Our 'Fill In' Animal Family

We miss our dogs but have found fill ins for the time being. Not only have we met the neighborhood locals that live on our street (and wonderful people they are) but we have 'adopted' their animals as well.

This is Petey. He lives down the road with Joy. Joy has lived here for 23 years and is the owner of Cielito Lindo Beach Studio Apartments. They are very nice by the way....if you are ever in need. Anyway her and Petey walk by our house every morning. He has an awful story that turned out quite good. Joy rescued Petey as a 10 week old pup that a local fisherman had on his boat ready to go out fishing and Petey was going to be bait for sharks. The culture as it regards to animals is interesting here to say the least. Dogs and cats are wild for the most part. In an effort to control the population the municipales capture the dogs that don't have collars, and electrocute them. Because they cannot catch the cats they poison them. Many folks are attempting to educate the islanders on how to care for animals and it seems to be working. However, their way of thinking seems to be skewed in my opinion. For instance, the vet here will nutter or spay for free. But the locals choose to not have this done in many cases especially with the male dogs as they feel that the male dogs can only be happy if they are able to have sex and reproduce. BUT they don't feel that their dogs need to be given water, 'They will find it if the need it' is the thought, and they are often kept on very short leashes tied to the houses. So Petey got very lucky!
Then there is Whiskey. He is a beautiful dog that all of the fishermen actually like. It could be because a fishermen owns him and he hangs out with them everyday as they are cleaning the fish. He too has quite a story. About a year ago he was hit on the main road by a taxi. He was drug for about a block 'screaming' the entire way. along with other injuries he broke his jaw which had to be wired in order to heal. You would think that he would have learned to stay off of the road....no. Sometime later he was hit again not suffering as many injuries. The taxi drivers here (some of them) actually veer to hit the dogs. As an animal lover you can bet that it is not only hard to see these animals treated so terribly but to hear the stories!
And this little lady(the one under David's chair, not the one on a chair!). We have no clue what her name is but she lives with a family down the street. She had never been to see us but one day we had our doors open and had our Isla friends over for breakfast. In came this little pup and sat right down by David. Of course she got her petting. She stayed for quite awhile and we haven't had her come by since!
Now the birds...the locals respect these animals for some reason or another. The taxis veer to miss them and all of the locals talk to them. Every morning when we open our doors we have at least three of them waiting to be fed their bread crumbs.Because we have a kitchenette we eat breakfast and lunch in our room. This is where we get our vegetables, fruit and wonderfully fresh squeezed orange juice.And in the very same building is the meat market. Just makes you want to become a vegetarian doesn't it?
And of course the tortilla factoryA bird dance on the beach?
No they are just waiting for scraps from the fishermen as they come in.The beach before the crowds come. The crowds have actually been less this year with the economy such as it is. The peso is at 14.20 to 1 for US dollars which is good for us but then of course they raise the prices of their goods.Well our beach time is coming to an end so I better get to it and soak up as much as I can.