1. Remember we are a 501C3. So you can still give a donation before midnight and get a tax deduction. Here is a rundown on some of the things that a donation would pay for. $4.00 will deworm 4 puppies, what a difference that can make $8.00 a vaccine, saves puppies every day $20.00 pays for one spay or neuter, the math is incredible on how many puppies or kittens one sterilization can prevent from being born $25.00 buys a bottle of doxycycline with 500 - 100 mg. tabs. This cures ehrlichia which affects almost every dog in Mexico, and it's also good for respiratory infections. When one pup gets one of those and there are 45 other pups in the rescue, it spreads like crazy. $25.00 pays for someone to work for seven hours cleaning up after and feeding our pups $25.00 pays for one soft carrier that one of our pups can ride in to fly to a forever, loving home $50.00 pays for one medium crate $100.00 pays for one large crate Other items that we use every day like: Vitamin B12 Wound gel Metronidazole for Giardia Ear cleaner Creams for skin problems - these are all $20 to $40 a container and we go through them fast. There are many more things of course but I just thought that it would be nice to know where the money goes. Thanks in advance to everyone who helps us help them. Happy New Year. On the left is Franklin, he's new, he was hit by a car but is doing much better now, Jeff has even let him sit on the couch. And on the right is Momma Elsa, who was used for breeding, she is so pleased to be here and even gets to sleep on the bed sometimes.

2. Last weekend I went to an area called the Guatalupana. The government on the island has been absconding with property that belongs to the islanders. So a large group of Islenos squatted on a big piece of property mid island on the Carrabean side. It has been a few years now and they still don't have water, electricity or sewage. Most of the homes are shacks and many of the homeowners have dug wells or bought large water tanks that sit in their front yards. Of course there are dogs everywhere and when we have spay and neuter clinics we go there to pick up animals. And when we get donations we go there with de-wormer, collars, vitamins, food and medicine if needed. I would love sometime to be able to vaccinate all the animals but we will need a bigger budget for that as most of our funds go to the sterilization clinics. The children are wonderful and after many, many visits the people are used to seeing me hang around making a big fuss over their dogs.

3. There has been a wonderful group of people that have supported Isla Animals for years. Cheryl House has created this group and stayed with it to help us save pups and spay and neuter every cat and dog we can get our hands on. This year has been one of the best as far as donations and we are so grateful and pleased with the work it has allowed us to do. Below is the list of donors and the beautiful dog that has sadly passed but instigated such generosity. His name was Dr. Zhivago. Thank you all for your support. 2011 ROSIE'S BOW WOW CLUB The club for 2011 raised a total of $2,950. In memory of Dr. Zhivago Extra Large Bones $300 & Over Cheryl House. In Memory of Rosie Jan & Terry Gerken (Moby) Large Bones. $100 to $299 Lael House Wojcik, Honoring - Rookie Julie House Presa, Honoring - Trucco James & Kristin Yasord. In Memory of Vago John & Jean Epler Chris & Kim Cannon Roxane Osantowski, Honoring - Tequila - adopted from Plaza Almendros(AKA, Oreo, Patches) Kelly Ragsdale Valerie Kordyban David & Karen Childers Ron & Diane Seals Medium Bones $50 to $99 Karl & Deanne House Drew & Alison House Tom & Barb Carlson Small Bones $25 to $49 Mike & Tina Lawrence Julie Howard Dan Lindner Don & Jan Hardin Honoring Goldie, Plaza Almendros Cat

