Helping Cuban Animals

Voodoo Killer

2012-02-10T10:14:00.000-08:00

VooDoo Killer

In Puerto Rico and some nearby places, a nocturnal predator lurks in the mountains and descends into the nighttime darkness to kill and consume small farm animals like goats, chickens and sheep. Other places near Puerto Rico with reported sightings of this beast include Dominican Republic, Cuba, Bahamas, Florida, and Texas.

This menace is the subject of many drawings and a few photographs, but what pictures exist show scary looking things. Some look like lizards, and others seem more like hairless dogs with very large teeth. A few are flying creatures.

As most of the sightings of this animal have been in Spanish speaking lands, it is not surprising it has attracted a Spanish name. Farmers call it "el chupacabras," a composite Spanish word meaning "sucker" (chupra) of "goats" (cabras) as its victims, often goats, are usually found drained of blood. The name gives rise to the idea the animal is a vampire living on the blood of other animals. Go into a bar in the Dominican Republic, and ask for a chupacabra, and you might get a drink made from tequila and pepper sauce.

If you talk with the campesinos (farmers) in the islands, el chupracabras is not a joke. It is lost income in a place where wealth is more likely measured by the number of animals you own than by the money in your pocket. Any farmer who has come upon a dead goat in one of his pens will testify el chupracabras exists and prowls the farmlands to the detriment of his herds. But you won't find its name in any textbook on animal husbandry or any natural history museum or in any zoo.

So, are we talking about another unicorn or centaur? Is the chupracabra really up there in the mountains or only up there in our imaginations. It's just so easy to dream up an explanation for a loss of valuable property, and humans seem to have a tendency to spread and magnify and mythologize that which we can't otherwise explain, so el chupracabras could be just a figment of many farmers' imaginations.

But then again…

Les Inglis

Time Capsule

2012-02-02T11:21:00.000-08:00

Time Capsule

In 2006, while staying at Havana's Hotel Nacional, I met an interesting man named Dr. David Guggenheim. David is a marine researcher. He studies marine life including corals in the seas around Cuba as part of his duties as the Director of The Cuban Marine Research and Conservation Program of The Ocean Foundation.

David and I had a few conversations about his work in Cuba, and his insights helped shape my ideas on the unique opportunity Cuba has to make a real contribution to marine science in particular and to natural conservation in general.

David pointed out Cuba is like a time capsule sealed away inside of the cornerstone of an old building. Time capsules contain little bits of our lives at the time the building construction begins. Presumably, in 50 or 100 years, when the capsule is opened future people can see tangible tokens of the way life was way back when.

David's comments were aimed at explaining the state of the natural environment of Cuba and the seas around it. For 50 years or more, Cuba has been somewhat sealed off from the rest of the world in many ways. In particular, much of the rest of the world has spent the last 50+ years in a hell-bent race for development and industrialization, but not Cuba, where much of the environment is like it was in 1959.

You could say that now Cuba is coming into the modern world. Modern hotels are springing up on the beaches, and even this week we heard of a huge Spanish oil rig beginning to drill in the Florida Straits just 70 miles from Key West. But David points out tht much of Cuba's natural treasures are still there to be seen. Protecting them should be an obligation for Cuba and for nature lovers everywhere.

Actually, within the Cuban government is an appreciation and willingness to protect the country's natural treasures. David himself told me how difficult it is for him to ger licenses and permission to enter vast protected undersea locations. He also talked about how there are many natural preserves like the Zapata swamp and Cayo Coco and Las Terrazas, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. But, there remain many more valuable natural areas which could become natural preserves. Now is the time to act while the land values are low and development has not ruined them.

I recently saw a one hour TV show on David's work showing some of Cuba's natural wonders including a rare type of coral that still grows in no other part of the world. The show just renewed my hopes that this natural time capsule—a place with little development during a period of 50 years of helter-skelter development in the rest of the world—will somehow be saved. At least we have some hope that it can happen.

The plants and animals of Cuba are so precious, and the island has a staggering variety from Cuban Crocodiles to Ebony trees. Wouldn't it be great to be able to visit them alive in their natural settings?

Les Inglis

Project Fidelity

2012-01-25T10:31:00.001-08:00

Project Fidelity

Some animal rights people object to making dogs into servants of mankind. Seeing the use of dogs on chores for men as a form of slavery, they speak against seeing-eye dogs, St Bernard rescues in the Alps, or guard dogs—all long time jobs for man's best friend. But now that we know more about the many ways dogs can help us, the question of ethics in making them work for us is even more important to answer. Now dogs can sense the onset of an epileptic seizure, tend to someone with a PTSD episode, sniff out drugs and many other types of contraband. In short, dogs doing chores for a living is a much bigger subject than it was even a few years ago.

I started thinking about this ethical question years ago sitting in the lounge of a cruise ship preparing to float us from Miami and off to some island. Lined up on the dock were rows of passenger luggage and cargo. Men with handsome dogs loosed them on the cargo, and the dogs gave every item on the dock a thoroughgoing olfactory inspection. On detecting the scent of drugs, their training would have them signal their handlers to make a search of the bag or box. Fortunately no drugs were detected in the cargo that day.

OK, those dogs weren't being paid, and paying them would not help them. All they need is food and medical care and human companionship. Dogs will learn to do a huge variety of chores for people only because they have evolved to live in symbiosis with mankind.

Yes, since that day thousands of years ago when wolves found food after overcoming their fear of men as they drew near to the garbage dumps of people, wolves have been evolving into dogs and developing a mutually beneficial relationship with people.

How can putting dogs to work be slavery? Are not all creatures placed here for them to earn a living somehow? By finding ways for them to earn a living, isn't humankind actually helping his canine friends? Of course taking care of them and treating them as dear companions goes without saying, but that is all but assured by the natural affinity between the two species.

Given humane treatment for the dogs, which arises naturally in normal people, training and using a dog for service to humans is not cruel, not unnatural, and not unfair. It's really part of the natural evolution of both species. Thus, for me, I settled an old niggling ethical question that has consumed the thoughts of many animal rights people.

More recently, through our website, I met Davis Hawn, a most unusual man with a consuming interest in service dogs and service dog training.. He was planning his first trip to Cuba and had many questions about taking his service dog, Booster, to Havana with him. I could help a little, and Davis got his best answers from Bahamas Air which flew him to Cuba with an education exception to the Cuba travel restrictions. I helped him to meet Nora Garcia, Aniplant's President, and she helped him to publicize his ideas about service dogs and their training—something he calls Project Fidelity. Nora had connections to help him produce an informative, professional video piece on CD about Booster and service dogs in particular, and he appeared on Cuban television with Booster.

While in Cuba Davis found a stray dog on Obispo street in downtown Havana and decided to adopt him. He arranged for someone to foster him during the long wait for medical tests, paperwork, and shipping arrangements. Knowing some Cubans have cheated some traveling dog lovers out of money while providing poor or no foster care, I talked Davis into having Nora inspect the foster family and their home. Nora arranged for a different foster family and began the involved process of generating inoculations, medical certificates, and shipping arrangements to send the dog out of Cuba. Davis met Fidelity after a flight of a few hours to Toronto. They flew on to Chicago and then New Orleans area, their home.

And what is Project Fidelity, you ask? It's Davis' masters degree from Bergin University. Davis is proposing granting scholarships to Cubans to support sending young Cubans to Bergin University for an intensive course in training service dogs. These students, on completing their training would return to Cuba, each with a puppy for training, set about training other dogs and the people who need them. Training of people's pets could be undertaken too. Their new positions would be as paid employees of Aniplant. Davis has selected Aniplant to operate the program in Cuba. An ongoing program of training and encouraging the expanded use of service dogs is foreseen.

All this was packaged into a Master's Degree Thesis by Davis and submitted to Bergin University, and I, along with others, was asked by the University to review the thesis and offer comments. Needless to say, Davis got his Master's Degree, and he and Nora are now in the early stages of this exciting program. Scholarship recipients have been tentatively selected, and it appears their training will take place this summer.

