The Guatemalan September Animal Clinic

These adorable faces below were also very anxious but they are now all doing well.
They are in a big fenced area that we have for puppies. We have homes for three of these little puppies when they are bigger. We need to spay and neuter them, there are four girls and one boy. There were two other puppies but we couldn't find them.

The mother dog was very worried about her puppies and were they were going.

We unfortunately, were not able to get the mother dog to spay. She is a street dog and doesn't trust people and was not going to let herself be captured.

This is the new community of Xecotoj. It is a housing community that was built by the govt. for people who lost their homes in Hurricane Stan in 2005.

Saturday 26th we had our monthly spay and neuter clinic to reduce the population of unwanted animals here in the Solola area of Guatemala.

Here Mayan Families employees are helping collect animals from houses that have asked to have their dogs spayed or neutered.
Jonathon below is a sponsored Mayan Families student who is in our skills program.
He is very involved with the animals and helps run the monthly spay and neuter clinics.
Here he is collecting unwanted puppies from Xecotoj. The mother dog had the puppies and they are now just running around the streets.

Maria is the mother of one of our sponsored students....Maria is a single mother who loves her two dogs but could never afford to have them spayed without the help of Mayan Families.
This is her second dog that she has had spayed and she is so happy that now she will not have a horde of male dogs coming into her yard and will not have puppies that she cannot afford to feed.

We had several cats come along to be operated. Some come in bags and some come in boxes!

Pedro who is the Mayan Families Tuk Tuk driver is a new convert to having an animal spayed. He brought his cousin's dog from San Marcos , a village on the lake, he then took him home and is caring for him for two days before the dog takes the boat trip back to the village. Pedro also adopted a cat this week.

This young girl brought her two puppies to be spayed and neutered.

This woman is a widow and now a single mother, she is so happy to have her dog spayed. She loves her dog but she could not afford to have this operation nor could she feed more puppies.

Rosa, who volunteers with Mayan Families for the animal project, Hope for the Animals, brought several widows with their dogs. Rosa talks to many people in the community and encourages them to spay and neuter their animals. Rosa also feeds many stray street dogs and brings them for medical care when needed. She recently brought a dog in that had been run over and was screaming in pain. Unfortunately, we had to put him down his back legs had been severely injured and he would not be able to walk again. If it had not been for Rosa, he probably would have laid in the street for several days in terrible pain before he died.

This other woman who is another animal lover, shared with us the horrific story of her neighbors who buried new born puppies alive. She talked to the young boy who had buried the puppies and tried to explain to him that this was not the right thing to do. The family has moved away from the village or else we would have sent Helen, our project manager to talk to them and explain that this kind of treatment of animals is against the law and that they could be fined. Admittedly, it is a very tiny fine but at least they will know that there could be some repurcussions