Saturday, May 29, 2010

A little rant about animals and people.

I like animals, sometimes I like them more than people. That said, I am not an animal-rights type. I don't think animals are the same or equal to people. I have no problem with medical research, and I like steak and hamburger. But what I am dealing with right now has me really pissed. Warning: there are a couple of pictures here that may bother some people.

I live close to my daughter's in-laws or as they are call here in Mexico "mis consuegros." I find them to be very nice people, and they have helped me a lot, in spite of the fact that when my daughter was here and living in the same house with them there were major problems.

My consuegro, Pio, had a puppy. The puppy was gotten to guard the roosters that they have in a fenced-in area about 50 yards from their house. Their youngest son also lives in that fenced-in area, not to guard roosters but because it was cramping his love life sleeping in his parent's livingroom. Anyhoo, this puppy was kept there day and night for a couple of months. He had food and water and shelter, but no one played with him or spent time with him at all. The son works until late and usually is out and about when not working; and besides most Mexicans don't really do pets. They have dogs, which help guard the property, chickens that provide eggs and meat, etc.

When we rented across from this area I took my dog out a million times a day and we always stopped to play with Oso, the puppy. He is a medium-size dog and sweet-as-can-be and very much still a rambunctious pup. He is about 6 months old. Two weeks ago, my husband walked down to buy milk from the farmer a mile or so from our house and saw Oso down there. He was clearly injured and was bleeding from his eye and had blood all over him. Kovy thought he had been hit by a car. Oso followed him home and Kovy took him to Pio. And this is where I get MAD.

Kovy:
Pio, I think someone hurt your dog. He was way down the hill in the other colonia.
Pio (yelling at the dog):
AA, chingada madre, pinche perro, te voy a matar. Sacate!!! ( ah,^%^&;*, *&;^%$ dog, I'm going to kill you, get! (throwing rocks at the pup.) 
Pio (to Kovy):
I tried to kill that damn dog. He ripped open a bag of corn so I beat him with a board and threw him away.
Of course, by this time Oso had run away as fast as he could. Kovy came back to the house later and I insisted we go look for him. We found him hiding in a garden. He followed me home with fear. As we passed my consuegros' house I told Pio's wife, "Now he is mine!" She just nodded sadly.

At home I tried to look at his eye but it was very hard to get a good look, it was pretty swollen and bleeding from inside. Here is how he looked later.
He is in the cage because I didn't want him to wander off and I was afraid my big rottie mix would hurt him playing with him.

As you can see here, his eye was pretty messed up.


Here is what Boni (Bonita) thinks about her new brother. "Hey, dad, I was here first, why you looking at him? Me, me, me."

My husband ask me what I was going to do with him. I said truthfully that I didn't know but I couldn't just leave him in the street all bloody and injured. The next morning we walked with him to the Contrarabico (Anti-rabies) which is like the pound, but they also do cheap/free rabies shots and cheap sterilizations. All I could think was that maybe the doctor could at least look at his eye and tell me what I could do to help him, or if worse came to worst, they could kill him mercifully. Poor baby, he was glued to my leg except when he was running away from all the free-ranging neighborhood dogs that wanted to fight him. I explained what had happened to the girl who minds the frontdesk. She was so nice. She asked us to wait because they were doing the weekly extermination of all the dogs (yeah, gross and so sad, which is why they do the really cheap sterilizations that almost no one uses here.)
  • Mini rant inside bigger rant: Hey, folks, there are plenty of dogs and cats in the world. Yeah, you love yours and you want their babies, but they are not needed at all. Get all pets spayed and neutered. Don't care how great and special yours is. And don't let your animals run free. If you want more dogs and cats, go adopt one or more. 
Ok, back to the main rant. We waited for about an hour and a half, listening to the dogs being electrocuted one by one. OMG, it was awful. It definitely cleared up my thinking about having Oso "put down." The girl assured me that the doctor would look at him and they wouldn't charge me. Finally the doctor checked him out, said it really was as bad as I had thought but that he would give him an antibiotic and an anti-inflammatory and we could see what happened. He gave him two injections and Oso was calm as could be, although he wasn't thrilled about the high, slippery table he was on. He told the girl it was $50 (about $4.50 US) but in the outer-office she said "Don't worry about it. "Which was good because I didn't have it.

The vet gave us the name of a medicine that we should inject him with once a day for 5 days and then we could bring him back. But we are in Mexico... So we went to town, and no one had the medicine, but at my usual "veterinaria" (pet store, animal pharmacy, vet?? office all in one) The Pulga (the flea) they had some eye drops that were antibacterial and anti-inflammatory for about $6 US.

Long story, short. He is doing pretty well. We even hoped for a few days the eye would recover, but it is now shrinking and kind of melting/rotting away. I haven't been back to the vet yet because of some other personal stuff going on, but I will probably go down Monday. He is having a ball with my other dog, Boni, they race around the yard knocking each other down. He is slowly learning to be inside instead of out all the time. All in all, pretty much a normal puppy, but one who is sure someone is going to hit him on his blind side so he flinches. He is protective of our house but super friendly with everyone. He was protecting me from the turtle in the fish tank a few minutes ago, growling at him to make sure he didn't do anything bad. 

Arnie the 3" killer turtle.

He is so sweet. And gets along well with everyone, including my cats. He still needs some house -training for night and when no one is home. If those of you in Mexico know someone looking for a great dog let me know. I would love to keep him, but have no money and no way to get more. I just can't afford what I have already. I also have a couple of adorable kittens that need a home. Anyone who is interested in helping pay for some spay/neuter services or wants to help the antirabies clinic let me know. They need all the usual -food, medicines, money, etc. for the animals.

Wow, I just reread this and I didn't even say anything about what I think of Pio or how I want to go beat him with a board until his eyes pop out. Or how lucky he is that my two daughters, who have less restraint than their mother, are not here. But that's cool! Next time, and thanks to reading my rant.

3 comments:

  1. oh Karen, how aweful. People are so cruel. Maybe set up a Pay Pal account on your blog. I will send you a few dollars to help out. I know others will as well.

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  2. Chrissy and Keith(why do I always assume I am talking to Chrissy???)

    Yes, they can. Usually I am up in arms about all the hatred in the US (and other places) against people. This time it is people against animals. If you want to beat an animal go find a wild grizzly or something, at least make it kind of an even match.

    I actually have paypal which is how my daughter sends me my $80/wk rent. I have no idea how to put it up there though. Maybe someone else does???

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  3. Sorry,, I should be signing "Chrissy" so people know. I think you add it through Pay Pall, there should be a "Linking" option there where you would put in your Blogger URL.

    ReplyDelete