I believe this program, Project Fidelity, will offer opportunities for useful, happy lives for many Cuban dogs, and the presentation of this program to the Cuban people by Aniplant and Nora will help assure that success.

Thanks Davis, Nora, Bergin University, and the scholarship recipients for your collaboration in this exciting program.

Les Inglis

Vedado

2012-01-14T10:17:00.000-08:00

Vedado

In the early history of Havana, keeping a lookout for unfriendly ships was a key part of defending the city. In those days there were no air forces and armies were no threat to the island nation. So ships and defenses against them were threats until proven otherwise.

You couldn't enter the Bay of Havana with bad intentions except at your own peril. At the mouth of the Bay across the water from the city itself is El Morro Castle, a huge stone structure with thick walls, canon, and a commanding view of anything on the water.

Across the water on the city side is a smaller fort, the San Salvador Castle. Both these forts were finished at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Any invaders by sea would face withering canon fire from opposite directions if these forts wanted to deny them entrance to the bay.

Today, El Morro Castle and its mate, San Salvador still stand watching the entrance to the city. El Morro has a distinctive appearance familiar to many. If an illustrator wants to evoke Cuba, or more specifically, Havana, that fort's picture is often selected.

Another tactic of the city's defenders was to use local high ground for lookouts. Being elevated afforded longer views, which provided more warning of the approach of the enemy. Old Havana with its waterfront is low lying. Moving westward you're in Central Havana with a little more elevation. Westward still brings you to Vedado, a section of the city purposely kept undeveloped for decades. "Vedado" means "prohibited" and building anything there was what was prohibited. The high land in the southern part of Vedado made a great lookout for approaching ships, so the city prevented blocking this view with new construction.

As time passed, reliance on men with telescopes waned, and pressure to build so near the growing city combined to end the prohibition. IT was a golden age, and construction of some of Havana's most elaborate structures began, and a new "embassy row" appeared. Today a walking tour through Vedado is an architect's dream. While many Vedado buildings are not in good condition, Vedado buildings in general are in better shape than other, older parts of the city. The few restored buildings are masterpieces.

My hotel is in Vedado, and embassies and ministries are its neighbors. The very large old homes there are taken over by courts, museums, schools, etc. The truly chic place to live these days is Miramar, further to the west, a suburb reminiscent of some American upscale neighborhoods.

It doesn't take much to entertain me in Havana. Stepping out and walking around the area near the hotel will do it. I don't think of Vedado as a tourist area, at least not the part near my hotel. So, mercifully, there are fewer stray animals on the streets. They prefer more restaurants, parks, etc. as discarded food is a magnet to the "satos" or strays.

Perhaps when I am in Havana, I'm also a "stray." I don't seek food, but to soak up the local ambiance. I could say it's almost European in mood. Anyway, strolling through this special part of town has occupied many happy idle hours over the last several years.

Les Inglis.

Casa de las Americas

2012-01-06T09:18:00.001-08:00

Casa de las Americas

My hotel in Havana is hardly two blocks from the Florida Straits, which separate Cuba from Florida. To get to the water's edge, you leave the hotel, walk north along Avenida de los Presidentes for two blocks, cross the Malecón, Havana's seaside esplanade, and you're there.

The first time I took this walk, I had gone one block, and I was in front of a truly remarkable Art Deco building about ten stories high. It looked like a big temple with a steeple or tower, and there was no cross on top. There seemed to be a bookstore on the first floor, but it was closed the first evening I saw the building. A huge replica of North and South America in relief filled a plain space above the main entrance. I learned its name was Casa de las Americas or The house of the Americas.

Havana, like Miami has a fair number of Art Deco buildings, and some in both cities are really good examples, and many of those in Havana are deteriorating. But this beauty shows no neglect, and it's a pleasure to see when you pass by. It intrigued me, so I set out to learn what I could about it. I found out it opened in April 1959, four months after Castro's Cuban Revolution was won. It was one of the first buildings to be finished after Castro came to power, and one of a relative few to be built in the 63 years since. Its purpose was to house a center to promote Cuban and Latin American Culture and literature. This organization was founded by Haydée Santamaría.

Haydée was one of two women in the little band of revolutionries which attacked the Moncado, one of Batista's military buildings in Eastern Cuba in 1956. She survived their one-sided defeat, was captured and sent to a Batista prison where she was tortured. In Cuba there is no status higher than to be one of the original revolutionaries. Haydée was one before Castro went to Mexico, came back in the boat Granma, lodged himself and his platoon in the eastern mountains, and began to take over the country.

After victory one of Haydée's rewards was the Casa de las Americas. There she changed from political warrior to culture warrior. She established an annual prize for literature Called the Casa de las American Prize, and many famous Latin American authors have won that prize.

Havana has bigger, taller, more celebrated buildings, but this one has lodged in my head.
Every time I walk by it, I reflect on its role in promoting culture. Cuba has an old, interesting culture, but it has no humane laws, no municipal humane shelters, and a not-well-developed humane ethic. Perhaps the animals of Cuba deserve a book about them—perhaps one good enough to win the Casa de las Americas Prize.

We'll have to start talking this up.

Les Inglis

Moving Around Cuba

2011-12-23T10:16:00.000-08:00

Moving Around Cuba

Transportation in Cuba is unique and very strange to Americans or to others in the western world. We have mental pictures of the 1950's cars kept running by Cuba's street mechanics for all these years, but because they once plied our streets, they aren't really so foreign to us. If we think of them as strange, we may be too young to remember when they were common here. For the 50's cars, strangeness is more of a time warp effect.

But the first time I saw a camello, an old fashioned Cuban bus, I thought, "that's really weird." I've mentioned camellos before in these blogs. They are basically tractor trailers where the trailer is fitted out as a bus. The center part of the trailer is lowered to make the step up from or the step down to the street surface easy. The front and back of the trailer are raised to give head room to the passengers riding above the wheels. This gives a two-humped (camel-like) look, and thus the Spanish name, camello, or camel in English.

When I first visited Cuba, camellos were common. They could hold a prodigious number of passengers, and you might guess one was coming when a busy corner on a main artery would be packed with a couple hundred commuters. The old tractor would limp to a stop and pandemonium would ensue as one hundred who wanted to leave the bus had to get by another hundred trying to get on the bus—all through the same set of doors. When finally everyone was on or off as he wished, the tractor would accelerate, grinding up through its gears to repeat the drama at the next bus stop.

Thankfully camellos made their last runs a few years ago, and today a fleet of sleek Chinese buses get people where they are going.

Cuba's intercity buses and trains have some of that weird flavor too. You can ride them and pay in the old Cuban Pesos or pay for a higher class of service in CUC's, Cuba's convertible currency, mostly used by tourists. If you use the old Peso buses, you have a much lower class of service. If you pay in CUC's, you ride in a different train or bus, generally with well-to-do people. This was being discussed recently in our email, and I quote Nora's words to describe the low class service:

Dear Les,

Of course it is much cheaper, but for this very reason it is a very difficult way to travel. Normally they are problematic—as much for the schedules, which are not respected, but for the people who operate them and the people who use them. I would not recommend this option—much less for a vacation in the eastern part of Cuba. As a Cuban, I would never use those trains or regular buses (paid in Pesos).

Nora

Of course many third world countries have trains and buses most of us would avoid, but Cuba may be the only one with two classes of service paid for with two different Cuban currencies. Adding to the transportation weirdness are Co-co taxis, basically a motor scooter for three, Asian style human powered pedicabs, and bicitaxis, a strange cross between a bike and a pedicab.

It's all part of the fun of being in a strange place.

Les Inglis

Rebecca's Cat House

2011-12-03T11:31:00.000-08:00

Rebecca's Cat House

After a few trips to Cuba, I had seen a few dog refuges, so I asked Nora to arrange for us to visit a cat refuge. Aniplant does not operate an animal refuge, but they help several with rations of food and some veterinary care.

Nora chose Rebecca's cat refuge, and after not finding her at home the first time, we found her the second time. Rebecca is an older woman, perhaps 80, and she lives in what was once a very luxurious house not far from our hotel and a stone's throw from the Florida Straits, which border Havana to the north.

