| Welcome to Cozumel 4 You. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| The Story of the Dump; by Monica Velasco | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 29 2010, 02:13 PM (2,915 Views) | |
| CZMLaura | Apr 29 2010, 02:13 PM Post #1 |
|
Administrator
|
This is in this week's Cozumel 4 You, however, it's probably one of the most powerful stories I've read in some time, and the video is very touching: Anastasio May, better known as “El Gabacho”, has lived twenty of his 48 years at the municipal garbage dump, in a little cardboard room surrounded by piles of garbage, pungent bad smell, hundreds of black vultures and millions of flies. He and two other men arrived there two decades ago hired by a private company to separate metal and other recyclables. The job didn´t last very long, but they stayed there, in a way abandoned by that company. All these years they have made a living from picking and selling aluminum waste and other metals. All these years, they have consumed cheap alcohol quite heavily. Living there, they have witnessed countless times how abandoned, starved and fearful dogs come around the garbage piles looking for food. The garbage dump has always been an easy “option” for those who wish to discard their unwanted pets. Some just leave them and drive away, and some tie them up to make sure they will not follow them back home. Gabacho and friends tried to help many of these dogs, and they have also seen a lot of them die. During the last 6 or 7 years, we have visited the garbage dump every year or two, and rescued a few puppies that we could catch. Every time it was heartbreaking. Usually there would be a dozen or more dogs staying close to the cardboard house where the three men Gabacho, Don Pato and Coco Loco resided, but these too were generally in pitiful conditions. Dogs dumped there don´t live very long, but they are quickly replaced by newly abandoned ones so there is always a large amount of them. Those who survive do so by dominating an area of the dump, probably stealing poultry from ranches in the vicinity, and also hunting wild animals. Last year, when we went there with members of IFAW, we found a much different situation for those animals closer to Gabacho and friends. They were not looking bad, really, relative to what we had seen before. We don´t know what allowed or inspired them to have this improvement; it may be that suddenly there was more food available, or maybe the fact that Gabacho was staying mostly sober. Whatever it was, most of these 15 dogs and 9 cats were in fairly good shape. We offered to spay/neuter, vaccinate and de-worm them, and treat what was treatable. We did euthanize one male dog with horribly advanced transmissible venereal tumors. Having returned without him did not please them at all. After much explaining and showing them photos of the tumors, Gabacho understood we put the dog down to help him avoid a long painful death. After all, he had seen many more die slowly before. But what he deeply regretted was not having been able to bury him, right there where he had buried all those others that had touched their lives. It was then that we realized how deeply they cared for their dog companions. During the last 10 months, we have visited them about once a month and rescued the new arrival puppies before they got mangy beyond help. In the beginning, we asked them if they would let us find a home for Cirquera, a very small, Maltese type dog, who was actually quite sick with erlichiosis. Suggesting that she might be more fragile than the rest, we planted the idea of a new home for her, and Don Pato, the older guy, quietly said that if it was better for her he would think about it. When we returned Cirquera 3 weeks later and saw how happy she was to be home with Don Pato, and we watched this man´s face filled with pure joy when we handed her back to him, we realized that Cirquera was exactly where she was happiest. Found at ease there, she resumed her old habit of catching flies. That same time Gabacho told us that La Burra (not a donkey but a stubborn dog) had had puppies. We went with him to where she had her den. Obviously she found her own spot, but Gabacho had helped by clearing the broken glass around it, putting a blanket on the floor and a bowl with clean water for her close by. When she saw us approaching, she growled at us quite menacingly, but when Gabacho touched her she was totally comfortable. He held her and her babies very gently and lovingly, and she seemed to be smiling. It would have been hard to imagine that we would have ever wanted those dogs to continue to live there, had it not been for the sincere affection that we witnessed between all of them. These men have a deep connection, a healthy bond with their dogs that would be desirable in people who