The unsolvable situation of stray dogs

Foto: Helena Prentis

By: Helena Prentis

Mexico is one of the latin american countries with the highest number of stray dogs, the estimate being around thirteen million strays. Coming from the UK, a country where many people consider their pet dogs as part of the family, where if a dog is seen in the road the vast majority of people would stop and try catch it, the huge amount of animals roaming the streets was one of the first things that caught my attention.

The high levels of abandonment are due to loss of interest in the pet, often bought around Christmas, or ‘breeders’ falsifying the pedigree of the animal; from there the stray population rockets due to uncontrolled reproduction.

Whilst many people may love the idea of streets filled with dogs, the faeces left in the street can lead to sever health problems, as well as any aggressive animals being a serious threat of injury and illness.

The grave situation remains seemingly unsolvable: the mass sterilisation of dogs to prevent reproduction would be hugely expensive and time-consuming; the culling of strays, similar to the badger cull in the UK, lead to public outcry, but people are unwillingly to adopt these animals.

In Puebla alone there are eleven animal shelters, if you are willing to take responsibility for a dog and save it from almost certain death, please consider adopting.