Help Tulum Dogs Sanctuary Project, Expenses for Tulum Dogs

UPDATE MAY 4 2025

Hey everyone - THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT! So far we are at 44% of goal in just over 2 weeks, and we only have 11 days of fundraising left in order to receive all of the donations this month, when GFM pays out to our Charity account.

So far, we have been able to pay Rocky's surgery ($1000), half of the boarding that was due to date ($500), and buy the rest of the roofing, gravel, concrete, and pay workers for 2 weeks ($1500), plus help pay for some new Tulum dog outreach vetting!

That being said, we are still hoping to be able to reach our goal with your help, so we can finally breath and wrap this project up, pay our bills, and get Rocky here to the Sanctuary (and hopefully Annie on to an adoption in Canada).

NO AMOUNT IS TOO SMALL (OR TOO BIG :) haha). So if you're going out for Cinco de Mayo tomorrow and can chip in the price of one Margarita, OR consider the cost of a coffee at Starbucks, everything adds up and everything HELPS!

THANK YOU AGAIN TO THOSE WHO HAVE ALREADY DONATED! WE ARE MAKING GREAT PROGRESS!

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Hi friends, it's Cathy at Help Tulum Dogs Foundation!

We need your help now more than ever!

1. Construction expenses to complete Sanctuary project $3000

2. Vet bills including 1 leg fracture surgery $2000

3. Two pups in boarding in Tulum and transport to the Sanctuary when they are ready (we hope in one month) $2200

Most of you know us well. Since 2013, we have been rescuing, rehabbing, and rehoming dogs from Mexico to the USA and Canada. We have sterilized over 12,000 dogs and cats for free in Tulum and around the Yucatan. We have provided outreach to hundreds of owned dogs with loving owners, including food, vaccines, other vetting for unexpected illnesses or accidents, and more.

Last year, we embarked on a mission to build a Sanctuary for the rescued dogs that are unadoptable for one reason or another. We didn't know they were unadoptable until we had them in our care, recovering from horrible conditions including TVT (a form of contagious but usually treatable venereal cancer), living on a chain and being abused or neglected or both, distemper survivors who have neurological damage and other issues as a result of this disease, and puppies who have the "feral dog gene" and want nothing to do with society, much less a leash walk in the city. Several of them were pregnant and/or had delivered puppies recently that all died; one was a female we tried to catch for 7 years and finally did.

Well, this lovely group of misfits grew to over 18 dogs, now aged from 1 year to almost 10 years old. We were fortunate enough to have a decent place to rent and live with what was often more than 30 dogs at a time, but that came to an end and we had to move on. If you've ever tried to find a pet-friendly rental with one dog, try with 18. So here we are in the mountains of Chiapas, another state in Mexico, where land is cheap and the weather is way more humane than the hot, humid Yucatan. We have been able to purchase 4 acres of land, build a small 500 sq ft cabin, fence in around 1/2 acre, and start the construction of our much-needed shelter building. We also need to enclose more land with fencing and separation for the dogs to safely be together in their groups.

Meanwhile, we recently paid off most of our vet bills, but with a balance of about $1000 USD in new expenses for dogs we are still helping in Tulum (2 TVT cases, one sterilization of a pregnant dog, one case of hematoma, plus an accident that caused one of our two pups in boarding to require surgery to repair a fractured leg $1000 USD).

Speaking of the 2 dogs in boarding, here's their stories. One of them, a young male pup we found in the invasions with a fractured pelvis and no hope, Rocky El Nino, was a rescue of ours we sent to Chicago back in August 2023. After 11 months with his foster parents, he was adopted for 6 months and then returned for no fault of his own. Poor guy has been through a lot! Rather than let him get bounced around, he got on the first plane back to Tulum.

Annie was abandoned by some foreigners staying in Tulum who enjoyed having a cute puppy while they were here, looking cool, and when it was time to leave, they tossed her off to our friend walking her dog and said good luck. She was on the brink of going into her first heat at the age of 9 months, but otherwise healthy, so she was immediately vaccinated and sterilized.

Since Tulum has one of the least supportive expat communities when it comes to fostering dogs, both are in boarding until they can come here to the Sanctuary (unless we can find adoptions for them), which is hopefully in about one month due to (a) our shelter space not being finished and (b) Rocky fractured his leg playing.

I think it's important to know that, unlike most other rescues, we have never asked for money for a dog transport vehicle, although we've destroyed 2 of our own over these years. We sold our good work vehicle to buy the land for the Sanctuary. We paid rent above and beyond what we would have needed to in order to foster over 30+ dogs at one time and hundreds upon hundreds over the years. We don't have staff. We don't take a salary. But we have been blessed with the support of a wonderful friend and donor who provided us with the funding to build the small cabin here, and so much more.

PLUS ALL OF YOU - OUR DONORS - OVER THE YEARS WHO HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THERE WHEN WE NEEDED YOU! And our monthly donors, thank goodness, who cover our food costs for the now 16 pups here. Even though we don't have enough to cover special diets and meds, flea and tick treatments, we are making ends meet but truly struggling.

Once we have things in order here, we can finally move on to our ultimate goal of fundraising for mass sterilization campaigns in Tulum, the Yucatan, and of course small ones around here in Chiapas because the need is so great everywhere.

Thanks for considering a donation - and sharing! We are a registered 501c3 in the USA so donations are tax deductible to the extent of the IRS regulations.