Cabin update! Special Vet-Day at the Sanctuary!
What an awesome day we had yesterday at Perros Libres. Lots of veterinarian students came all the way from Northeastern University in Boston and through an organization which connects them to real-world experience in the field in things like animal care. Turns out Perros Libres is a perfect location for students looking to get real-world experience, we have all kinds of dog anomalies here, and survivors of many unique kind of illnesses unlike the which I have ever seen in my entire life in the United States with well-cared for dogs.
So the awesome vet partners of ours at Vetitlan arranged this special day, where we had the vet student team from Northeastern University led by Pablo the head veterinarian take a look at every one of our dogs throughout the day, applying things like flea meds, de-wormer, nail-clipping, assessing of red-blood cell count and psychological testing which was a lot of experience for the team. This was an offering for the town of Tzununa, and free consultations for anyone who wanted to bring in a dog to the sanctuary to be seen by the vets. Here is a little flyer I scraped up on my computer:
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First they saw any dogs of ours that seemed to need medical attention, such as: Quixaya, Shakti (Distemper survivors), and the puppies Rush-Kush, Isa, and Kisses. They proceeded to weigh them, check their gender, age, and signs of illness such as low blood-flow (anemia), irregular heartbeat, mucus or hardened paws (distemper), and even psychological testing. After the "questionably ill", they did a test round on Perrita's no-longer-a-baby Flacka as an example of a control-experiment (normal, healthy response example) to these tests. Flacka passed the test with flying colors, showing all the signs of a healthy brain and a happy dog :) Though he does have a viral issue called papiloma on his lip, which I was suggested by Pablo to use Apple Cider Vinegar on. But it is common and harmless if treated, and often gets better on its own like it has on our Vibiana and Pluto who had it months before.
Any questions we had got answered, although admittedly even Pablo saw some things he'd never seen before, like an anomaly on one of the eyeballs of our puppy, Kisses. Only approximately 7-8 weeks old, has seemingly some kind of eyelids or extra hair growing on the eyeball. It is quite strange to all of us, and though one of the students heard of something like this, it was the first time any of us have ever seen it. Pablo recommends we bring him into the clinic to try and remove it. Here is a screenshot of a video we took of Kisses' eyeball:
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So we showed the vets around and they had a wonderful time!
Here is a gallery of them seeing all the dogs, and hanging out in the cabin area to see the majority remaining after we checked up on all the first doggies.
Concluding the vets visit, here is a little video of them checking out doggies on the cabin's freshly set bed.
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Build-A-Cabin Fundraiser progress: cement floor, roof, and bed!
A picture is worth a thousand words. Here are the progress photos of what we've been doing with the cabin:
Okay, cool! Floor looking good. Roof done.
So we moved into a new "apartment", so to speak, right across the street in front of Dog Land. And it is tinier than our old space, and couldn't fit one of our two beds, so I decided to put it onto the freshly made floor of the cabin. No walls yet, but safe from the rain and comfy as ever. So this is what it looks like as of now:
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But out work is not done! We're almost there!
We've raised so far 80% of the funds needed to complete the Build-A-Cabin Fundraiser, as I write this being at $1,232.50 out of $1,500 USD. We still need the remaining 20% to finish, which is a small $267.50 to have the materials needed to get all of our wood for walls, hopefully windows, and to build a door! Hopefully my estimation is correct: I picked $1,500 as my best guess of how much the materials would cost as we didn't have a full-fledged architecture plan and material list when we began. However, I'm a good estimator, and we've made it 2/3rds of the way with 80% of funding. We'll have to play it tight to finish, but we are gonna get there!
If you want to help us finish the project of the cabin, you can donate directly at this button here:
Whatever you can do to help us at this time is greatly appreciated! Building the cabin space, small as it is, has made funding run much more quickly, and things are very tight right now at Perros Libres as we've since moved houses and our pack and costs have expanded. We need your help to make it through the summer!
Your continued support is requested at this time as building is going well, we still have our regular costs and need to feed this huge pack! There was a wonderful organization donating us large 100-lb bags of dog food whom since have not been responsive, and the amount of new dogs I'm being asked to take lately is getting somewhat alarming!
I can only say yes to people and dogs that need sanctuary here if I know we are funded well enough to take care of them. We're keeping the ship afloat, but are being asked to take almost 10 new puppies total from 4 different groups, and hopefully can be able to take care of whatever dogs are possible and not leave one extra dog on the streets. But this is a tall order, and a hard thing to gauge! How much is too much? This is a question I've always had a hard time answering. We want to save them all, but we know this is a numbers game. Better to take care of 25 well, than 50 dogs poorly.
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However, there is good news in terms of funding!
A wonderful guy I met from England named Louis came to the lake and observed the dog problem. He looked all around for some kind of project that was supporting the dogs, and found us! We are, as I write this, the only active Dog Sanctuary on the lake. A lot of people are counting on us to take care of all these dogs! Impressed with our operation and what he saw, he interviewed me briefly and started a GoFundMe to help our cause, which you can find here:
He's raised over 600 English Pounds so far to help us improve our facilities: build a nice bathroom, improve our toilet and make a shower, build a kitchen, lounge area for volunteers, better and more medicine, and things like this! You can contribute to the GoFundMe by clicking on the link above.
What an angel you are Louis, thank you for supporting us! There are people who really care!
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Thank you to all of our supporters & sponsors! (Thank you Louis!)
Thank you to the locals who help us run our organization!
Thank you to Vetitlan who helped bring all the vets to us,
and thanks to you reading this!
We could not be here without you. We love you, and our dogs do too. Thank you for keeping up with the journey at Perros Libres, and tell your friends! Libertad por los Perros! Adios!