Help the Homeless Dogs

We came to Las Terrenas to do Volunteer work at a local school. We quickly realized there were so many things we could do here in addition to the school. The amount of homeless dogs wandering around has been tugging on our heartstrings. Some look fed, but many look hungry. There are also no water bowls in sight, so most of them seem to just drink from dirty rain puddles. It has been very difficult to see, and lots of tears have been shed by the girls. They started carrying a ziplock bag to dinner to bring the leftovers home for the dogs we saw on the walk home. We went to the vet in town because there was a young skinny dog in our parking lot and we wanted to help. She said the only thing we could really do is to help feed him best thing them. We started to feed him, but the second day his mom came out from behind a tarp (where the remnants of a restaurant blown of the beach remain...mostly wooden chairs, scraps of lumber). She wouldn’t share the food with her young pup, and there were actually two of them that she snarled at over the food. Soon thereafter we found out why. Laying in the gravel underneath an old chair was a tiny pile of 5 pups. They are just days old. So we are now taking on this cause. We know we can’t save all the dogs, but we want to do what we can. We are working on finding help to get the mom and babies to a safer environment, get her spayed (this is her 2nd litter in about 5 months), get vaccinations for all, and food. We are also hoping to get homes lined up for the pups once they are weaned. Of the two older pups, we have only seen one now that is still living behind the tarp. We are hoping the other one has found somewhere else to live and is being fed, but we really don’t know. We went to the store this morning and stocked up on dog food, and are feeding and giving fresh water to the mom and older pup several times a day.
There are a lot of people who come here for longer periods of time and help by taking the dogs back to their home country for adoption. Please consider helping. While we are here we will continue to feed as many of the hungry street dogs as we can. We have also bought several bags of food and put out some bowls where we know dogs are hungry. Every little bit helps!