They found the first one in a parking lot.
Dave Woolacott and his wife Monique had just moved from Burnaby’s Forest Grove neighbourhood to Mexico to retire, and they were out shopping for groceries.
“We’re in the parking lot, and there’s this little puppy, so we picked her,” said Woolacott. “She was just friendly. She came right up to us. We rubbed her up. She rolled over if I recall, and we rubbed her belly, and I said, ‘You know what, let’s just grab her.’”
Woolacott said someone probably just threw the brown puppy out of a car.
“Sometimes they just get dumped,” he said.
The couple brought her home, paid to have her spayed and fixed up by a vet, and then found some friends to take her in.
They named her Dharma. She was the first.
Then, on their neighbour’s property, they found an orphaned kitten that could have easily been a meal for the owner’s five big dogs, so they took in the kitten, too.
Then there was Bambu, who took a beating from the other neighbourhood mutts, and the Lab puppy they found hiking, and so on. The couple has now had several animals under their roof, and they’ve started an online crowdfunding campaign to help build and staff a shelter where they can recover after sterilization.
The Woolacotts have raised $3,153 of their $5,000 goal. They’ve got a small group of people in Mexico willing to help, and they’ve found homes for some of the animals in Canada.
“The big issue here has always been sterilization,” Woolacott said, “and get this: there’s a kill shelter, and it’s not nice, it’s not nice at all.”
The reason the Woolacotts want to build a new shelter is to protect the animals after they’re sterilized. Once in a while, the city will sweep the streets and throw the animals in the kill shelter, not knowing which dogs are sterilized or not.
“It’s a very complex and complicated situation,” Woolacott said.
The Burnaby retiree recognizes Mexico is a developing country and animal welfare isn’t always a top priority.
“When you’re living in a developing country, and you’re struggling to feed your kids, animals get put way down on the list,” Woolacott said.
The couple never had kids, but they’ve had animals, and that’s where they’ve decided to try to make a difference.
“You can’t change the whole circumstance,” Woolacott said. “You can help one animal, or one person at a time. Really, that’s what we’re trying to do, and we’re going to help as many as we can.”
To donate to the cause, search for Helping Street Dogs in Mexico on Gofundme.com or visit bit.ly/HelpingStreetDogs.
