Another rescue!

Last week, the Los Machos Beach Project received a generous donation from Jamie Sherr, a regular donor from New Jersey and proud owner of a Puerto Rican sato. Jamie requested the donation be used to sponsor, Cisco (pictured also on the first post of this blog), in honor of her friend Gary Thomas' birthday. Well, Jamie...Cisco is officially off the street and safe in his new foster home at Adri's thanks to you.

Cisco, finally off Los Machos and in my car, confused about where he was going

I picked up this beautiful boy at around 9 this morning. Cisco and I headed straight to Dr. Ramos' in Puerto Nuevo. He was fantastic in the car, digging his nose into my armpit and hiding there for prolonged periods of time every now and then. He had no internal or external parasites, just some battle wounds from the recent dog-on-dog fighting on the streets (the ladies are in heat; therefore, the boys are picking their favorites and fighting for them). Altogether, he's healthy and that much closer to having a forever home.

Cisco, finally safe, on his way to the vet and then to his temporary foster home

On a sad note, however, I have to admit to feeling slightly defeated when I went to pick up Cisco from Los Machos. There were at least 4 more new dogs on the street, recently dropped off and absolutely darling. I felt, for a moment, that for every dog we rescue, a new one needing our help will appear. Obviously, this vicious cycle has to have an end...and then I jump back to the idea of raising funds for a piece of land for a sato shelter. On that note, supposedly the mayor of Ceiba wants to create a shelter for the local satos. My first gut reaction is that this shelter may end up being a "killing factory." Melodie is planning to speak to the mayor this coming Monday to offer our help for the supposed shelter...perhaps if there are enough of us willing to keep the shelter going, he will be more inclined to give these animals the chance they deserve to have a home.

Here's an action shot of one of the new additions to Los Machos, most likely just recently dropped off. I named her "Laylita" or "Layla." She loves to love.

Yes, I am so happy that since the launching of this blog (Jan. 20, 2008), three of our satos are no longer homeless. With all of your donations and support, this surge of rescues has been possible. We cannot thank you enough for the donations we have received so far. To highlight another specific successful rescue, thanks to two separate donations from Christina Beckles and Molly Weaver, Mika (featured in my 3rd blog post) is New York-bound once we arrange a good time to ship her. It is so motivating to receive your emails and letters along with donations, solidifying the necessity for this project. Please keep them coming and let others know that there are plenty of dogs that need help down here.

I will be in California until Feb. 5...when I get back, I should have news as to whether or not Bass, Dakota, and/or Cisco will be heading to St. Hubert's in New Jersey to be put up for adoption. Also when I return, ADLA will be meeting to discuss whether or not turning Adri's house into an animal shelter of sorts is a good idea or not. It's worked pretty well so far (Thanks, Adri!!), but needs some fine tuning. We will be working on getting some funding to build runs/cages for the bigger dogs, have confinement areas for any contagious animals, keep a consistent flow of dog food coming into the shelter, etc. Some more volunteers would be nice as well, since we can't have Adri carrying all the weight by herself. Stay tuned...

Shanti