Sunday, September 23, 2018

5 Months of Working with Dogs

Yesterday was my last day at the dog refuge for about a month. As I prepare to go on vacation, there were a few things left to do to sort of "round off" the work Carlos and I have been doing for months. As I was leaving, and others left, I got big hugs and lots of "enjoy your rest, you deserve it" comments, which was lovely, but what was even lovelier was that yesterday when I left the refuge I felt genuinely happy and pleased with our work there, and also, yesterday was a reminder that I am not alone in the work we do there, that I am blessed to be amung people with warm hearts and hugs and laughter and shared tears but above all, support.

Learning to mix cement on the ground.
Yes, Carlos is holding a puppy while Catherine and Don Feliciano mix cement.
Someone had to take pictures!

Thanks to Catherine for the door design!


I was trying to think of how long I have been dedicating one day a week to this work, and it has been since around April. Which got me to thinking - what have we accomplished in this time? As much I believe in looking forward, looking back occasionally has benefits as well.

  • Through donations from friends, we delivered 41 bags of food for the dogs. It means we fed the dogs for 20 days. Thank you Bonnie LH, Bonnie T, Jodi S, Erin S, Claire J, Donna M, Bianca A, Donna D, Sue N, Kathy H, Martha S, Trina H... (if I forgot your name, I am SO sorry!)
  • We rebuilt 10 dog enclosures which the municipality had started. This involed wood strips, plastic ties, more sheet metal and about 200 screws and washers, which I donated.
  • We divided the space into 4 distinct areas, allowing us to have capacity for safe intake of new dropped off dogs, and when I come back, having all the dogs inside the enclosures (there are a few who like the feeling of the alfalfa fields under their paws, but they are not safe so, time to leave the open fields behind.
  • I rescued Rico. He is a work in progress and no, won't live with us forever, but until he is eating well and has some weight on him, he'll continue to share the cat beds with Diego and Hilda.
  • I made new connections in my community, and I am honored to be counted as one of these hard working, inspirational group of people.
  • I helped to get dogs adopted, between bringing puppies to homes and people to puppies, they are no longer in the refuge.
New enclosers with doors that lock!

Dog houses for shade, protection from the rain and patios.



Work when I come back:

  • one of the key pieces of work we need to do is to get signage (pricing this out) made for the refuge, so people know how to get there (I spent 40 minutes yesterday driving around the countryside trying to find a couple who had come out and gotten lost). 
  • The second is to get a used grass trimmer - we borrow Carlos's nephew's but we need one that is there. The refuge looks so much better with the grass trimmed, and it is easier to make sure we pick up all the poop. (A second hand grass trimmer was $1300 pesos). 
  • The third is to get our website up and going (hours of work but maybe $10 USD for the domain name per year), so people can be exposed to the work we do at a broader level and also see all the dogs for adoption. they need to know how to donate, what to donate, what projects we have going on, and how to get there if they want to adopt or offer volunteer hours. Also get a GoFundMe page roganized or something similar for people to consider donating to the project.
  • I'll continue to work with APAOAX and Huelas de Ayuda, both run by amazing women, and with them we will build more dog houses, a roof extension for more shade over the patio at Tia Migue's house, capping the "french drain" hole that was dug to allow for some water drainage, partition one other section to allow for five distinct areas for the dogs to be in, and then another roof structure with eaves to collect the rain water into two above ground cistern type reservoirs (tinacos). We're working on that budget now.
  • The fourth will be to figure out how to get the dogs vaccinated. APAOAX can get the vaccinations for less than 200 pesos per dog (C$15 or US$10) but still, with about 100 dogs, that cost adds up. The government changes in December, so maybe the local municipality will be all excited to help??
  • The fifth (but not last because as you all know, there is always work to be done!) is to try to get the bags of food we feed them at a discounted price. Right now we buy them retail, at $297 pesos per bag, and they eat 2 bags of food per day. I'd like to see people's donations go further when they donate money for food.

There is a longer list, but these are the ones that come to mind on this Sunday morning. Yesterday, friends from APAOAX and Huelas started to count the dogs, there are at 87. We've not counted the dogs outside and not all got counted, but 87 is a starting number. We started 6 months ago with no plan. What a difference a day makes.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Tanya, love watching your adventures and progress at this wonderful haven. The work you do and the love you provide is heartwarming. Looking forward to seeing more on this adventure when you return, and always pleased to help from afar. xo to you and the pups!