purchase expensive breeds and live with a lot more comfort. They watch them, enjoy them and share their lives, shade, water, food and space with them. But now they have to part ways. In a positive effort to deal with the garbage situation, the City has given the concession of the garbage processing to a private company. There will be no pickings, no people living there, and of course, no dogs. Don Pato died of a stroke a couple of months ago, and the remaining two will have to leave the site in just a few days. At a time when he is about to lose a place to live and a way to make a living, Gabacho´s biggest concern is the dogs and cats. He wakes up in the middle of the night thinking about it. Up until now, their future is very uncertain. Yesterday we learned that the new company could possibly hire them, which would be great but nothing is settled. We want to make their story known because we have watched them and developed appreciation for them. Through the way they care about those dogs, their sweet nature was made visible. We feel for them because they will lose their friends and we are concerned about how they will live. Tomorrow we will take their dogs and cats out of there and bring them to the shelter. We will try our best to work on making them adoptable. They are so adapted to a life in a pack and living in the open, that they will require a lot of help. They will miss their people and their ways and their freedom. This is a video to illustrate this story. We hope you enjoy it. Dump Dog Video - Very Powerful http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSknWN7ltJ8 |
![]() |
|
| CozKaren | Apr 29 2010, 02:52 PM Post #2 |
|
Laura, Thank you so much for the story. I'm very, very sad about the men and their animals being displaced. |
![]() |
|
| south beach girl | Apr 29 2010, 11:35 PM Post #3 |
|
Laura I want to thank you so much for all your support of the efforts of the Humane Society. What you have created with your newsletter is amazing and so locally based to help all especially the mom and pop businesses. You have a huge heart. This is such as sad, sad event that is occurring. Management of the dump itself definitely needs change, but at the same time to displace these men and all these animals living so happily together is such a sad thing. The project was working well. We were definitely starting to see less puppies and less puppies with huge illness issues. Things were for the first time ever becoming under control with regards to the animals at the dump. I truly hope this extremely well done video will educate people to not abandon their dogs and cats at the dump anymore. They did not just wander there and find themselves there. These dogs have all been abandoned there and as result have reproduced and out of the many litters that have been born there many of them die horrible, horrible slow deaths that Gabacho and friends have witnessed for years. The message is: there will be no food left for the animals at the dump. The method of processing the garbage will not even leave food enough for the vultures that live there. We truly hope the municipality will agree to erect signs that say there is no food at the dump and that abandoning animals at the city dump will be subject to fines. Spay and neutering of the main pack has been very effective to gain control of the problem. We have all been fearful this day has come and now it has. Quite frankly it is surreal....... The HS needs a huge hand right now. Adoptions are a very high priority at this moment, as this is a huge intake for such a small place that is already full. Donations and particularly heart worm tests are so badly needed to care for this new intake of dogs. We truly hope that each and every dog will have a second chance at life. Gabacho as well, and Coco Loco. Our hearts are collectively broken for the plight they face. We truly hope that in someway there will be a place for them at the only place they know as home: the Cozumel Dump. Andrea |
![]() |
|
| CozKaren | May 10 2010, 09:40 AM Post #4 |
|
The Gabacho & the dump dogs story makes it into Por Esto. Part I http://www.poresto.net/ver_nota.php?zona=qroo&idSeccion=5&idTitulo=18721 Part II http://www.poresto.net/ver_nota.php?zona=qroo&idSeccion=5&idTitulo=18879 Thanks to Monica & Laura for getting this into the press. |
![]() |
|
| CZMLaura | May 11 2010, 10:15 AM Post #5 |
|
Administrator
|
Again, thank Monica, she did all the work! And, it's now in the National Mexican News Universal Story yippie! I think it's fantastic that this story is getting out. Frankly, I'd like to see it on Oprah or shout it from the roof tops if I could! Edited by CZMLaura, May 11 2010, 10:29 AM.
|
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| « Previous Topic · General Discussion · Next Topic » |






8:35 AM Jul 11