Good days, Bad days...

Some days are just great here! There are so many exciting things going on, and we are truly honoured to be included in some of them.

Some days are not as good.
On Monday, we saw a dog that had just been hit by a car. It was a gorgeous, big, black cross-breed with an unusual blonde colouring on it's face and ears, paws and tail.
About a km down the road we saw another dog that looked almost identical, trotting down the road...looking lost.
On our way home that night, we looked where the dog had been hit, and there was the other one, lying right beside it!
Every day this week, we have gone by this scene, and the dog is still there. Today is Friday, and the dog is still there, waiting loyally beside his dead friend.
It is such a sad sight, and brings us such feelings of despair, wondering how long this poor fella is going to wait for his buddy to get up.
It is strange to be inspired by such a sad event, but it is a reminder for us to dig in our heels and work hard at what we are trying to accomplish here.
Until next week,
Elena

Daily life in Valdivia

Well I haven't posted for a while, although lots has been happening. H1N1 is running it's course in this area now. It's heavy flu season here because it's winter, so combined with the introduction of H1N1, people are lying low, and many are sick. Chile is fourth in the world for number of confirmed cases right now.
I had confirmed contact with a little girl with H1N1, and I've also been sick for the last week....but all is well.

So I wanted to let you know about a few of the interesting things we have heard people tell us since we've been here- specifically on the topic of animals. Hopefully these quotes will give you some sense of why it is so important to develop long-term sustainable programs that are community-driven, because if you don't address the problem at the source, as soon as the organization running the program pulls out, everything goes back to what it was before because that is the way the people think.

Note that many of the following quotes were made by professionals and highly educated people:

"Animals have no feelings"

"I would rather see my dog dead than have him neutered"

"If you spay or neuter your dog or cat, they'll get fat"

"Castrated dogs are not aggressive anymore, so they won't protect us or our house"

"Surgical sterilization is cruel"

"I didn't know it was even possible to sterilize male dogs!"

"All female dogs should have at least one litter before spaying, for their health"

"It's not our responsibility to pay for surgery to sterilize my pets, the municipality should pay"

"My male dog needs a girlfriend, so that he can fulfill his destiny to breed" (We see posters just like this one all over town)

These are just a few examples of what we hear every day, and you can see that things are different. It will take a great deal of time to change peoples minds about the benefits of pet sterilization. Lowering the reproductive rate could alleviate a lot of the dog suffering that we see everyday, but it will only last if the people here believe in what we're doing.

Education is the key, and this is where we will be focusing a lot of our attention!