Lifesaving in Cuba

Lifesaving in Cuba

Bella was a homeless dog who had taken to hanging around the Plaza de Las Armas in Havana. This is a tourist destination where booksellers’ stalls surround a small, one block square park. Her staying around there wasn’t so dumb, as the tourists in Cuba are much more likely to have a little extra food than are the residents. Still it wasn’t much of a living, and she looked thin and weak, her appearance was no doubt made worse by a developing case of pneumonia. The little brown and black dog was a mix of breeds, and more to pity than love until you got to know her.

Angela is an international airline flight attendant based in Gatwick who was on a layover in Havana. She was passing time in the Plaza looking at books, maps, and art for sale to the happy tourists.

Nora is an accomplished animal protectionist who runs Aniplant, Cuba’s only officially sanctioned animal protection organization. She still has not met Angela, but as I tell this story, she is very familiar with Bella.

What happened was that Angela spotted Bella begging for attention from the tourists, a few of whom took pity on her and gave her bits of food. Angela and her companion went over to the dog and immediately felt a compassionate drive to help her. While still on her layover, she came back to the Plaza several times to feed Bella a little, for she could not eat very much at one time.

She even gave the dog the name, Bella, reasoning she shouldn’t go though life without a name, and she thought about taking Bella back to England, but she and her companion both work and couldn’t justify having a dog at home. So she finally had to get on the plane without the dog, but Bella was still with her in her mind.

In fact, she wouldn’t leave Angela’s mind. Angela could think of nothing else.

She searched the Internet and found Caribbean Medical Transport, run by the genial Rick Schwag, and via email she asked him if he could help Bella. Well, Rick passed the ball to me, telling Angela I was the one who did CMT’s work in animal protection.

Reading Angel’s forwarded email on Bella and her plight, I knew what we had to do as I had seen such stories several times before. I told her of Aniplant and Nora and the good work she does in helping Cuban animals, and I offered to translate any communication between Angela and Nora. That was on a Friday, and soon the answer came back to me from Nora. She had been to the Plaza and there were only four dogs there. They were all males and all healthy. I passed the unhelpful news on to Angela knowing Nora would not let this go with only one visit to the Plaza.

Sure enough, the next day (Saturday), Nora wrote me with the news she had found Bella. There was no question it was she, even though Nora didn’t have any of Angela’s photos. The color, the thin, weak, maybe sick description, etc. were enough to be sure. The vendors at the Plaza (many of whom Nora knows personally) told Nora that Bella had been staying around the Plaza for a couple of weeks. Nora’s first email to me after finding Bella told us certainly it was Bella. Bella had been found, taken to the vet, who confirmed the pneumonia, gave her antibiotics and inoculations, and told us she would easily survive with good care. Bella was isolated at Aniplant’s Headquarters in Central Havana. Yes, isolated until she could get used to the other eight dogs who live there and there was no chance of contagion between the dogs.

In the meantime, Angela, who had been franticly emailing me with questions every couple of hours was now on another trip with her airline. So it went for another day and a half. Nora and I knew Bella was safe, but Angela, who had started this quest and who was nearly frantic for Bella’s safety, still didn’t know. Finally she had a moment to catch up with her email, and she was overjoyed to read my translation of Nora’s report and that Bella was safe.

I felt as if I had done something very active to help a canine life, even though I had hardly moved from my keyboard. All three of us were very relieved that Bella had a home, and Aló Presidente (remember him from an earlier blog) had a new playmate.

I often write why it is important to support Aniplant. If Bella could write, she could do that job for me.

Les Inglis

PS Don’t forget our website: http://theaniplantproject.org, It is constantly adding new material about Aniplant.