Rebecca's house is a fairly large one floor home with a front porch all across the front face. The ceilings are high and the windows are huge. All stand open as there is no air conditioning, and the cats move from the inside to the porch by jumping through the windows. The porch roof is supported by Corinthian columns. All around the house is a tall wrought iron fence, and the lower eight feet of the fence is covered by sheet iron wired to the fence. That sheet iron is what keeps Rebecca's 30 or more cats inside her yard.

Rebecca's family was once wealthy as you might expect from the large house and the proximity to the water. She told us that when she was a little girl there was no Malecon (Havana's waterside Esplanade, and the sandy beach (now nonexistent) used to extend the two blocks up to her house. Rebecca received us on her large front porch, so I never got to see the inside of the house, although I could peek in the windows and through the screened front door. Years of deferred maintenance, chipped paint, and rusty iron sheets on the fence told me that her situation was more pressed now than when she was young.

And the cats? You ask. Well, they were everywhere you looked--front yard, inside, outside, porch. Frankly, they didn't look too healthy with their fur ruffled and dirty and many with ticks and fleas. At least Rebecca feeds them and water bowls were visible in several places.

Nora tells me Rebecca is very headstrong and doesn't easily accept suggestions about caring for the cats. After many decades of keeping such a collection of cats, she believes she has most of the answers. Nora knows differently, of course. Not every cat is neutered, which means the population will never decline. Once in a while Nora can get her to neuter her females or use a flea treatment on them. Nora knows she has to bring up suggestions for better care slowly and in a spirit of helpfulness. If Rebecca took offence, then the whole refuge would become worse off, so Nora displays her considerable patience and tries for gradual improvements.

Rebecca may have no money at all, but she can't be moved from her house. Until last month, all Cuban real estate was owned by the state, but now this is changing, and Cubans can buy and sell real estate. Rebecca inherited the right to live in her house from her parents, and she will undoubtedly stay there with her cats until she dies.

Then will come the hard choices of what to do with the cats. Not many people are ready to accept a cat or a few cats into their home. They may be killed by the crews of prisoners who patrol the city picking up stray, sick or ownerless animals. Who knows?

All I can say for sure is her cats are one notch better off than homeless. At least they have food and a safe place to sleep.

Les Inglis

2011-11-25T12:55:00.000-08:00

Drop by Drop

In Spanish, "el cuentagotas" means medicine dropper. It is one of a weird collection of Spanish words with a plural feminine ending that is, indeed, masculine and singular. The word literally means count ("cuenta") drops (gotas"). We've all used these little droppers to dispense drops of medicine into eyes or ears or wherever.

I'm reminded of what's going on between Cuba and America as both governments take tiny, tentative, and measured steps toward a more normal relationship. Pride seems to prevent either side's launching an all-out peace initiative, but economic necessity presses both sides to relax its long time sanctions against the other. Neither country seems ready to wage peace, but both keep throwing little teasers out to see what will happen.

Consider these relaxations on the part of Cuba in recent years:
1. Cubans can now have and use cell phones.
2. Cubans can stay in tourist hotels now.
3. Cubans can now buy and sell their houses and cars.

And, not to be outdone, the US has made these changes:
1. Many Bush era restrictions on travel to Cuba have been dropped.
2. Educational and people to people tours have been restored
3. Many US airports are now allowed to offer direct, non-stop flights to Cuba.

Personally, I rejoice at each liberalizing change. At the present time we are planning a trip to Havana next March. When I called Alex, my travel agent in Miami, to get some information for the trip, I was worried when his office told me he was no longer with that firm. They were nice enough to tell me he had moved to Tampa and to give me his new phone number.

Why did Alex move? Well, Tampa is one of the new group of several cities authorized to have direct flights to Cuba. And,a s Alex is a smart businessman; he knows Tampa has a very large Cuban population--probably due to the old cigar industry in Tampa and to the large shipping trade between Tampa and Havana before the embargo.

It seems obvious that more traffic between Cuba and America means more jobs here, and maybe more there as well. Also, instead of being a mystery to Americans, Cuba will be better understood and perhaps both countries will treat each other better.

Not all people see these changes as good for America. Some stick by the policies of the last 50 years, insisting that any interchange between the two countries is appeasement to Cuba's leaders and should be avoided. With such a sharp division in beliefs regarding better relations, we should not expect rapid change from our ossified Congress of recent years.

But I'm celebrating that I'll be flying out of Tampa instead of Miami, and in the process, I'll avoid 300 miles of driving, renting a motel room for an additional night, and having to get up at 4:00 am to catch a flight.

Les Inglis

Veterinary Politics

2011-11-19T11:36:00.000-08:00

Veterinary Politics

Lots of things don't get done in Cuba because of the generally stressful state of the economy. This is certainly true of veterinary care for the people's dogs and cats. It isn't that Cuba doesn't have enough vets--they do. But the free vet education comes with a price; you have to work for the government. Thus after graduation, vets take jobs as meat inspectors, airport inspectors, teachers, public health officials, and the like. Domestic pets don't get much priority from the government, so there are precious few positions available in animal hospitals.

What makes vet care available for domestic pets is that vet salaries working for the government are very low--about $20 a month. So in a country of pet lovers, many vets turn to moonlighting. Many neighborhoods have a vet who has turned a garage or spare room into a vet office or surgery.

More than ten years ago Nora Garcia, Aniplant's President realized she could improve the availability of vet care for Havana's dogs and cats. She began establishing vet offices around the town and charging the clients whatever they could afford for the vet treatments. As a tribute to her energy and motivation, Aniplant soon operated ten branch vet office locations and was planning to open more. And Aniplant now had a source of income for its other programs.

Unfortunately some of the moonlighting vets with their own part time offices began to regard the chain of Aniplant vet offices as competition, a dirty word in a Communist country. The vets filed a complaint. A difference of this kind is settled between the different ministries involved after considering the position of the organizations within their oversight. All Cuban private organizations are overseen by one of the government ministries. In Aniplant's case, the overseer is the Ministry of Agriculture, and the veterinarians have a different ministry.

The way it worked out, Aniplant was obligated to close their vet offices, but they were allowed to operate one only. In 2005 when I first knew Aniplant, they were not even operating the one branch they were permitted, as their headquarters was hard to find and up eight flights of stairs.

Today, with Aniplant's new easy to find Central Havana street level headquarters, Aniplant is building a new vet office with special assistance from Dr. Richard White, a world traveling veterinarian from the UK. His generous support is helping the new clinic to come into being.

We keep finding new friends for the animals of Cuba.

Les Inglis

Cojimar

2011-11-12T11:33:00.000-08:00

Cojimar

A few miles east of Havana lies the coastal fishing town of Cojimar, sitting on a lovely bay opening to the Florida Straits. It's a short drive from Ernest Hemingway's estate, Finca Vegia, which sits generally south of Havana. Connecting the finca and Cojimar are good roads and about 20 minutes are required to drive between the finca and the town.

For Hemingway, fishing seemed more important than living, and thus he bought his fishing boat, Pilar, a few years before he bought his Cuba home, the finca. Originally he rented dock space for the new boat at the Havana waterfront near his hotel, the Hotel Ambos Mundos, where he stayed and where he wrote some of his best known books. But soon he found a home for the boat in Cojimar. Thereafter, this little town was the base of his maritime operations.

He sometimes made the trip to Cojimar several times a week, and he soon found a favorite restaurant and bar in the little town. That restaurant, La Terraza is there today as is the rest of the town, seemingly unchanged from Hemingway's era. Like most tourist spots it is owned by the Cuban government, and it is kept in perfect condition.

The first thing you notice on entering La Terraza is the immaculate polished wooden floors. You enter directly into the bar room, and you see the back bar with nearly a hundred bottles of liquor, lined up precisely. A bar man awaits the requests of any tourists. Few locals drink or dine here as the prices (about what they would be here at home) are well beyond what fishermen can afford. But if the food and drink now are what they were like in Hemingway's time, it's no wonder this was one of his favorite haunts.

