Yes I know...I know....this is a developing country, lots of poor people, homeless children, all kinds of social problems. You can?t equate hungry, unemployed, undereducated people with street dogs (I wont even get started on the unfortunate ones who are someone?s pet but still go hungry, fleabitten, abused and mangy).
I know that the guy who sells platanos from a horse drawn carreta has to feed his kids, and the poor skinny sun-beaten animal is to him just that...an animal.
A local told me that I won?t last long here with my "crazy foreign" ideas of feeling sorry for an animal...and that only foreigners can give themselves the luxury of treating animals like....oh I don?t know....living things possibly????
Oh you silly thing, said a neighbor lady to me, when I ran to the vet?s office after my 10 lb. silky terrier was mauled by the chow across the street (which by the way, that the hell is it with the chow-love here? HELLO! It?s a hot country!!). She laughed her head off when I told her the visit cost 500 pesos plus taxi each way. I told her I adopted this dog from a shelter in NJ and spent hundreds just to bring her with me and wasnt about to let her die from a crazy hot mangy dominican chow. She couldnt wrap her mind around the whole shelter concept and just kept laughing and shaking her head the way you do to a child when they say something cute. The chow?s owners were also completely surprised and didnt even realize that they were in any way responsible. The husband told me that I should keep my little American dog home because she doesnt know how to deal with Dominican dogs.
God in his mercy gave me patience not to tear him up.
I swear since I moved here in April I haven?t seen a cat walking around anywhere....mentioned this to someone and they nonchalantly said that some people either eat them, or use them for 'training' dogs....and not in the sit-stay sense.
My family is from the DR....I?m well accustomed to all the charming and sometimes hair-raising, what the F! ups and downs of Dominican culture. But the animal situation here is making me sick.
I know that the guy who sells platanos from a horse drawn carreta has to feed his kids, and the poor skinny sun-beaten animal is to him just that...an animal.
A local told me that I won?t last long here with my "crazy foreign" ideas of feeling sorry for an animal...and that only foreigners can give themselves the luxury of treating animals like....oh I don?t know....living things possibly????
Oh you silly thing, said a neighbor lady to me, when I ran to the vet?s office after my 10 lb. silky terrier was mauled by the chow across the street (which by the way, that the hell is it with the chow-love here? HELLO! It?s a hot country!!). She laughed her head off when I told her the visit cost 500 pesos plus taxi each way. I told her I adopted this dog from a shelter in NJ and spent hundreds just to bring her with me and wasnt about to let her die from a crazy hot mangy dominican chow. She couldnt wrap her mind around the whole shelter concept and just kept laughing and shaking her head the way you do to a child when they say something cute. The chow?s owners were also completely surprised and didnt even realize that they were in any way responsible. The husband told me that I should keep my little American dog home because she doesnt know how to deal with Dominican dogs.
God in his mercy gave me patience not to tear him up.
I swear since I moved here in April I haven?t seen a cat walking around anywhere....mentioned this to someone and they nonchalantly said that some people either eat them, or use them for 'training' dogs....and not in the sit-stay sense.
My family is from the DR....I?m well accustomed to all the charming and sometimes hair-raising, what the F! ups and downs of Dominican culture. But the animal situation here is making me sick.