the suffering she’s been through, but they are gentle, too, as if she knows the value of love.  In the week she was with us, my young boys cuddled with her every morning, my female dogs played with her, but softly, as if they knew she’d been put back together piece by piece.  Marisol fit right into our routine. In the evenings, she’d  run through the garden with  pure, brilliant  happiness on her face. We were sad to let her go. But on she went.

Marisol finally made it to Pennsylvania. Now, she  is learning the ways of her new farm, adjusting to  the smells of sheep and horses and thick summer grass. She is surrounded by people who love her. She is a long way from Acapulco.

I ask myself, “Why, why do we try so hard for just one dog when so many others suffer without help? Wouldn’t it be better to put the money spent on Marisol into sterilization programs or into education?” Perhaps. But perhaps not. We need Marisol. We need her story. Of survival. Of love. Of people working together. It helps us remember why life is important, why compassion makes us strong. I read a beautiful quote the other day, by Helen Keller. This is what she said:

Marisol and me near San Miguel de Allende

I dug my dog’s grave today. It helped.

My beautiful black lab, Oso, had been heading towards the end for some time.  I kept hoping he’d die gently in his sleep but even in his last days, his mind was strong. It was his body that was tired.

After a stroke, Oso had trouble walking. He looked like a listing ship, tipped heavily to one side. As the months passed, he began to fall, too. I knew the day was coming when he wouldn’t have the strength to stand. Sadly, it arrived when I was traveling and far away.  But I didn’t want Oso to die without me. I didn’t want him to be afraid. He was my dog and I wanted to be the one holding him as he went.  I wanted to surround him with love in his last moments. And Oso must have known this, too. He managed, with the help of some cortisone, to hold on (even hobble about) until I returned.

Oso stood on shaky legs to greet me home. He licked my hand. We had a day together  but he was done. A friend told me, “El esta esperando.” “He’s waiting.” It was true. He was waiting-waiting for me to come home, waiting for me to be brave enough to help him go. And so I made the call to the vet I’d been dreading.

I will never know for sure what Oso’s life was like before I found him wandering aimlessly outside our house here in Mexico, but I am pretty sure it wasn’t good.

He came to us broken and dying. His kidneys were starting to fail. His coat was gray and brittle.  We gave him food and water and medicine and love. I think Oso was intrigued. I think he wanted to try out this new home of his. So, by sheer force of will, he pulled himself back into life.  For a year,  Oso was our shining star.  His coat turned black and supple. He learned to sleep inside and pee outside. He lumbered out the door for the early morning walks to school. He began to enjoy belly scratches and back rubs and rawhide bones. And sniffing. That was perhaps his greatest joy, big black lab that he was.

But he was old and time was catching up.

His was a slow fade. He had the stroke. His eyes turned milky white. One day, he could no longer make the walk to school (I think that broke his heart a tiny bit).  Soon he couldn’t manage walks at all.  His legs hurt. He cried out sometimes with pain. Finally, it was time.

After talking to the vet, I sat with Oso and rubbed his bony head. I do not like having the power to take a life. But I reminded myself that what Oso had now was not really life anymore. In nature, he’d have died long ago. Still, I thought,  here he is, looking up at me with his sweet, dark eyes. I had to wonder, is this really the right time, should I give him longer?

These were the thoughts going through my head as I rose to dig his grave. I sobbed when my shovel cut into the soft earth for the first time. But digging a grave is not easy or fast. Soon the tears were mixing with sweat.  Then they stopped. I focused on the work. My shovel kept hitting bricks from some structure of long ago. I found a couple of old bottles. I noticed the soil, how heavy and solid it was. I liked the idea of my Oso wrapped in this soil. It would hold him tight, embrace him  even.  The rain began to fall. I had to chop through the deep roots of the Bouganvilla and the Jacaranda tree. I had to dig out a big stone with my hands.

I stopped digging only when I couldn’t go on. I was exhausted. My arms shook, my back ached.

It  felt good.  I had done this for Oso. I had dug my tired dog a deep bed to keep him safe. I was ready to say goodbye. He was ready to go.

Why Do You Ask?

A poem by Kate Barnes

I can’t make

  any story

about my life

tonight.  The house

is like an overturned wastebasket;

the radio

is predicting

more rain.

I ask my dog

to tell me

a story, and she

Never hesitates.

“Once upon

a time,” she says,

“a woman lived

with a simply

wonderful dog…” and

she stops talking.

“Is that all?”

I ask her.

“Yes,” she says

“Why do you ask?

Isn’t it enough?”

