[QUOTE=cowgirl]
You know, there are lots and lots of soft-hearted animal lovers with lots and lots of money, even if they’re not in your neighbourhood. With a bit of organizing, I bet a “Save the poor stray dogs of Puerto Rico” campaign would be pretty effective in North America. (Look how the Katrina strays were snapped up!)
[/QUOTE]
They already have that, it’s called Save a Sato.
My family lives in a neighborhood that doesn’t have a high stray population, and those that hang around are quickly adopted.
People in other places don’t really understand how many stray dogs are on the island… Other than Old San Juan/touristy places, we don’t have that many stray cats, we have more stray dogs. A lot more.
I remember having to do a project years ago about animal control and animal abuse laws in Puerto Rico. And I had to read some animal-related laws for Baton Rouge, too, recently.
Perhaps the municipalities or the island should have a civil ordinance/law dealing with those that feed strays. That is, if you feed a stray, it is yours. If it bites someone else, it is your responsability and you pay the medical costs and you deal with the disposal of the aggressive animal.
Telling people how much they have to take care of the animals is one thing, but telling them to make sure their animals don’t hurt other humans is important for public health reasons.
Sapo, I’m sure many of those animals currently have diseases and look yucky, the sad part is that many of those things that make them look crappy can be fixed relatively cheap! The people that feed them and don’t spend some time taming them and giving them some basic veterinary care are not doing much for them.
Of course, if the animal ends up looking to crummy, then perhaps (a big one) they take it to the veterinarian to put the animal out, something that doesn’t make me very happy.