Community

Tails of the City (or how the SPAZ-HKP makes them wag)

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. - Mahatma Gandhi.

Lola is one lucky dog.

Had she not decided to cross the dirt road right in front of the silver VW bug on May 1st last year, she would not be lounging on her comfy bed in this San Francisco apartment today, lazily chewing on a "milk bone she is holding between her paws. In fact, she probably would not have lived even to May 2nd. When Lola was picked up in the middle of nowhere that beautiful May day, on a desolate dirt track between Los Achotes and Playa Blanca, she was a tiny, emaciated puppy, not more than a month old. Her skin was riddled with flea bites and her belly swollen with parasites. What was left of her white coat was caked with mud and a large burn on the left side of her body told of someone horrendously cruel dumping hot water on her. Her thin tail tightly tucked between her legs she stumbled onto the dusty road that day and into a new life.

Not many dog tales here in Zihuatanejo have the same happy ending as Lola’s story. In fact, far more abandoned puppies and neglected dogs end up as traffic casualties on a busy highway than as pampered pets in a loving home. One reason for this, of course, is the ever-rising number of these destitute animals.

"People really need to be educated about the benefits of having their animals sterilized, says Enrique Rodriguez Krebs, veterinarian at the Sociedad Protectora de los Animales de Zihuatanejo – Helene Krebs Posse (SPAZ-HKP), the Animal Protection Society and shelter founded by his mother, the late Helene Krebs Posse, in 1982. SPAZ-HKP is the primary source in the greater Zihua-Ixtapa region for humanitarian aid to animals, and in one year alone they assist over 1,600 animals, both domestic and wild.

"Local people still have many misconceptions about spay and neutering, say Krebs. "Some of them resulting from an exaggerated macho attitude and some from the misguided desire to let their children 'witness the miracle of birth'. One of the most important programs promoted and implemented by the SPAZ-HKP to "avoid the unnecessary suffering of animals is a permanent sterilization campaign at low cost for proven low-income owners of dogs and cats.

On February 10-12, 2005, Enrique Rodriguez and nine other veterinarians set up a temporary clinic at the "Casa Ejidal in Buena Vista, one of the most marginalized rural communities in this municipality. Along with local volunteers and tourists from Buena Vista, Troncones, Zihuatanejo and Barrio Viejo, they held a two-day dog and cat sterilization campaign promoted and conducted by the Zihuatanejo Veterinary Society, with support from the Haggenback Foundation in Mexico City. The clinic was the idea of Ray and Janice Shift, residents of the Buena Vista beach community and dedicated environmentalists, who also helped to pay for the cost of the materials such as sutures and needles, anesthetics and medications used in the procedures. On Thursday alone, twenty-two dogs and four cats were lined up outside the clinic patiently waiting their turn. According to one of the participating vets, Jose Angel Macias, president of the Zihuatanejo Veterinary Society and head of the Sanitary Control section of the City Health Department, the actual cost of this type of surgery varies between 500 and 1,500 pesos, depending on the gender of the dog, the town and the specific veterinarian -- for most people in Mexico this an astronomical price to pay for the benefit of having a healthy, neutered pet. To carry out this campaign, the participating vets donated their time and work and brought their own operating tools, the Zihuatanejo Sanitary Control department provided the operating room equipment and The Mexico City – based Haggenbeck Foundation sent one of their own experienced veterinarians, Doctor Yolanda Hernandez, to help with the operations. Completing the team of surgeons was Ixtapa veterinarian Jorge Islas.

Enrique Rodriguez hopes to repeat the sterilization campaign in other rural communities in the near future, as well as offer one soon in the Casa Marina facility of SPAZ-HPK. At the same time, he adds, the SPAZ-HKP plans to promote education and awareness programs focusing on the humane treatment towards animals, directed especially at the new generations in elementary and secondary schools. "Right now many children learn from their parents that you kick a dog, he says. "We have to teach them that these animals are companions and that they need to be treated with love and respect.

Cruelty against domestic as well as wild animals is still rampant. Fortunately, there are even more cases where the SPAZ-HKP has been able to not only shelter and treat abused, injured or ill animals, but to fully rehabilitate them and release them back into the wild. A special success story was Panfila, the sea lion who arrived at the Casa Marina shops, the home of the SPAZ-HKP, starving and dehydrated after somehow drifting off-course and ending up in these unfamiliar latitudes of the Pacific. Temporary guests at Casa Marina have also included jaquarundis, owls, hawks, opossums, sea and fresh water turtles, a boa constrictor, baby sea horses and even a rattlesnake. All of them were treated until they were healed completely and then slowly rehabilitated and released back into the wild. "We do not keep wild animals for exhibition here at Casa Marina, Enrique emphasizes, "and we make a point in not paying or ‘reimbursing’ anybody who is bringing us wild animals because we do not want to encourage people actually catching animals in order to make money.

The SPAZ-HKP does, however, have an adoption program for domestic animals, and there are generally always some cute and very healthy little kittens or puppies available for adoption. All animals are vaccinated and, if old enough, already neutered or spayed before they are released for adoption.

With so many animals requiring help there is always a need for more funding at the SPAZ-HKP. The organization is currently financed almost exclusively through the sale of their logo t-shirts available at the shops in Casa Marina and through some private donations from friends and supporters in Zihuatanejo and abroad. If you would like to adopt an animal or help the SPAZ-HKP continue caring for the injured, abused, sick or abandoned animals of Zihuatanejo, please contact Enrique or Natalia at 554-2373 or drop by Casa Marina near the zocalo (town square) on the Playa Principal to find out how you can help. The SPAZ-HKP has recently applied for official Mexican non-profit status and hopes to be able to issue tax-deductible receipts for donations very soon. As funds allow, they also plan to expand and move their primary animal care facility as community needs continue to grow. Please consider a generous donation toward their efforts! And watch local community calendars for clinics and fundraising events planned in the future, where you can volunteer or participate.

By the way, today Lola is one of the stars in the park across the street from her San Francisco home as well as on her block in Colonia La Madera in Zihuatanejo. Her slender greyhound build and her brilliantly white coat with the distinctive black markings turn the heads of owners and dogs alike, and she now carries her head and tail very high.

The SPAZ-HKP has its installations in downtown Zihuatanejo for the reception of animals, treatment, surgery and offices at: Casa Marina, Paseo del Pescador #9, Centro, C.P. 40880 Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, Mexico, Tel. (755) 554-2373 or 554-46308, e-mail: SPAZ@zihuatanejo.net, www.zihuatanejo.net/spaz

Next to the Plaza Principal on the waterfront. Hours are from 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM every day including Sundays.

By ADIP contributor Wibke Langhorst, with assistance from Lisa B. Martin. wibkelanghorst@hotmail.com lisa@lisabmartin.com

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