The Pilar had two first mates at different times. The first was Carlos Gutierrez, and the last was Gregorio Fuentes. Gutierrez might have been the inspiration for The Old Man and the Sea (although some academics think that Papa saw himself as the model for the old man). But Fuentes way outlasted Gutierrez, living right there until he was 104 years old in 2002 and picking up money from tourists by posing for photos.

Cojimar is a sleepy little place today, as it was way back when. If there is any action at all it's out beyond sight--beyond the reef--where the epic fights for huge fish are engaged. The locals bring in their catch, and some of it ends up in the hands of the head chef at La Terraza. Nora and I have had lunch there a couple of times, but, being vegetarians, we bypassed the fish on the menu. The chef is happy to fix anything you want, and for us the last time he made us a fine vegan dish of rice, vegetables and spices, which he declined to enumerate.

We sat at the table we'd used once before--in the corner, partly surrounded by windows on two sides looking out and down to the bay and off to the deep blue water of the Gulf Stream. Far below us a lone fisherman fired up his outboard and chugged out to sea. I watched him and thought how what I was watching could have been the same scene played out in the late 1930's when I was a toddler, when Papa was in his prime, and since when the town and its people remain unchanged.

Les Inglis

A Step in the RIght Direction

2011-11-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

A Step in the Right Direction

I know these blogs are supposed to be about animals (mostly dogs and cats) in Cuba, but the quality of those animal lives is closely tied to that of their people. And Cuban people have many crosses to bear. So when a major change in the fortunes of the Cuban people takes place, it's good news for the animals as well. Such a change took place this week when the Cuban government allowed its citizens to buy and sell real estate.

Previously you couldn't buy or sell your home; you only had the right to trade properties with other Cubans. In a difficult maneuver with a lawyer officiating, you could swap homes with another Cuban. We became involved in this "permutta" system when a number of years ago Nora, Aniplant's president, found someone in central Havana who wanted to trade places with Aniplant's old headquarters. Finding such a willing fellow swapper wasn't easy as the old Aniplant headquarters was on the 8th floor of a building with a dead elevator hopelessly beyond repair. The other guy's place (to be Aniplant's new headquarters) was on the street level of a well-known street, and it served as that man's family home.

We found out about the arranged swap in 2006 when Nora told us of it and told us the average wait to formalize a swap was 4 years. She had already waited two years. "Can't it be expedited?" we asked. "Yes for a bribe of $150," we were told.

Think of it; a lack of $150 caused a four year wait for two parties who both wanted the swap. Someone in our group reached into his pocket, dug out $150, and gave it to Nora to get the project moving. Two days later, the lawyer moved Nora's file to the top of the pile, and the swap was done.

It wasn't all roses, however. The "new" headquarters is a 200 year old one story building needing roof work, a new roof top water tank, and every light switch, ceiling fixture, and wall plug had been removed and left with the old owner. Much additional time and donated money was needed to make the new headquarters into the showplace it is today.

But this week all those machinations became history as people gained the right to buy and sell their residences without prior government approval. Already some are predicting a new wave of prosperity as people take pride in their possessions and fix them up. Others predict an exodus as people with some cash from selling their homes leave for other countries. No one knows for sure what will happen, but it's a pretty good bet people will be better off.

What's good for the Cuban citizen is usually also good for his dog or cat. If nothing else, it will be a little easier to feed that animal if his master has more money in his pocket. And a rising tide floats all boats. More money in a man's hands means more work, more pay, better homes, etc. etc.

The first time I saw Havana, I was struck by the blotchy walls on large buildings made so by decades of no paint. I imagined a huge tanker floating into the harbor filled with white paint. It was a day dream, of course, but this city with many gorgeous buildings, some dating back to the 1700's could, in my mind's eye, be one of the most beautiful in the world. Paint and maintenance seemed all that stood between dishevelment and splendor.

Maybe now our Cuban neighbors (and their companion animals) will find a way toward a greater society with a higher standard of living.

When you work on the problems of animals, you dare not be a pessimist.

Les Inglis

Pissing Contests

2011-10-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

Pissing Contests

A guy I used to work with told a story about Junior Finchley, one of his boyhood friends. His crowd would hold what they somewhat indelicately called pissing contests where the kids would line up along the curb and see how far each could urinate out into the street. Junior Kelly was their all time champion as he could urinate completely across Kipling Avenue, then a two lane road.

Junior had a slight malformation that constricted his urethral duct and acted like putting your thumb over the end of a running garden hose to water plants further away. For Junior his malady allowed him to propel his urine to almost incredible distances. Well, any doctor will tell you that such a condition can be dangerous, and most would advise a surgical correction. Thus Mr. and Mrs. Finchley had Junior fixed, and he lost his notoriety. After the surgery, Junior couldn't piss beyond the toes of his shoes.

Why do I tell you this? Well, I guess I'm trying to show that pissing contests expend time and energy, but prove nothing worth knowing. Cuba and the US have been in such a contest for more than 50 years, gaining neither side anything worth having and losing both sides much that is valuable. I'm not here to judge which side has won, is winning, or will win this useless waste of time and treasure.

To discuss this conflict, we might begin by examining the words each side uses to describe it. In Cuba, it isn't an "embargo," it's a "bloqueo" or a blockade. Webster says a blockade is a shutting of ports of a belligerent by its enemy--clearly an act of war. In the US, we call it an embargo which is defined as shutting your own ports to commerce with an opponent, certainly an act a little less belligerent than a blockade.

As my work in Cuba involves the plight of domestic companion animals, let's consider how Cuba's economic problems affect those animals. First most dogs and cats don't have collars or ID tags, and few are ever walked on leashes. Many city dwellers have no yards so dogs are let outside to relieve themselves. On the street, how do you tell which animals have homes and which are stray? My way to tell is the only way I've come up with, and it isn't very accurate--I look to see if his ribs are showing, telling me how well fed an animal is. When public dog catchers come through your neighborhood, they pretty well take the dogs they can catch because they have the same problems I have in telling family dogs from strays. Thus large numbers of family dogs disappear each year into a killing machine designed to avoid shocking tourists with sick, dying, or dead animals on the streets.

I say this tragedy is caused by the embargo or blockade or whatever you want to call it. Surely Cubans love their dogs, but their standard of living, beaten down by privations imposed on Cuba, leaves no room for the cost of collars and tags. And consider this: Nowhere in Cuba can you get your dog microchipped. This, the best way of identifying domestic animals, is completely unavailable in an economy that has a hard enough time feeding its humans, much less its pets.

And speaking of feeding your animals, how does Fido get enough to eat in Cuba? For the most part he gets scraps and leftovers from his master's table. The average Cuban, paid in old Cuban Pesos (or Moneda Nacional) cannot buy the small amount of pet food Cuba imports which is sold only in CUC's (pronounced "kooks"), a money system pretty well restricted to tourist use. Thus you may find a few places which sell pet food, but it's priced in money the average Cuban citizens don't have and can't earn.

And what about vet care? Cuba, with its good educational system, educates many veterinarians each year, but remember, this is a Communist economy, and these vets are schooled to become public employees like meat inspectors, agricultural managers, and airport officials. If a vet offers his or her services to treat domestic pets, it's usually as a part-time sideline run out of his garage for his neighbors. His day job has nothing to do with companion animals.

The point of all this is that Cuba could be a better home for family animals if it weren't so stressed by the embargo. How could there be a more innocent group of beings hurt by a failed political policy? And if we see signs of suffering among the animals of Cuba, think of how the man in the street must be suffering too.

These family critters are in our world to make life better for people. Both sides in this pissing contest between neighboring nations should admit it is a failure hurting the wrong victims and go about creating a better world for people and their animals.

Les Inglis

The Malecon

2011-10-23T11:54:00.000-07:00

The Malecon

From the entrance to Havana's harbor west to the Almendares River, Havana is bordered on the north by the Florida Straits. In the early 1900's when US influence in Cuba was at an all time high, a six-lane curving artery was constructed with American engineering help along the sea, and it eventually became known as El Malecón. Today it is the best known and most traveled street in Havana.

