P.U.P.P.Y. Project (Pets to Underprivileged Puerto Plata Youth): Days 3 of the P.U.P.P.Y. Project

DAY 3

One more night with the 5 puppies and Ginger (the Mom). They spent the night outside on a blanket and were actually pretty quiet through the night. Our two Dominican dogs Roo and Jimmie Dean are a bit confused with invaders in their territory, but so far they seem to be fine with it. The puppies play with Jimmie Dean and Roo as well as our American Dogs Cooper and Calie because Ginger is just too tired and sick to do much more then nurse. Debbie and I are really worried about her as she is all skin and bones, yet does not seem very excited about eating.

We spent the morning giving the puppies there wormer and tick and flea medications. Baths for all including Ginger were a necessity.

The puppies were clean, seemed healthy, and they now had their initial wormer and meds and so time to find them homes. Luckily our gardener, Cabo, was a real dog lover himself and had a couple of dogs of his own. So Cabo went out among those in our village of Boca de Yasica and asked for families to volunteer to be foster families for the puppies. We had him especially look for families with children that could learn about how to take care of a puppy and learn about responsibility and learn how to treat animals in general. The goal was to find Foster Homes and then hopefully the families would want to keep the puppies permanently.

This was our first foray into finding homes for the puppies. We weren't sure what to expect. However, 5 families quickly stepped forward to help out even though we live in a very poor rural village where sometimes it is hard to earn enough money to support one's family. There generosity and excitement was greatly appreciated as we had no idea what we would do with them if no one stepped forward. So 5 families were found and a special going away party for the puppies was planned for that afternoon. The AAAS had donated bowls, and leashes, and collars and we volunteered to provide the families with dog food for 3 months as well as dog houses for each of the puppies.

So the afternoon began with individual families stopping by our house to pick up their Puppy Chow, collars, leases, bowls and most importantly instructional booklets in Spanish for the children and families that would be taking over this responsibility. It was truly a lot of fun to see the little children get to meet and play with their puppies for the first time. A bond seemed to be quickly made and the families were asked to come back in a week with the puppies for further medications. We would miss the puppies, but knew they would be given much more attention then we could.

Ginger did not seem to miss her puppies and slept almost the entire day, nibbling a few items of food. We figured she needed some medical attention so it would be a trip off to see our dogs veterninarian Dr. Bob in Sosua Cabarete the next day.