4. Jeff and I just got back to Mexico a few days ago. We're having a spay and neuter clinic next week and then the normal dog stuff from there. I would like to do a sweep of the island, door to door, working on vaccinations and spaying and neutering. I mean really - we've been back two days and we already have a very weak momma with eight pups. Then I got a call about another dog with eight pups and Jeff and I are about to go pick up four. This has to stop. I called my new momma - Momma Rina after the hurricane that wasn't. Here is our new mom warming up her pups after their bath this morning, such a good mom. This must be black dog week, out of the thirteen puppies there is only one white one. We are so looking forward to moving ahead this year. With all the rescue groups and people that we are working with now, we can get more done and we're hoping that we can get some help with this. Already we have some wonderful monthly donators, and it makes a huge difference. So many people ask me what they can do to help, well it's really easy. If we can get enough people donating $10.00 a month we will have a budget to work with. Ten people giving up two starbuck coffees every month can buy enough dog food for a week, or three spays or four neuters, or twelve vaccines, or five distemper tests, or four parvo tests, or two and a half medium crates, or ten bottles of specialty shampoos, or two bottles of de-wormer, or five dog rides to the airport, or five health certificates, and on and on. Every penny goes to the dogs, there is no administration, we pay Marcelino's salary (he works at the house and helps with the dogs). IT'S ALL FOR THE DOGS. We've been home three nights and already have two momma's with their pups. There is no where else for these dogs to go. We will find homes for the pups and spay the moms. Each spayed female is one step closer to a better life for dogs in Mexico. If you already donate, ask a friend to do it too, and ask their friends to do it as well. Ten dollars a month and we can make a huge difference together. I forgot to mention in this blog yesterday that the Isla Animals Website is set up to do monthly donations. If you scroll down to the very bottom of the front page there is a donate button, click on that and then there are instructions on how to continue. Thank you everybody, in advance, who donates. It makes all the difference. We are setting up for a big spay and neuter clinic today and getting ready for all the street puppies that we find.

5. We are doing another big spay and neuter clinic in Corales near Rancho Viejo which is next to Cancun. This is our second clinic in this location. Last time we ended up with over fifty puppies. We can put the dogs back on the street but never the puppies. We often re-home the dogs if we can as well. Anyway it has been the worst year for distemper that I've ever seen. Unfortunately we lost about 20% of those pups to distemper. It only takes one distemper pup to infect an entire group of un-vaccinated puppies. So this April we're going to test every puppy that comes in. The tests are two hundred pesos a piece, about eighteen dollars, we want to have seventy five available for that last week of April. I'm asking if any of you can help by buying one or two tests it would make a huge difference. You can donate on our pay pal and make a note that it's for distemper tests and that's exactly what it will be used for. This is an extra cost that we didn't figure into our budget when we were making the original plans. On a more fun note, Isla Animals has had a small explosion of puppies. First we got a litter of nine. Pepe spotted the mom and her pups next to the bull ring in Cancun and has been waiting for them to be old enough to bring here. Then we got a moma and her seven pups. Everyone is healthy, has already been tested for distemper and is adjusting well. By the way Rusty is doing much better.

6. The race was great. There's lots of room for improvement but for a first effort we are all very happy. To all of the incredible volunteers, Jeff and I are so, so grateful. And to those who helped set things up ahead of time with the city and the schools and the race route, we couldn't possibly have done it without you. We haven't finished with the tally because Jeff is still working at the music festival but as soon as we have numbers I will post them. We had over sixty runners thanks to all of you wonderful people who signed up to sponsor school kids. And for you generous supporters who sponsored teams of five, it added so much excitement. Unfortunately we couldn't fill all the teams but next year people will have a better idea of what's going on. The whole event was fun and involved the entire community. From the island government to the police department to the Navy that allowed us to run on the runway. We had help from the Red Cross, they sent their ambulance to be on standby. We had runners of all ages from many different countries. For the first year we couldn't have asked for more.

7. What could be better than getting a puppy or dog off the street. How can you beat putting meat on a starving animals bones or help out a dog before it's abused and learns to mistrust humans. It's the best feeling in the world. Help me prevent another box of unwanted pups being left on a vacant lot. I can do all that and more if I have the funds. Help us turn this Into this It's a great gift idea for the person who has everything. You can buy them a monthly donation to Isla Animals. I will make sure that every penny that you donate is put to work. It's the most wonderful thing to know that we can count on a certain amount of money coming in each month. It allows me to plan ahead in this work that is other wise, to say the least, financially chaotic. And if you are looking for something different you can donate a certain amount of spays and neuters in someone's name. The surgery averages out to $20.00 an animal and it's the bottom line solution to overpopulation and suffering of animals in Mexico. Donate and then let me know by email bayfirestd@aol.com so I can make sure that a Christmas card is sent to your friend or family member. They will love it.