Both sides of the Malecon have wide sidewalks, and the north side also has a wide, four- foot high barrier to keep cars from the sea and the sea from the road. I doubt if any cars fell into the sea, but on windy, wavy days, the sea splashes high in the air and the wind blows the water onto the roadway. When wind direction and wave action are just right, the road receives so much splashed water that traffic is stopped and moved onto other streets.

On the sea side of the barrier is a drop of perhaps 20 feet to the water level, where large rocks are placed to take most of the constant beating the sea tries to inflict on the land. On normal calm days, the waves are small and the kids and some adults climb down onto the rocks to swim and fish. At night, young couples stroll along the sidewalk or sit on the barrier and talk about whatever young couples talk about.

Havana is a very old city, and traveling its narrow streets is and slow for the most part. If you want to go from one section (say Vedado on the west) to Old Havana on the east, most taxi drivers will first run downhill to the Malecon and then run along the water on the Malecon between city sections. It's a little further, but faster to use the Malecon.

When the sun sets, lights come on in the multi-story buildings along the Malecon. As darkness overtakes the city, you lose sight of the deterioration and lack of paint of many buildings and see only their shapes because of their lighted windows. It's really a beautiful picture, done in pointillism, and Havana takes on a nocturnal charm as you gaze along the curving Malecon.

Havana probably has as many dog lovers proportionally as any other large city. You see them walking their dogs in the parks, on the parkways in the middle of boulevards, and, to some extent, on the Malecon. I worry when I see them there as the cars go really fast. One false move and a dog wouldn't stand a chance. Fortunately Havana's dogs cultivate a respect for cars at an early age. Years ago we adopted a stray beagle who came, hungry and lonely, to our farm. We named her Annie, and we knew she had walked the country roads near our house for a long time. Every time she heard the sound of an approaching car, she immediately made a 90 degree turn and walked at right angles to the road, returning only after the car had passed. I didn't teach her this, she learned it herself before she found us. I think the city dogs of Havana, both those human guardians and those without homes, develop that "street smart" ability, and it's a good thing they do.

I often walk from my hotel to the Malecon when I'm in Havana--it's only a couple of blocks. One Saturday morning, my walk coincided with the Havana Marathon, held yearly on the Malecon.

I made it to the sea side of the street and boosted myself up to sit on the barrier and watch the runners. As hundreds passed by--most of them trotting, some running, and some walking-- I was happy to see a number of the marathoners had their dogs with them. With the street closed to vehicles, for the runners and their dogs it was a rare opportunity to experience the Malecon right out there in the middle where man and beast would otherwise be dodging cars and trying to get back to the sidewalk.

Another note on crossing streets: In Havana drivers have a different idea of their right of way. They scan the road ahead, and if any pedestrians seem to be threatened, they tap their horn, in effect commanding the right of way for themselves. Some even honk and then step on the gas. People, like dogs, learn to respect those little horn taps. To fail to do so might make a short toot on a car horn one of the last sounds you'll ever hear.

Les Inglis

Hotel Nacional

2011-10-15T07:19:00.000-07:00

Hotel Nacional

In 1929 Cuba completed its own Capitol building, which looks like the US Capitol. A tall dome, a huge, wide stairway cascading from the main floor to the street level, and legislative chambers at each end of a wide colonnaded Greek Revival monument were all features familiar to Americans visiting Havana.

Yet, even though its similarities to our Capitol are somehow flattering to Americans, my own favorite American style building is another iconic Havana landmark, the Hotel Nacional. Built two years later than the Capitolio, the Hotel Nacional is the end of the line for Henry Flagler's East Coast Railroad.

This hotel gets my nomination as the most iconic American structure in Havana. One big reason is the hotel lives on today as it was originally intended--a luxury hotel for tourists and business people. The Capitolio fails this test as Cuba has no need for a bicameral, democratic legislature. The place has become an fine art gallery, the sight of important meetings, and a target for thousands of digital cameras in the hands of Cuba's endless stream of visitors.

But the hotel wins my top iconic structure award for other reasons too. Flagler was a pioneer trying to connect up many populations along the Atlantic. But that connection didn't stop at Miami, the last big mainland city. Starting in 1905, Flagler pushed on another 160 miles to Key West, building railroad bridges from key to key, so the final American station was Key West. Still not satisfied, he offered a ferry service from Key West to Havana. You could step off your train in Key West, walk across a wide platform, and board a ferry to Havana.

Henry seemed to accept no limitations for the enterprise he was building. He established hotels at each city he served. In 1921, the Casa Marina Hotel in Key West opened, and ten years later the Hotel Nacional in Havana opened for Cuba-bound tourists. So this hotel, a twin sister to Flagler's Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, is representative of American free enterprise, a conglomerate, and a crowning symbol of a robber baron's dreams brought to fruition. Also, as all three hotels I have mentioned are still operating as hotels, it is a testament to Flagler's savvy as a business person. We have many such examples in the US (Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Libraries, and Ford Museums to name a few) while Cuba has relatively few.

In 2006 on my second trip to Cuba, I was talked into staying a week at the Hotel Nacional. A friend, part of our traveling party, who had been to Cuba many times also insisted we stay on the 6th (executive) floor where you "get VIP treatment." I had been perfectly happy at the Hotel Presidente, a much less ritzy place, but very comfortable and convenient on my previous and subsequent trips. But now I'm glad that at least I had a taste of the Nacional.

You arrive at the Nacional through a long drive lined with new black cars waiting to whisk you all over Havana. None of these cars for hire are the old 50's era American cars. Those were nowhere to be found near the Nacional.

Inside, the main reception hall runs the entire width of the building, and crowds gather around the several clerks waiting to serve them, but when an attendant learned we had reservations on the sixth floor, we were steered around the crowds to an elevator and up to a concierge style desk where any hotel service could be had. One signature on a form already filled out for me was all I needed to be led to my very comfortable room.

The rest of my stay there was filled with people anxious to make my stay a pleasure--get tickets for a show, directions to wherever you're going, and where to buy this and that. First thing in the morning, a huge table in the sitting area near our private reception area strained under the weight of platter after elaborate platter of delicious breakfast choices--tropical fruits, beans and rice, hash browns, eggs, fish, cereals--you name it, it was on the buffet.

One floor below the huge main reception hall are meeting rooms, shops, and a couple of restaurants, one a cafeteria affair with silver service prices. If you cross the main reception hall from the front door, you pass through doors and outside to a wonderful covered cocktail lounge area with easy chairs, sofas, strolling musicians, or stationary musical groups playing the old Cuban standards of the pre-revolution days so familiar to the tourists. Songs like Siboney, Green Eyes, Bésame Mucho, and Guantamera. If you don't do anything else in Cuba, you have to sit in that outdoor area in the cool of the evening, drink a mojito, and listen to the great music. All this with a view of the Florida Straits and Miami's lights a faint glow on the horizon.

Just as you don't see any of the old 50's cars near the hotel, you don't see any stray dogs nearby either. I suppose the hotel area gets extra scrutiny from the city's dog catchers who capture luckless dogs and cats and hold them away from tourists' eyes for a rabies quarantine period before killing them. It's hard to think of those poor little souls when you don't see them and you're being pampered to within an inch of your life. But once in a while I had to think of them--after all, they were the reason we went to Cuba.

I won't stay at the Nacional again. My regular hotel, the Presidente, is cheaper (about half the price), sufficient to my needs, and a little better located for me. But, I'll always have pleasant memories of my stay at the Nacional, especially after it's having won my Iconic American Structure Award,.

Les Inglis

Symbiosis

2011-10-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

Symbiosis

It's been a few thousand years since the first wolves lost their fear of humans and began to hang around human campsites and evolve into dogs. Humans and dogs are two highly intelligent species who quickly realized they had something to offer each other, and they began to develop a symbiotic relationship. The dogs helped with hunting and security, and the humans made finding food much easier for the dogs. And they became so very devoted to each other.