Every day, I drive past dogs that need help.  I don’t stop. Why? Because in Mexico City, there is no good place to take stray dogs. The few shelters (refugios) that exist are bursting at the seams. One of the largest is Refugio Franciscano. Currently, one-thousand eight-hundred dogs live there. Let me repeat, ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED dogs. The refugio does its best but it can’t afford to feed them all. So, it accepts bread past its sell-by date from a big mexican bread company.  It’s the only way the dogs will get enough to fill their bellies.

I have driven past starving dogs. I have driven past dogs with broken legs. I have driven past dogs with collars embedded in their necks. Each time I fail to act I feel a tiny bit more destroyed inside, a little emptier.  That’s life here. My house is full-up with pets. I sometimes bring a dog home, but I shouldn’t.  It’s just too much. And so I leave them behind.

Some of the street dogs actually seem okay. They aren’t really okay, but they don’t seem to know that. They just know the life they have. A few I feed regularly, like a shepherd mix I call  ”India”.

India on the street

I don’t know why I call her India. It’s a pretty name, which I think she deserves. For me, it also conjures up images of poverty and hardship, and that suits her too.  I see India three or four times a week. She lives on a busy road that leads up and out of the city into the mountains. The very first time I saw her, she was terrified, running back and forth across the road, as so many lost dogs do. She was thin, so thin. I stopped to feed her but she was too frightened to come near me. I left her some food and hoped she’d find it. The next day, she was still hanging around the same spot. And the next day, too.  She never left.

India sleeps in front of a shut-down disco. Across the busy road is an empty dirt lot where, a few times a week, vendors set up an informal market. I think she must find food scraps there. India eventually lost the fear that drove her back and forth across the road. But not before she got hit by a car.

I saw her one day, on her back, with one leg stuck straight into the air. I couldn’t tell if she was sleeping or dead. For weeks after, I’d watch her move slowly about,  dragging the damaged leg. It hung from her body like a limp rag. I imagined her hip was broken.  She was heavy with pain.

That was a few months ago. She’s doing better now. She can’t put weight on the leg, but the pain seems to have subsided. When she sees my car, she comes running up. I still can’t get near her but she knows I have food and so she stays pretty close.

One day, India will be gone or dead. A vet once told me the average life span of a street dog here is four years. Not much. And not much of a life. But that’s what India’s got. She’s a street dog, nothing more. For now, this bend in the road is her home.

*********************************************************************************

I’ve added a few pics of some of the dogs I feed when I see them.

This is Yogi. I love this dog. He always greets me with a wag. He's got an injured back leg and an infection in his urinary tract but he keeps on truckin'.

I hardly ever see this dog. He shows up only when he's really hungry.

This sad dog with the matted coat just appeared one day.

Looking for food in the road

India after I left her a little food

I sometimes think Mexico’s uncomfortable relationship with dogs began with the Xoloitzcuintle, commonly known as  the mexican hairless dog.  The Xolo is one of the oldest and rarest breeds in the world. And it’s indeed hairless except for an occasional tuft that seems like it needs plucking.  These ancient dogs are still around, popular even.  They aren’t quite my cup of tea, too vulnerable and naked looking.  But the theory goes that Xolo (pronounced “SHO-LO”) dogs evolved to survive in the tropics and so did better without a coat of fur.

The Xoloitzcuintle was a sacred animal to the Aztecs. They believed that the Aztec god Xolotl created them from “a sliver of the bone of life” from which all mankind was also made.  Xolo dogs, the Aztecs believed, had the power to guide the souls of their owners to the  afterlife.

But this is where it gets confusing.  When the Aztecs got hungry, they had no problem eating these sacred animals.  It was as if, sacred or not, these dogs were still disposable when it got right down to it. Maybe this conflicted attitude towards dogs has somehow passed down through the generations. Xolos are still eaten, by the way, and are a menu highlight at some high-end Mexico City restaurants. But I think the Aztec philosophy is most obvious in the way people now relate to all purebred dogs.

Razas Puras-Purebreds

“Razas Puras” are the new “sacred” dogs of Mexico City.  People here favor golden retrievers, chocolate labs, boxers, french poodles, dalmations, chihuahuas and pretty much anything else that is a known “breed.” “Razas Mixtas” or mutts, have little hope here. Most are street dogs. The  enthusiasm for purebreds  isn’t lost on the vendors of Mexico. Purebreds are sold in pet shops for thousands of dollars, they are sold out of  cars on the side of the road, at toll booths on the highway, at puppy marts that crop up below highway underpasses. People here want pups, and they want pups that are pure. But like most status symbols, the appeal can quickly wear off. Mexico City is filled with purebred “street dogs”.  The tragedy is that these are dogs that once had a home, that once had value. But, at some point, they were deemed worthless.