8. Thank You to the Bow Wow Club For Your generous Donation!

9. Yahoo, we are now a 501(c)3 tax-exempt non-profit organization

 

 

Donate $100 to Isla Animals today and get Alison's Book "No Urn for Ashes" FREE!

 

KEEPING AN EYE ON THINGS

Before Christmas we went out to the Guatalupana after hearing that there was one family with thirteen puppies. We found the house. One momma had 5 six week old puppies and the other momma had 8 two week old puppies.We took the older puppies and Delfino spayed the mom but we had to leave the younger ones behind. I made a note to myself to return. Then after Christmas someone came to my house with a little puppy that someone had handed them on New Years Eve. The pup came from the same area and was about the right age so I pulled up my picture of the younger pups and there she was.If you check the bundle of puppies the new little one is upper right. So now I’m worried. These pups are too young to be given away. If the family has started to hand them out, I’m going to get them. Which I did. There were five left.We gave them all baths, picked off the ticks and fleas and then of course they got new clothes. ha ha This is what dog rescue people do when they have time on their hands.

STILL STOMPIMG TOWELS

There are only a few pieces of equipment more important than a washing machine, if you run a dog rescue. We use a ton of towels everyday. Two or three days without doing the laundry, our machine is broken, and we have a stack half the size of a Volkswagen. Plus they don’t have “do it yourself” laundry mats here, you take you dirty laundry in, they weigh it, charge by the kilo, and you pick it up four hours later. But that doesn’t apply to us because they would never, never accept our smelly towels. Not a chance. So I spend the last part of everyday stomping towels.

And then we got a mom and four more pups in, which means more dirty towels. It has been incredible this fall. We can’t seem to get ahead of things. I was feeling so great about the four pups that we sent out last week and then we got four more in and the momma. But are these puppies ever cute. Jeff says I always say that. Ha ha

FINALLY GOT THE PUPS

If you read my last blog you know the story of the family that came to my door with two puppies stuffed in a tiny crate. They wanted me to take them but they had another dog as well and she was pregnant. As much as I wanted to get those puppies out of that box I told the family that they could drop the puppies off at the vet clinic when they took the momma in to be spayed. I would pick the pups up from there. Well we didn’t hear anything for a week, we went to their house, no one home, finally we tracked the son down at his work and he promised to take them to the clinic. I met them there. What a mess, you should see the mother. The picture really doesn’t give an idea of what bad shape she is in.The amazing thing about the puppies was that I thought they were 2-3 months old but it turns our they are 5 or 6 months old, unbelievable.Little Chupa is the one sitting up and she has a long way to go.

“REALLY”

Yesterday was one of those days that every animal rescue hates. Sorry to be mean but “stupid people with dogs” break my heart . I had three visit yesterday and each one got more ridiculous. First a very nice woman came to the house to ask me to rescue a eight month old lab that was in a bad situation. Her boss was taking care of it and his landlord said he couldn’t have dogs. This is a pretty average situation except for the fact that the boss sent his employee so that he wouldn’t have to give a donation to the rescue that was going to solve his problem. Okay that one isn’t so monumental.

Next, a woman comes to my house on a brand new motto and asked me if I will take her two pugs. She has had these two pugs, one 3 years old and one seven years old for three years. But now she is going to have a baby so she doesn’t want them anymore. I say, “you can have dogs and a baby at the same time,” and after much back and forth she confesses that they are not house trained. So rather than trying to find out how to house train them it’s much more convenient to dump the poor little things on me in a shelter with 50 other dogs.

Okay this last one takes the cake. A family shows up and rings the bell after I’ve gone to bed, which I admit is earlier than most. Jeff tells them I’ve gone to bed and to come back tomorrow. They ring the bell again. So I go down, worried that it might be an emergency. They have two, three month old puppies stuffed in a very small crate and they say that their landlord (oh those landlords) said they could only have one dog and their one dog had puppies and they can’t keep them. So I look at the mother, she’s filthy and really fat so I ask, “is she pregnant?” Yes they answer. I’m flabbergasted. So as much as I want to get those poor puppies out of that tiny box. I ask them what they are going to do with the new puppies, no answer.
So I look in the box, the puppies in there look like brown street dogs. My guess, they want poodle pups to sell and these two didn’t look like poodles so they were left over.