Much as I try to discourage tourists from trying to adopt strays from Cuba (it just isn't very practical), there is almost an uncontrollable demand for finding, vetting, and shipping Cuban homeless dogs to other countries. I guess that demand is fueled by the interdependence of the two species and a resulting mutual love. Getting a dog through a visit to a local shelter is easier, cheaper, less risky, and offers more choice. But people come back home from Cuba with a sympathetic ache in their hearts for that little ownerless dog who hung around the tropical resort where they spent their vacation.

Any dog owner has to know that love, that devotion, and that mutual attachment. As I sit here writing in my study, I face on the opposite wall 9 pictures hanging of my dogs. And that gallery doesn't include two pictures of recent family dogs yet to be framed. The first was Annie, a Beagle who took my heart in no time flat. She would climb into my lap as I settled in to watch some TV, and if I didn't move all evening, she wouldn't either. We couldn't talk with each other but we surely communicated those wonderful evenings. Boy, a handsome German Shepherd, is up there too. He lived in a fenced 2 acre yard at our farm, and he had a heated dog house. But if we were outside the house, he was always with us. I often sat on the top porch stair with him sitting next to me--my arm around his big strong body. We were communicating too.

I know what those tourists feel when they see the sweet little resort hangers-on. It's like love at first sight, and it can change your life in an instant. It's like a mother's love for her child or a musician's involvement with his music, or an artist's connection with his work.

One of the drawbacks to having dogs and cats as pets is they don't last forever. Sooner or later you have to say goodbye to them. We've done that many times, and it's never easy. But even those goodbyes don't sever the connection. Annie, Boy, Yo-yo, recipients and givers of so much love are here with me today, even years after our last goodbyes.

All in all, it's an experience worth having. I know that if I always have at least one such companion in my life, I cannot feel lonely or unloved.

Les Inglis

Lázara's Dog

2011-09-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

Lázara's Dog

Sander, a man from Holland, took his vacation in Cuba and came to know Lázara, an older Cuban lady who lived in a makeshift home built on the rooftop of an 8 story building in Old Havana. To address housing shortages, many Cubans have built homes like this. They call them "azoteas." Lázara has a dog who reminds me lots of Aló Presidente, my favorite among the dozen animals who make Aniplant's headquarters their home. (See my blog, Aló Presidente, from 8/22/10.)

Sander felt the dog was being abused and needed help, and through our mutual friend, Nikki (see my blog, You Have to Love Nicole, from 9/17/10), we were asked to help this dog, and I translated a request to Nora Garcia to see what we could do. Sander was willing to bring the dog to Holland and keep him as his pet if that was best.

Nora, knowing there is no Cuban law against mistreating animals, decided to call on Lázara and make friends with her. Luckily, Lázara was already a fan of Nora's radio shows and recognized her when she came to her place. Nora was offering help with the dog in the form of parasite treatments, help with food supplies, etc. Sander's offer of adopting the dog was refused by Lázara, but Sander's assuming a Godfather's role to the dog was readily accepted. With a little discussion and a few emails back and forth, Lázara was happy to accept most of Sander's requests for a better life for the dog, which included:
--Nora will visit occasionally to check on him
--Nora can assist with supplies of dog food
--He will get parasite and vet medical attention as needed
--His sleeping area will be cleared of junk
--He'll get a nice pillow to sleep on
--He'll get occasional walks and a leash
As Sander said, "This dog is a sweetheart and deserves the best he can get."

All of these agreements were made except the one about walks. It is difficult for Lázara to use the 8 flights of stairs. No elevator is usual in Cuba where they work only occasionally or not at all. Dogs are less safe on the streets than in their homes. Nora agrees with eliminating the regular walks. With a little negotiation and a friendly, helpful approach, Nora accomplished lots of beneficial changes for the dog and a chance to check up on him. I think Sander is pleased with how it has worked out so far.

The dog needed help, and Sander knew it. We later learned that importing animals to the European Union is almost impossible because of chipping requirements and tough inoculation requirements. Microchips are unknown in Cuba.

There are 2 million people in Havana, and so many of them know Nora because of her radio shows teaching of humane treatment of animals. Lázara's dog is one more beneficiary of all that education work.

Les Inglis

Power Politics

2011-09-23T11:34:00.001-07:00

Power Politics

I'm not big on political arguments, although I'm never without an opinion. On Cuba vs. US matters, I try to stay silent, but a good friend of ours, Sasha, who has a thought provoking public radio talk show called "Sound off With Sasha" in Naples, FL, told us she was going to have a show on US Cuban policy, and I was asked to phone in my comments or questions. The primary guest on the show was a former US State Department official, who did his best to describe and justify US policy towards Cuba.

Now I do want to say that despite little tweaks to travel rules for US citizens, US policy towards Cuba was set in the early 1960's and has changed little since then. Mainly it consists of an embargo (Cubans call it a blockade) on US products going to Cuba, severe restrictions on travel to Cuba, and other rules, all designed to deny the Cuban government's access to US currency and US products.

Is it successful? Well that depends upon whom you ask. Actually the Cuban government blames the embargo (el bloqueo) for nearly every problem Cuba has, so I judge they would tell you it is successful. The US government clearly thinks it is working or it would have been scrapped a long time ago. Ask the Cuban people, and they believe our embargo is the reason they must lead a life without many amenities like electronics, appliances, special foods, etc. The US man in the street probably doesn't know if it works or not as he has never been there and doesn't know anyone who has. So no wonder there isn't a popular push to end the embargo, everyone either thinks it's working or doesn't know.

What's my opinion? Well, I think it really only hurts the Cuban people by providing an excuse for not fixing anything that adversely affects them, while hardly influencing the Cuban government. Cuba can get hard currencies in other ways. For example, it has developed a thriving, profitable tourist business with most countries except the US, which has outpaced their former best exported product, sugar--as that industry has declined.

So I listened to this Washington insider on Sasha's program go on for the better part of an hour on the benefits of our Cuban policy, really feeling he was justifying the unjustifiable treatment of the Cuban people. Finally it came to be time for listener participation, and I was the second caller holding on the phone.

When my turn came, Sasha asked for my comment, and I asked, "Exactly what benefit does current US policy toward Cuba have for the American people?" I figured that ought to pin him down pretty well. But he was far slipperier than I had imagined. He said, "Well that's a rhetorical question (which it wasn't) and went on to talk about something else. In my mind, my bright question designed to put right 60 years of bad policy lingered ignored until its echoes in my head finally faded away. Mostly it was my ego that was bruised, but I got over it, and I'm still a big fan of "Sound Off With Sasha."

I learned that day that you can't easily get a politician to defend a bad policy. They're too skilled in ducking tough questions and changing the subject. I've decided, therefore, to stick to helping Cuban animals who actually suffer a little less than the Cuban people from the embargo. Maybe there's a little good in the fact that most politicians don't think much about animals.

Les Inglis

Humane and Humanitarian

2011-09-16T13:38:00.000-07:00

Humane and Humanitarian

Ask any English speaker what is a "humane" society, and you'll be told it is a group that protects animals. And so it is, but in the 1800's, humane societies focused more on orphaned children than on animals. Jeannette Ryder, the American woman who founded Cuba's Banda de Piedad in the early 1900's originally focused on both children and animals, but she came to concentrate on animals.

Today humane societies work only on animal issues as modern governments have taken over the protection of children, orphans, and families. I wondered how the dictionary reflects this evolution of meaning, and I was disappointed to learn that the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), nearly everyone's authority, doesn't even mention animals in its definition of "humane." Even dictionaries can get to be way behind the times.

The US government uses the term "humanitarian" to define an exception to the tough rules restricting travel to Cuba. They fall in nicely with the OED which says "humanitarian" means "concerned with human welfare." Well, then, how have I been able to travel five times to Cuba under a "humanitarian" exception to the rules?

Surely my work is directed at animal, not human welfare. Well, not so fast, I say. The primary effort of Cuba's Aniplant organization is massive spay-neuter campaigns. Through them we now fund the sterilization of a few thousand cats and dogs every year. This work is reducing the number of strays on the streets as unrestricted breeding diminishes. Sterilization is the only humane (in the animal welfare sense) way to reduce the number of stray animals on the streets. Well, how does sterilization further "humanitarian" goals (in the human welfare sense)?