Abandonados

The word here for dumped dogs is  ”abandonados”.  Dog dumping is a common practice. I can’t begin to understand the thinking of those who dump their animals but I can imagine: The dog’s in heat, she’s pregnant, she eats too much, we had no idea how expensive dog food is, he barks all the time, we are going on vacation. The vacation excuse is the hardest for me to stomach. And yet, every Christmas and Semana Santa (Easter week) I see these newly dumped dogs. They stand out from longtime street dogs. Most still have the shiny coats and well-fed appearance of kept dogs. And most are running frantically, tail tucked under, with a look of such confusion it’s almost too much to bear. It’s like these animals cannot figure out where they are and what happened. They are truly lost.

That’s my introduction. Now I can tell you about the purebreds that wound up with me.   Oso was my first.

Oso-Black Lab

Oso

I saw Oso one afternoon in front of my house. He was on my street, not walking, but hobbling, that’s the best word I can think of for his damaged gait. I could see immediately that he was sick and very old.  I led him into our laundry room and he collapsed in a heap. He stayed that way for nearly a week. He was exhausted, deaf and severely dehydrated.   He was covered with the thick callouses that develop on dogs who sleep outside on the concrete (probably on someone’s patio or roof). He’d never been housebroken, and even now, he seems surprised when we pet him.  When he arrived had a raging infection in one ear and his coat was so dried out it was brittle. Oso was dying. Even our vet agreed. But a week or so after arriving, after we’d said our goodbyes to him, he pulled up his big crippled body, walked over to me and gave his tail a little wag. That was two and a half years ago. We watched as Oso grew younger. His coat turned supple and shiny black. He accompanied us on the morning walk to school. For about a year, he thrived. Then old age caught up again. Oso had a stroke and once again can barely walk. But he seems content now. He spends his time asleep in the dining room.  Oso likes to be near us.  And,  as best as I can tell, company and a little food and water are all he wants or needs now. His life is slipping away, but I think the ride he’s on, finally, is a peaceful one.

Duma-Golden Retriever

Duma

Duma was a stunning, 7-month-old golden retriever that I grabbed as she was contemplating a run across an 8 lane boulevard so big and busy she would never have made it. She was sleek and clean and very much in heat. Maybe Duma escaped, maybe her owners didn’t want a dog high on hormones. Whatever the reason, she was lost without a collar, tag or chip. I never could find her owners. Duma, luckily, found a great home in a grand Mexican house. These days, her new owner tells me, Duma likes to sleep under the giant Jacaranda tree in the garden. It’s a beautiful spot, especially in the spring when tiny purple flowers drop from the tree like snowflakes. I like to think of Duma there, sleeping on the warm earth, as flowers fall all around her.

Mapache-German Shepherd

Mapache was waiting for me. We were staying in a puebla in the forest outside Mexico city and when I opened the tall security gate to our complex, I saw a dog curled in the corner of the wall. He came up to me, tail wagging. He loped alongside me as I went for a run and he cried when I left him outside the gate after we returned. Mapache was a gorgeous german shepherd, even though, beneath his coat there was nothing but bone. Mapache came home with us and was eventually adopted by an American couple with a love of shepherds. A few months after he was adopted, christmas arrived. And there was Mapache, with his big wolf grin, smack in the middle of the annual family christmas photo.

Duque-Boxer

Duque, the boxer pup, was left tied to a garbage bin when his family moved. My friend Olivia brought him to me and he was quickly adopted by a family that had been looking for a boxer pup.

Milo-Dalmation

Milo

And  Milo. I saw Milo on my way home from the mountains. He was dashing back and forth across a busy street. He looked terrified. But there was nothing I could do. I had my dogs in the car and was late to pick up the kids from school. But I couldn’t stop thinking about him all afternoon. It was his fear that haunted me. So, late in the day,  I drove back to where I’d seen him, half sure I’d find him runover in the road. But he was still there, still scared, still alive. Milo was emaciated and his nose was covered with long thin scabs. My vet thought his mouth might have been tied shut with wire.  But Milo was an exuberant dog, especially when his belly was full. Mexican dalmations aren’t like their midsized counterparts in the U.S. They are more like spotted hounds. And they are very physical in their affection. I swear Milo gave hugs, big strong hugs like a person. It was hard for me to let Milo go, but he found his place in the world with Santiago. Santiago says he’d been waiting all his life for Milo. I see them sometimes, hanging out near the park in Santi’s neighborhood. They are “junto”, together. It’s a beautiful thing to see.

