Spotter is a very sweet street dog who gets her name because she hangs out near an open building where young men lift weights. The other day while we were dropping her off for sterilization and vaccinations, Dr. Miguel showed us a very sad emergency case which he was working on.
 Emergency Amputation 15-Jul-09 |
A puppy about 3 months old had been hit by a truck right in front of both the puppy’s family and Miguel.  Besides multiple wounds and bruises, one of the puppy’s hind legs had compound irreparable breaks in four different places. It was clear to Miguel that the family loves the puppy and wanted to do something to save her. But the family is very poor and has no money to pay for the puppy’s medical needs.
Miguel brought the puppy back to Zoo Mascota, treated the wounds, and performed a merciful amputation of the broken leg as gratis for the impoverished family.  In showing us the puppy, and in knowing our commitments for health concerns through vaccinations, Miguel asked if Ayuda would be willing to cover the costs of vaccines for the puppy, to which we readily approved.
We didn’t catch her name, but Panajachel now has yet another three legged dog. At the very least, we are pleased to know that this little girl has a family who loves her and a good chance for a healthy new start at life.
Ayuda does its best to hold focus on the homeless animals because their human caretakers tend to them through community support, as opposed to support through human families and full-time companions. However, in the events of emergencies such as this puppy, we also do what we can to help family animals with special circumstances.  We place equal emphasis on sterilization and vaccination. We believe that spay/neuter is the means to better manage the issues of overpopulation and spread of sexually transmitted diseases. But we also believe that all dogs and cats should be immunized against common local deadly diseases which affect both animals and humans.
For each donation of $ 30 we are able to sterilize and vaccinate one more homeless animal. And for each donation of $ 10 we are able to separately do just the critical vaccinations for a needy animal, such as the little girl in this post. Given the financial resources, we would be pleased to arrange vaccination-only clinics for entire villages of impoverished indigenous dogs and cats.
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