Aló Presidente

Aló Presidente

I’ve told this story before in our newsletters, but many readers have yet to see it. It’s the story of Aló Presidente, a beautiful little Cuban dog who looks something like a black Cocker Spaniel with long, curly hair. Lilian and Diana and Nora and I were walking back to our hotel from an Italian restaurant near Nora’s house. We’d had a good meal and were carrying a box with some left-over pizza. We came upon this little dog, not yet fully grown, and decided from his slight build that he might be hungry. Lilian tried to break up a slice of pizza into bite sized pieces and offered it to him.

This little guy either wasn’t hungry or didn’t like Italian food, but Diana got him to lap up some water we poured out for him out of her bottle.

He was so cute, we couldn’t help ourselves, and as we resumed our walk, he followed us. After a couple of blocks, we were talking of keeping him and finding him a home. When we came near to our hotel, the Presidente, he was still with us, and we were buzzing about what we had to do to foster him. We crossed to the wide parkway in the Avenida de los Presidentes, and he stayed right with us. The ladies decided we needed to have him checked out by a vet before we put him into a home with other dogs. The little dog and I stayed there in the wide, grassy parkway, and he curled up in a little depression in the lawn. They were gone at least 15 minutes, and I passed the time gently petting the sleeping dog. I noticed my hand was very dirty from petting him—he really needed a bath.

The ladies came back with no clues on finding a vet. It was 5:00pm on a Saturday, so we decided to back track in the parkway, and Nora spotted a man playing with his dog in the grass. She went over to him, and he offered to give us a place in his garage for the night. Well, we got some clothesline and found a flattened cardboard box to use as a bed. While we were milling around, he walked out of the garage and kept going. I followed him trying not to seem as if I were chasing him. In about a block, he jumped up into a flowerpot and curled up in a grassy depression. I gently carried him back to the garage, petting him as I walked. The girls had fashioned a harness and long tether for him, and we left him for the night tied to the front bumper of a dusty 1954 Chevy Bel Aire. He had a plate of pizza and a bowl of water.

We made plans to meet early the next morning; Nora went home to work the telephone, while the rest of us went back to the hotel.

I had decided to name him Aló Presidente. The Presidente part was that we were in the shadow of our hotel when we decided to keep him. The Aló part was for the warm, tail-wagging way he greeted us. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez broadcasts his talks each weekend to those who will listen, and he calls his talks, Aló Presidente, so now our dog was named for a series of political talks.

In the morning Aniplant volunteers sought out Aló in his garage, and we were disheartened to learn he had slipped his bonds and was gone. I started on foot back toward the flowerpot, and sure enough, there he was in his grassy depression and, for the second time, I carried him back to the garage.

Nora had convinced Lourdes, an active Aniplant volunteer, to take Aló at least until we could get him to a vet. Nora’s Aniplant Treasurer, Eva Rivero, picked us up at the hotel in her miniscule Fiat. We barely fit into the Fiat with Nora and Aló in the rear seat and Eva and I in front. We set off for Lourdes” house dodging potholes in the residential neighborhoods—some that seemed as big as the car itself.

Nora had water and flea spray with her as she always does, and Aló got the first flea treatment of his life in the back seat of the car. When we got to Lourdes’ house, we saw that Lourdes had rigged a little run for Aló on her balcony segregated from her other dogs. We soon had to go, and I snapped a picture of Aló on the balcony as we left.

We were about to leave Cuba, but Nora kept us up to date on our new friend. He cleaned up beautifully, was neutered, and joined Lourdes’ family of three other dogs. Later, Nora took Aló back from Lourdes when she was sick, and he became a permanent resident of Aniplant’s new headquarters where he joined seven other dogs, all females—all spayed of course.

I’ve felt as if Aló was my dog ever since we picked him up, and I’ve often thought of bringing him home to Florida with me. But he belongs to all of us, and, as I verified in two later visits, he is so happy to be a headquarters resident. The food there is good, the care is superb, and there are always nice, animal-loving people around. No, as much as I love him, he has already found his forever home, and I wouldn’t change that for the world.

I’ll have to love him from afar.

Les Inglis

AND A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT:

A Big Step Forward

A couple of months ago, we decided, after a solid push from Charlene, that we had to act like a real charity. Thus she set out on a course to incorporate The Aniplant Project, Inc. (TAP) as a not-for-profit corporation, to obtain a 501 (c)(3) rating from the IRS so that donations are tax deductible, to register as a charity with the State of Florida, and finally to apply for an OFAC license to send people to Cuba for charity business. She did it all herself, and did a great job of it. All but the OFAC license are done deals, and it is pending. About two weeks ago, as work on all this slowed down, she began work on a new website for TAP.

Today that website is up and running, thanks entirely to Charlene’s hard work. It’s beautiful, and I hope you’ll look over every page we have posted. You’ll learn lots of interesting stuff and see lots of new photos if you do. We’re really proud of it, and I’m proud of Charlene for all her dedication and hard work. Go to:

http://theaniplantproject.org

You’ll be glad you did.

Les Inglis