Cuba the Dog

Cuba the Dog

Cuba the Dog was born not long ago in a little menagerie in the far eastern province of Cuba, His owner was a lady who operates a makeshift zoo right next to one of Cuba's large beach hotels near the city of Holguin. The little zoo was a few steps away from the 500 room hotel, and sooner or later, most of the hotel's guests passed by her crudely hand-lettered sign offering the zoo as a tourist attraction. There were flamingos, turtles, the dogs, and a few other animals, and the owner had trained some of them to do tricks. It was all pretty dilapidated, and the animals didn't look well fed. The cages seemed too small, but the zoo's condition was about par for citizen owned businesses in Cuba.

Ashley and her partner were Canadians spending a week on Cuba's gorgeous beaches, and they strolled into the zoo, quickly spotting the tired old mother dog and her pups. It was clear the pups could be had, and Ashley fell in love with the brown and black one that she decided to call Cuba. The woman said she didn't sell dogs, but she was willing to part with Cuba the pup. Ashley pressed $30 into her hands feeling that the woman should get something to help with feeding the animals.

Knowing there are procedures to take an animal back home from Cuba, they took Cuba to a vet, who explained what was needed. There were vaccinations and worm treatments and fleas and ticks to kill. One of the tests needed a few days for getting back results. According to the vet, they didn't have time to go through all the steps before they were scheduled to fly home.

Disappointed, they returned the pup to the zoo lady and said they'd send for him as soon as they could. They flew home leaving a part of their hearts in the rickety old zoo. With some Internet sleuthing, Ashley found The Aniplant Project, our little charity that helps Aniplant, Cuba's only animal protection organization. Nora Garcia, Aniplant's President, was eager to help, knowing the puppy would have a much better life in Canada.

Ashley, through a friend, got Air Transat to agree to fly the dog directly from Varadero to Toronto. Varadero is another tourist spot in Cuba about 8 hours driving from Holguin and 2 hours east of Havana. Nora made the drive to Holguin in a rented car. With the help of a friend, Armando, she located the zoo and negotiated the release of the puppy to her. Armando is a member of Aniplant and another good example of Nora's huge, widely distributed network of volunteers. The zoo lady denied she sold the dog (possibly illegal without a license) and maintained the $30 was a donation. Sale, donation, whatever--the deal was done, and Cuba the pup rode back to Havana with Nora.

Now Nora's vet friends got into the act, and Cuba was rescued from nearly every kind of parasite a dog can have. He'll be certified as healthy any day now. All this activity was accompanied by a flurry of emails from Toronto to Florida to Havana and back. The stop in Florida was for translation as Ashley doesn't speak Spanish and Nora doesn't speak English. A glitch occurred when Air Transat told us they serve Varadero but not Havana, but Nora took that news in stride. She even knows Air Transat's manager for such animal flights, a man named Javier. Nora knew him two ways--first from previous shipments out of Varadero, and, as it turns out, Aniplant's VP, Gladys, the head of their Varadero branch is Javier's good friend. There are 11 million people in Cuba, but Nora makes it seem like they all know each other.

Well, all's well that ends well, and this story will reach its conclusion on Sunday 12/5 as Cuba, in his new travel cage, lifts off from Varadero only to land next in Toronto and be welcomed into the rest of his life by the loving Ashley, his new best friend.

Les Inglis