Juno-Dalmation

Juno, thin

Not long after Milo, there was Juno. I’ve seen dogs in terrible states of starvation in Mexico but I’d never seen a dog as skinny as Juno. When I first glimpsed her, she was scurrying around a group of food stands, sniffing for scraps in the rain. Her tail was tucked under, tight against her belly. She looked desperate. I would have scooped her up right then but I could see she was nursing pups. A starving mama. After that, I’d spot her every few weeks. Each time she looked a bit skinnier, slightly more frail. Finally, two months after our first encounter, I’d had enough. I went to find her. And luckily I did. I lured her into the back of my truck with hotdogs and brought her straight to the vet. For weeks, Juno huddled in our laundry room, cowering in a corner and baring her teeth at anyone but me who came near her. But she was just frightened. If I moved  to pet her she’d flip onto her back.  When I called to her she’d come by practically crawling on the ground.  Whoever dumped her had beaten her hard and often  before they let her go.  Juno needed lots of medical help. Her stomach was a mess from having lived without food for so long.  I’d find her some days, curled up in pain. But like so many dogs, Juno healed. Slowly, she shed her past.  We began to see her slinking around the garden or sleeping in a corner of the living room. And finally, she started nosing her way into the bedroom and ever-so-slowly trying to join us on the bed. She began to accept my husband and watch TV with the kids. She became my shadow. She followed me everywhere. She’d look at me with her big brown eyes, seeking reassurance  that everything was okay. And it was.

Juno has been with us almost a year now. When she’s feeling safe, she’s one of the happiest dogs you will ever meet. And like Milo, she is a hugger, a big, strong hugger. When she hugs me, I always hug her back. It’s my promise to her that I’ll never let her go, ever. She is home, and she’s with us.

(The purebreds I rescued all now have loving homes. But so many here don’t. The plight of the street dogs of Mexico is bad enough, but the fact  that so many of these suffering creatures were once sold as a commodity to put a few pesos in someone’s pocket is a terrible crime.)

Juno in the fields

Fiona

For me, the hardest part of living in Mexico is the almost unbearable suffering of the animals. And just to clear the air, my compassion is not limited to animals, as some have suggested.  I’m often asked, “what about people?”  It’s true, there are plenty of people here, children especially, in desperate poverty. It’s hard to see them, begging in traffic or selling trinkets to restaurant customers late into the night. But I have never seen a child in Mexico nearly dead from lack of food  or one dragging its broken body down the street. Ultimately, people here have resources, not a lot, but some. The animals have nothing. They simply don’t count, they don’t have value in Mexico.  I’ve come to believe, in fact,  that many of  the 20 million residents of  Distrito Federal simply do not see the animals that share their streets. People here suffer from a cultural blindness towards animals that runs like poison through this city. And this epidemic of blindness inevitably leads to cruelty.

Once, I watched a man drive on without pause after hitting,  but not killing a dog. In Southern Mexico, I came across a horse, stumbling  down the side of  a highway, so weak from starvation it could barely stand. Just a horse, worn out and useless. One summer morning,  I found a pile of  puppies with their heads chopped off.  I knew these pups, I’d seen them regularly in the puebla I drive through every day. Across the city, dogs are left on rooftops as security guards. They live their lives up there, without shelter, surrounded by their own excrement.  And then, there are the dogs that I see, every day, starving in the streets. The government’s  solution to street dogs is an anti-rabies campaign. Dogs are regularly rounded up and taken to the ” anti-rabico” facility where they are electrocuted en masse. It defies comprehension. The dogs are put into a room with standing water and then the electricity is turned on.

So, I do what I can. I try to find new homes for a few.  But for most, a little food is what I offer. I carry a bag of dog kibble in the car now. Mainly, I do this for me. I know one meal won’t change the course of a street dog’s suffering. But,  it may ease its pain, if only for a few hours.  That lets me drive on.

I did buy a collar for a gentle dog I love, hoping the workers who round up dogs might leave him, thinking he had an owner.  But I’m pretty sure my plan failed. This dog, who I saw each day, sleeping in the same spot, has disappeared.  I still look for him, but inside, I know he’s gone.  This is my burden in Mexico. Most days, I’m nothing more than a witness to the suffering.

Fiona’s story:

Last summer, while driving in a pouring rain storm, I saw a dog walking down the road, dragging a huge broken chain. So I stopped. The dog was painfully thin and came to me when I offered him food. I removed the chain, gave him more food and went back to my car to leave. And there, waiting by the driver’s side door, was another dog, filthy and soaking wet.  Still, when I approached, she wagged her tail so hard her whole body wagged too. It was when  I bent down to pet her that  I noticed the smell. She stank. It wasn’t the stink of garbage, it was the stink of  infection.