Rabies is the answer. While it is a rare disease in advanced societies, it is carried by wild animals and can never be fully controlled. Outbreaks can occur anywhere at any time. In recent years some African and Asian cities without good rabies control programs have been shocked at how rapidly rabies can take hold and threaten many people.

The number of strays (homeless animals) on the streets outside of homes who can be bitten by a sick raccoon, fox or bat is the driving factor in the risk of a rabies outbreak. Sterilization reduces this number and therefore reduces the incidence of rabies in humans. For this reason, animal sterilization is a humanitarian endeavor. That is how I qualify to travel to Cuba.
Well, didactic discourses on words like humane and humanitarian are boring, but here's a statistic that will shock you. Every year rabies kills 50,000 people worldwide. Yes, they're in Asia and Africa for the most part, but rabies control is the concern of most governments in the world, even in some of the smallest island nations.

Unfortunately some stray animal control programs are inhumane and Cuba operates one of them. Stray animals are caught by a cadre of dogcatchers, quarantined without food for a few days, and finally poisoned with strychnine. But studies have shown that when you reduce the number of stray animals by killing them, nature soon produces more animals to take their place. But if a stray is neutered, he still occupies his niche, nature doesn't (indeed it can't) replace him, and the population declines slowly. This is the basis of all TNR (trap, neuter, release) programs.

We think massive spay-neuter programs of the type Aniplant conducts in Cuba are so superior to killing strays that it almost goes without saying. Certainly dog and cat lovers among us would prefer to see that country with a diminishing number of homeless animals as opposed to too many animals with a high incidence of sick and injured ones. As tensions ease between Cuba and the US, soon Americans will once again visit Cuba at will. We are working so that Cuba can show its visitors a country that has responsibly acted to assure animal and human health.

Les Inglis

Bucket of Bolts

2011-09-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

Bucket of Bolts

I got married and left my childhood home at the end of 1955. It was six months before my graduation from college, and I had saved some money to live on so I didn't have to work during that six months. My mom and dad had given me a great childhood, a fine education, and a loving send off. They couldn't have been nicer to me, and I couldn't have been more grateful to them than I was (and still am).

After Dad's long career in sales and later management, my mom and dad were comfortable and nearing retirement and my departure lifted one more financial burden from their shoulders. Now they could begin a life dedicated to their own enjoyment rather than to rearing and educating two kids.

Dad had always been interested in cars, and I caught that fever from him. He was a Chrysler fan, and the first car I can remember was a 1935 DeSoto Airflow coupe. That car was rare even in its early years, and in my adulthood after many years of old car mania and trudging through old car shows I have only seen one other example of that exact car. Because in his earlier years he had been a traveling salesman, Dad went through lots of cars, and I loved riding in every one of them. The car he had when I got married was a 1951 Chrysler. That model was the original muscle car as its 180 horsepower was much bigger than any other brand, and a horsepower race was unleashed on the American car buying public. He had had the '51 for a few years when I left home as his traveling salesman's years were behind him, so he didn't wear out cars as fast as he used to.

A few months after I moved out of my parents' home, Mom and Dad came by our house to take us out to dinner, and he was driving a brand new 1956 Chrysler sedan. I was very surprised when I saw it, and it was a far cry from the old '51 Chrysler I had expected to see. The new one was low and sort of angular looking compared with the inverted bathtub look of the old one. And it was the first in a series of Chryslers with tailfins--something that seems silly now, but as modern as tomorrow then. With a two tone blue and ivory paint job and pushbuttons in place of a gearshift lever, it was the epitome of automobiles as far as I was concerned.

Today I know the rakish lines and tailfins are just design tricks that really offered nothing to the motorist. In fact, it would be hard to find a better example of design excess than a '56 Chrysler. Still, I look twice when I see one, and memories of Dad and his cars come flooding back.

Those memories came again in 2009 in Cuba when we went out to visit Finca Vegia, Ernest Hemmingway's wonderful estate south of Havana. We were talking with Ada Rosa Alphonso Gonzales, the Hemingway Museum Director, and our conversation turned to the separate building where Ada Rosa keeps her office. It was a wooden building built as a garage and big enough for at least four cars. I recalled Hemingway had a 1947 Lincoln Continental Convertible in his earlier years in Cuba--truly a collectors' item if you're lucky enough to have one.

"But that's not all," she told me. "We just bought back from its former owners Hemingway's 1956 Chrysler Convertible." I was stunned they had found it after all the intervening years. "It needs a complete restoration, but now we have it." She told me the family that had it knew its history, and before they sold it they held out for a house and some money, which they eventually got. (Cuba's government owns the museum.)

It's a bucket of bolts now, but Ad Rosa told me I could see it. It looked like a very large pile of auto parts under a canvas tarpaulin--the work of a lifetime for a restorer. I was permitted to turn the canvas back and get a better look. There the old convertible top was down, the upholstery was in junkyard condition, but even the pushbuttons were there tickling my memory. I have pictures of this car when it was new in books about Papa Hemingway' years in Cuba. It was a dream machine then, and now it's a mechanic's pesadilla (nightmare). But I felt a connection to the old machine, and I hope I'll be back there to see it when volunteers have brought it to show condition.

We keep going back to Finca Vegia because Nora, Aniplant's President, is like a Godmother to the dogs who live there. She always brings them meds and flea treatments, and Aniplant has conducted spay-neuter clinics in the nearby neighborhoods. The dogs are our link to the Finca, but the old Chrysler stirs me up a little too.

Les Inglis

Diet for a Better World

2011-08-27T10:28:00.000-07:00

Diet for a Better World

If you're a visitor to Cuba, there seems to be plenty of food around--in good quantity with a nice variety. But you spend your tourist days in a cocoon sealed off, food-wise, from the Cubans themselves. The food we visitors eat in Cuba, served up in hotels, resorts, larger restaurants, etc, comes from a supply system set up only to support the tourists. There's plenty of meat, dairy products, and eggs for the tourist to eat, but the man on the street eats different fare.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Cuba entered a "special period" where the food supply system went through its own "revolution". Today, driving through Havana, you'll see what amount to farmers' markets set up in front yards in residential neighborhoods. Fruits and vegetables compatible with Cuba's tropical weather seem to abound, and so do the people crowded around the booths. What you won't see often in these markets is meat of any kind or dairy products. In fact, unlike our grocery stores, these stores have no refrigeration.

For an old vegetarian like me, I ask myself, "What's so bad about that?" Nutritionally speaking, I'd answer, "Not much." But Cubans, like Americans, like their meat, dairy, and eggs and would like to have more of them in their diets.

And yet, what sort of food should a country with strained resources produce for its people? It turns out the best diet is plant-based foods, as study after study has made clear for many decades. Really there are many good reasons why plant-based foods are better for you than animal-based foods.

First, consider that it's just plain more efficient. If you grow 10 calories worth of grain, you have two choices--eat it yourself or feed it to a steer. The steer will give you back one calorie of beef, and that ratio applies roughly to pigs, chickens, goats, etc. So if you have a country full of hungry people looking for enough food to put on the table, you'll reduce hunger ten times as fast growing plant foods for humans to eat.

Second, these days, much of the temperate and some of the tropical regions are drying out, probably due to global warming. Texas is so dry, many can't remember the last time they had a good rain. Yet it takes about 2500 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef--hardly a bargain in a drought. So a diet of less beef and more grain makes a better environment for people--or at least one that uses its available water better.

Third, eating plants instead of animals is much healthier. During WWII, Norway and Denmark still produced food, but much of it was diverted to the Nazi war machine. Facing shortages, the people in those conquered countries made do with more plant-based foods and practically no meat and little dairy and eggs. With a few years of these restrictions, the incidence of heart disease, cancer and stroke began to decline. Today, doctors generally counsel restrictions on saturated fats (a primary harmful component of meat) in the diet. As I write this former President Bill Clinton has just announced he has become a vegan.