So I tell them that they can drop the puppies off at the island clinic when they take the mother into be spayed. I will pick them up there. They say, you can’t spay her, she’s pregnant. I say, what are you going to do with more puppies if you can’t keep the two you already have. We go back and forth for quite some time before they leave to go to the clinic to drop off the mother. We shall see, I go back to bed and lie there for hours, so frustrated that I can’t sleep.
I’m just going to add some cute pictures to break up this long frustrating story. As far as the momma dog, when I moved here I would have been opposed to spaying a pregnant dog but after seeing thousands of puppies abused and starving in the streets it hardly bothers me at all.

TESTS SAVE PUPPIES

This year (my years always start in September) we are having two clinics in Bonfil. It is a poor area in Cancun near the Airport. The street population of cats and dogs is over the top. Last year we did a clinic there in January and Isla Animals took home 65 puppies. We do not put puppies back on the streets. Older dogs with survival skills who would be hard to turn into house pets are spayed/neutered and put back exactly where we found them. Often times they have territories and people who occasionally feed them.

But the puppies are a whole different thing, so they come to us. This November 5-10 we are joining with Planned Pethood, Candi International, Cancun Animal Rescue, Coco’s Cat Rescue, Luum Balicheo, Jaguar Cats, Animalistas and Rescate Malix for our next large scale spay and neuter clinic. We are hoping to do over 1000 animals.

Our next large scale clinic after that will be in January with Vidas and we are hoping for the same number of surgeries. If we keep hitting this area we WILL make a huge difference. We also do special surgeries or arrange to have them done if the need comes to our attention. Like Pablo who had a broken hip.

A LUCKY DAY FOR MOMMA

I actually called Doug and Eileen about two puppies called Ringo and Star. I was going to ask them to foster the pups. They were excited about it and came over to meet their new project but then we got distracted. Thank goodness their gulf cart broke down because the man that fixes it had a momma and four pups at his house. When I heard that I asked if I could go and see them and then I put de-wormer in my purse, it’s such a boost for a nursing mom. When we saw the mom and the pups it was clear that something had to change. The owner said that two of the pups had already died. So we asked them if we could take them all to my house to get them cleaned up. As usual they looked at us like we were crazy but agreed. Wow, the mom had so many ticks that we had to pick her for hours before we could give her a bath. She had a nail that was so long that it had curled around and jabbed back into her toe which was, of course, infected. Her eyes were infected, her skin had patches of infection and she was so listless that she let us do what ever we wanted to her.She’s a small white dog and has four two week old pups left that are a beautiful brown. The pups were covered with ticks and fleas too but we couldn’t use the tick and flea killing shampoo on them so we just picked at them as they wiggled madly, trying to get back to mom. Their eyes are just open but they aren’t walking yet. Talk about a project. We spent the rest of the day cleaning her up, treating her wounds, cutting off all of her knots and rubbing ointment into the sore spots.Then we called the owners to ask if we could keep her for a few weeks and take care of her pups. They agreed so Eileen and Doug left with a completely different project than they expected.

BUTLERS AMAZING HERITAGE

It’s so incredible how after many years of doing the same thing, there are still surprises. Last May I was walking along the street with Maia from Pet Project Rescue in Minneapolis. We, of course, are there for the dogs. When we see a black poodle that’s obviously nursing, we ask around to find out where she lives so we can check on her pups. We find the house and there are eight pups, covered with ticks and fleas, filthy and neglected.
We ask the owners if we can take the whole family home for a few days, clean them up, give them vitamins etc. They think we’re crazy but say yes. So we take her home and make a big fuss over her for ten days until the owners say they want them all back. We reluctantly return them while making the owner promise to spay the mom and add that if they can’t find homes for the pups we’ll take them. When we go back to check the house is empty. Then on December I, seven months later, I get a phone call from someone who has a momma and seven pups and she doesn’t want them. Of course I take them. It turns out to be the same mom and a new litter of pups that are one day old. And sadly the mom is a mess, much worse than the first time we saw her.
Okay long story, this May the vet brought me a pup, actually over a year old, he was sick and terrified. We called him Butler, he had the same body type as my poodle mom and was the right age to be part of that first litter that disappeared but come on, it’s a big island. Than I find this picture, it’s one of the pups from the first litter. You tell me, I know it’s him.Wait did I mention that I’ve kept Butler so long that he’s mine now, even Jeff likes him.

