The Origin of the P.U.P.P.Y. Project

The P.U.P.P.Y. Project Day 1
Any animal lover spending a little time in the Dominican Republic realizes rather quickly that there is a great problem with homeless and abused dogs in the country.  Efforts have been made to address the problem in different ways, but the sheer numbers overwhelm most of those who try.  On the North Coast of the Dominican Republic the AAAHS (Humane Society of Sosua) has many programs to address this problem, including veterninarians coming in to hold free spay/neuter clinics.  However, the numbers and logistics prevent them from having an adoption facility. 

A chance occurrence brought us in contact with the AAAS and started our efforts to develop a new program to find homes for needy dogs.  My wife Debbie, on a trip to town, ran across a mother dog with 5 puppies trying to cross the road in a remote area.  The mother was clearly malnourished and the puppies were close to being run over and Debbie just felt that she couldn't leave them there.  So she piled the mom and the puppies into our truck and brought them to our home. So my first contact with the "puppies" was as she carried all five of the puppies into our house.  The puppies were all girls and were all completely different in color from white, to red, to black.  The mom was very lethargic and was basically falling asleep standing up as the puppies nursed.  The first night we did our best to make all comfortable and well fed.  We already had 2 adopted Dominican Dogs and so we knew we really couldn't keep all these dogs and we went to sleep wondering what we could do with 6 extra dogs.