I took a closer look. Then  I saw the wound. Someone, probably when she was just a pup, had made a rope collar for her. They never took it off.  And now it was embedded in her neck.  Instead of a collar she had  a ring of oozing pus. I got my knife from the car and tried to cut the rope out, but it was too deep .

So, despite my pledge to stop bringing dogs home,  Fiona came  with me.  It took a vet nearly an hour  to extract the rope. Here’s a photo of the procedure:

The vet thought Fiona might lose her ear, which had also been damaged by the rope, but she didn’t. The ear survived and so did Fiona. And despite all she’d been through, Fiona was pure sweetness. A truly happy dog. A dog that lived for pets and belly rubs and strolls through the cobblestone streets of our neighborhood. When she was fully healed and healthy, I posted an ad, seeking a new home for her.  A woman new to Mexico, saw it.   Annie told me she couldn’t sleep that night, thinking of  this dog and what she’d been through.  I brought Fiona to Annie and her family the next day.  And so Fiona’s second life began. The youngest daughter likes to keep the hair out of Fiona’s eyes with tiny pink and blue  bows. Fiona has a bed and a place on the sofa. And she has a new collar that hides the thick scar tissue wrapped around her neck.  Sometime after Fiona went to live with Annie,  Annie sent me a note. She told me simply, “We love Fiona.  We think she loves us, too.”

One happy ending. Not enough for Mexico or for me. But a beginning.

********

(and thanks to my friends Jacqueline and Manuel for caring so tenderly for Fiona while I was away)

Fiona and Annie's daughter

Fiona and Annie's son

Miel in Mexico

For months, I’d been carrying around a seed of worry in my belly. I had a dog that needed a home but no one wanted her. I’d picked Miel up off a busy Mexico City street. She wore a collar and was dragging half a leash. Both looked new. I spent hours tacking up flyers, checking the internet and driving around looking for signs Miel’s owners might have put up. But I finally realized no one was looking for  her. She’d become just another one of Mexico City’s suffering street dogs.

Miel was smart and singular and incredibly sad. I don’t know what she’d been through but she emanated sadness. She stayed close to me, often gazing up with her striking orange eyes. She didn’t need a leash. She walked by my side as if we’d been together for years. But we hadn’t and I couldn’t keep her. My house is full. We already have a street dog from Mexico, as well as a stray from New Mexico and South Africa. Plus a few cats thrown into the mix. I’d promised my husband, no more dogs. And so I sent Miel to a kennel while I searched for a new home. I posted ads on the internet, put up photos, contacted everyone I knew. Nothing. No one wanted this dog, no one even wanted to meet her. She just wasn’t extraordinary enough. It’s true, Miel was just a dog. She wasn’t strikingly gorgeous, she didn’t have expensive blood lines, she was average sized. In four months I received exactly ZERO inquiries about her. The kennel was expensive. I’d lost my job. I was despairing. And then, during an early spring trip to Denver, I had the idea to post Miel on Craigslist. People in Mexico might not want her but maybe someone in Denver would.

That’s how I met Sarah. She and her sister sent me a note, saying something about Miel struck a chord. They believed she might be the dog for them. Sarah and I talked for a long time. Sarah was only in her twenties but she’d been through a lot. She was a self-professed punker with piercings. I loved that about her. She said that Miel’s sadness sounded like her own. I told her adopting a dog, unseen, was an act of faith. I asked her to think about it. She called back about an hour later. She and her sister had said a little prayer. She told me, “We’re in”. And so I brought Miel to Denver. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t cheap. A neighbor asked me if I was crazy, “It’s just a dog,” she said. And she was right, it was just one dog. But it’s one I can help. I can’t help them all. But a few, I can.

At the Denver International Airport, in customs, there are no carts for dog kennels. So I had to push Miel along in her kennel through the long inspection line. It took about an hour. Then I shoved the kennel through the big double customs exit doors. As promised, Sarah was there. Her smile radiating joy.

I told Sarah, before parting, that if Miel wasn’t working out for her, I’d do whatever I could to help. She looked at me and said, “Don’t worry, she’s my responsibility now. And she will be loved.”

Miel was home.

Sarah wrote me a few days ago. She told me Miel was great. She’d taken her to the mountains for the first time and said Miel was pure happiness, running free.

In the midst of all the suffering in this huge, polluted city of bone-thin dogs, I’m going to hold that image, of Miel in the mountains, in the front of my mind.

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