One thing that caught our attention today was the dog situation. The dogs at our campsite have a pretty bad flea and even worse tick infestation. Ana picked off about 10 ticks from one of the dogs and we looked in its ears and no-kidding saw about 20 ticks in each ear. This sounds bad but the 4 dogs at the RV park we’re at are actually looked after pretty well in comparison. The owners feed them regularly, take them for a walk each day, and when we mentioned the tick problem they said it was time to have the ticks removed again. What we noticed is that most of the dogs in Mexico don’t receive the same level of attention (if any). The dogs in the neighborhood we’re staying in all seem to be lethargic from their flea and mosquito bites, and tick infestations. They lay around all day and scratch their cracking skin. I saw two baby puppies who couldn’t have been more than a few days old and they were already biting their skin, trying to remove whatever was there. At one point during the day, a well-groomed schnauzer was taking a walk with his owner. It came up to me and I was curious so I checked it for ticks but didn’t find any. When it left me it tried to play with some of the other dogs that were lying around, but none of them seemed interested as they were too busy biting and scratching. The humans have a hard time taking care of the dogs here because the dog population is out of control and most people either don’t have the money or the will to neuter their dogs to help with population control. Flea and tick medication costs also, so it’s a pretty low priority for most people. We’ve seen billboards around town giving guidance on how to eradicate areas where mosquitoes might breed. This indicates that there are some educational initiatives in place to try to make things better for the people and animals in this area. However, even with some education it is still a pretty bad situation for the dogs with no easy solution.

There is a wonderful organization in Cancun, Mexico called Rescate Malix which rescues, rehabilitates and tried to find homes for stray dogs. They have a video on YouTube. Check out the video, it’s pretty neat. Their organization is fairly new, less then 6 months, so there is still much work to be done. They are working on a future website at www.rescatemalix.org, so check back with them later to see how they are doing. We wish them well and much success!

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