KAREN THE FREQUENT FLYER UPDATE

This is such a lovely ending to a long journey I just had to share it. First is the story of Karen at my rescue and then all of her travel trials and then a letter from the person who adopted her. It’s great. This is long but it’s worth it.

In Isla Mujeres and Cancun I’ve become the puppy person. Puppies are so difficult and at bigger risk when put in a rescue with older dogs. So Ricardo, who runs a rescue in Cancun and takes in any and every street dog and does a fabulous job and literally loves the dogs as much as I do, sent me two small puppies at the beginning of February, a male and a female, eight weeks old. They were tiny and adorable with bad skin and shaky knees from a calcium deficiency. I named them after Richard and Karen Carpenter.

KAREN THE FREQUENT FLYER

This is the story of misplaced enthusiasm. If we can’t find homes for our pups or dogs locally we send them to rescues in the US or Canada. Recently we connected with a new rescue in Toronto, Canada which is fun for me because I grew up there.
Six weeks ago we arranged to send five pups to our new rescue. Everything went well until the final exit through customs at the Toronto Airport. We had sent pups there before with no problems but this time the agent decided that our puppies were commercial, someone had to be making money off of this. It’s actually very funny, most rescues barely scrape by and individuals eat up their retirement accounts rescuing dogs. If there’s money in this, please someone tell me where to find it.
Well this agent stuck to his guns and actually sent all five puppies back to Mexico. These pups were in their crates for over thirty six hours and then we had trouble with Mexican customs on their return. Don’t these people have better things to do than to make life miserable for five little rescue puppies.
Finally we got the pups back. They were frightened, thin and dehydrated but okay after tons of hugs and food and water.
During all the fuss the custom agents told us that there would be no problems if we flew the pups with a passenger and not cargo. Okay a month later a good friend was flying Cancun to Toronto so we sent the now three pups back to Toronto (some of them got homes). Two of them made it through but Karen didn’t, her owner was waiting for her in Toronto and customs decided that if the owner was getting a new pup then money must be changing hands.
I just have to add here, how odd this is. I spend most of my life trying to convince people that these rescue dogs have value, as in a special life, and here we run into a problem where they are being assigned monetary value, like we are running a puppy store rather than a rescue.
Okay, long blog, sorry—— they take Karen away again and forbid her to touch her cutie paws on Canadian soil. Remember this is her second stint doing overtime in a crate surrounded by strangers. A situation which we usually deem worth it when they get to their new, wonderful, forever, homes.
Karen’s future was not looking good, another trip back to Mexico just seemed too cruel. The whole wonderful rescue community jumped into action. Finally we found out that Karen didn’t have to go back to Mexico, that being a threat to national security, she only had to get off Canadian Soil. So back on an airplane she went, after vets visits, more strange kennels and an added threat of quarantine.
Wonderfully she has landed in Denver where our local support is now helping her get back to health and will find her that home she deserves. Canada is now safe.

STARSKY AND HUTCH

We have had two dogs living in our bushes for four months. They were trapped in the mangroves and brought to us way past the age of making an easy transition to living with people. We had some wonderful volunteers here earlier in the year who worked with them but after they left, having 30 to 40 other pups made it impossible to continue training them on a daily basis. They needed hours of time every day for weeks to make any difference but, sadly, we could never find them homes the way they were.

Then along came Troy, the incredible dog trainer. He wrote me in March to say that he was coming to the island in May and asked if there was anything he could do. I immediately wrote him about Starsky and Hutch. He sent some wonderful suggestions and offered to work with them when he got here. He was great. He got them out of the bushes and came every morning to train them. It’s amazing what knowledge and patience can achieve. Troy went back to Arizona and I’m walking Starsky and Hutch twice a day. I have Starsky tied to my foot as I’m typing this and he’s lying down and relatively calm.

Both dogs have a long way to go, but I’d given up on them and I’ll never do that again. Thank you Troy.