So, little meat, dairy and eggs in your diet isn't a bad thing, although modern societies tend to move in the opposite direction. Today Japan is losing its long-held health advantage, coming from little red meat in the diet as they strive toward copying our "Standard American Diet"

Where will Cuba end up as it solves its own food production problems? A word to the wise among Cuba's central planners: There are some good reasons for not trying to duplicate the Standard American Diet.

Les Inglis

Talking Politics

2011-08-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

Talking Politics

While I'm still registered as a republican, I haven't voted for one since 1988. I mention this, not because I want to talk politics, but as an introduction to this blog chapter on politics in the US and Cuba. Basically, I'm not a strong party member, no matter which party thinks it can claim me. We have a friend who is a staunch republican, and I do what I can to avoid any political discussions with him. I know I can't change his mind with my liberal views (and vice versa, I'm sure), and so I certainly wouldn't want to lose his friendship because of a conversation that can't go anywhere.

But if I were more of a political animal, I would feel free to go further than showing a bumper sticker or two on my car. I might send a letter to the editor or speak at a public meeting. Those who don't agree with me would just ignore me anyway.

But my visits to Cuba provoke questions from my friends: "What does he think of the US Embargo?" or "How does she feel about the communist government there?" I'm really happy to say I don't know the answers to questions like that. The reason is that I studiously avoid talking politics in Cuba. It's not because I'm worried I might be picked up and jailed. Hardly! It's more because I'm there as a guest in someone else's country with different political and economic systems, and our two countries' governments more often criticize each other than not. Now many Cubans have lived their entire lives under the present government, and they know nothing else. It's unfair to criticize any facet of their country when I go there as a guest. It's also unfair to compare any facet of US life with what obtains in Cuba.

People in each nation have been denied a close relationship with the other, and there is far less interchange between the two countries than there should be. For those who have traveled there or those who are about to, I counsel them to adopt my apolitical attitude, not only while there, but also here at home.

The Cuban-American community in Miami was once more homogeneous in their opposition to the Cuban government. They had nearly all risked their lives to escape, making an arduous boat trip here, and their antipathy to their former government was palpable. Today, many Cuban Americans can't remember living there, and we find an almost 50/50 split in opinion on many political questions. One way to gauge this is to take the daily little poll on the front page of El Nuevo Herald, Miami's Spanish newspaper.

Today, even the two governments are changing their tunes a little. Raul Castro has eased the rules on the use of cell phones and privately operated small businesses. Barack Obama has eased on some travel restrictions on US citizens wanting to go to Cuba.

Many Cubans get permission from Cuba and a visa from the US to visit. It takes time and a reason, but it certainly is not an island prison keeping everyone home. Some Cubans are quite well-traveled. And the current impression is that US citizens can't go to Cuba. Also wrong. You need a reason, but hundreds of thousands have made the trip legally. I've now done it six times.

For me, animal protection is the reason I go, and we try to help a really fine organization that does good work for Cuba's animals. Many other Americans go for research, education, history, or to visit relatives.

There are plenty of reasons to visit here or there, and avoiding political discussions seems to me to be a small price to pay for travelers on either side of the Florida Straits.

Les Inglis

Support Your Local Shelter

2011-08-13T11:29:00.001-07:00

Support Your Local Shelter

34 million people live above our northern border, and none of them needs to worry about laws restricting their travel to Cuba. This fact, plus Canada's chilly northern locale, make for a healthy tourist business in Cuba. Sure, lot of Europeans jam busses dieseling all over Cuba, but a surprising number come from Canada.

Cuba's homeless street dogs are happy about this swarm of tourists, as they quickly learn there are handouts and wasted food to find near where tourists congregate. Hotels, restaurants (almost exclusively for tourist use), beaches, bars, tour bus rest stops, and shopping areas--all seem to have their share of canine hangers-on. The Cuban nationals are extremely careful not to waste food, after decades of struggle to have enough to eat.

It's no surprise we hear from lots of Canadians who've just come home from Cuba and have decided they'd like to save that cute little dog they saw begging near a bar at the beach. This presents a huge ethical dilemma. To get a stray dog out of Cuba is just as expensive--or more so-- as sending your purebred Portuguese Water Dog out of the country. And your purebred animal probably has a health certificate while the stray must undergo many tests and a thorough veterinary exam before flying out of the country.

But the first hurdle is to find the animal, and hopefully the traveler has some photos and a good description. To pick up the stray, you need to be sure it belongs to no one, because many Cuban family dogs still run loose.

For the medical matters the vets first need to clear up stray dog problems like fleas, ticks, worms, and mange. The vaccinations for rabies and other diseases need to be run. By law, some of these inoculations need to be done weeks before air travel. Also time passes as some tests are sent away to laboratories by the vets who draw the samples. All this can add up to a month or more in a foster home as vet work is sorted out.

Once a health certificate is obtained, you're still not home free. Some airlines quite correctly refuse to transport animals in the hot summer. A delay until cooler months could cost lots for foster care. And it pays to know what you're doing. Canadian airport authorities recently refused to accept a health certificate rendered in Spanish (not arranged by Aniplant). Without much frantic intervention, the next step would have been euthanasia by the airport vet.

Well, you get the picture; this is a time-intensive, expensive project to save one animal and, hopefully, to give it a better life in a loving family. Most travelers start out thinking it's really simple: Run it by a vet for a check-up, get a ticket and a travel cage, coordinate flight times and you're home free. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

When you think about the ethics of the situation, it really isn't a great thing to do. Yes, you save an animal and give him or her a better home, but you can do that at your local animal shelter as well. You have no choice of type if a stray dog touches the soft spot in your heart, but the local animal shelter could easily have up to 50% purebred animals looking for homes. Also at the shelter you can choose age, gender, color, disposition, etc. And the cost might be $50 instead of $300 or more for a Cuban intervention.

And the biggest ethical question of all is, have you done any more for the universe of homeless dogs by adopting from Cuba than by adopting from your local shelter? The answer, obviously, is "no."

But you have purchased the right to tell your friends the story of how you found and saved the dog.

Of course you can tell them the same story about a shelter dog for a lot less time, worry, and expense.

Les Inglis

Humane Warriors in Another Era

2011-08-06T11:34:00.000-07:00

Humane Warriors in Another Era

Last week in this blog, we toured the Colon Cemetery in Havana and reacquainted ourselves with Jeannette Ryder, founder in 1906 of the Banda de Piedad (group of mercy). It stirred me to try to look back into Cuban history to learn a little more about the humane movement in Cuba in the early part of the 20th century. Doing history today is easy compared to just a few decades ago. A Google search can turn up thousands of documents on some subjects. Still, some others only generate a few references. Cuba's early humane history only gave a few, but they were pretty interesting.

Jeannette Ryder didn't let any grass grow under her feet. She quickly became a force for humane action in Havana, frequently rescuing dogs injured in traffic or just sick dogs from the streets. The Banda de Piedad recruited many volunteers and fielded a fleet of ambulances to pick up unfortunate animals and bring them to her hospital where treatment and drugs were free. She sent recruiters across Cuba and began humane work in other cities. Eventually she could count 20,000 members across the nation.

In 1912 there were some cases of bubonic plague in Cuba. Cubans then, and to a lesser extent today, tend to believe human illnesses can be transmitted from animals. In 1912 a wave of fear of street animals grew among the people, and fear of the plague caused many to harm or kill their animals.

That year Nicolás Russo López, a member of the Banda de Piedad, discovered a man trying to kill dogs by pouring coal oil on them and lighting them on fire. He rushed to rescue the dogs and saved them. He then threatened the man with reporting him to the Banda, and the dog torturer became incensed, drew a pistol, and fired at Russo López. He was struck, nearly fatally, by a bullet in the left lung but eventually recuperated. Later, the Pennsylvania SPCA awarded him $50 from a fund to reward courage in the defense of animals.

A couple of years earlier, Senora Arredondo of Havana was not so lucky. She was also a member of the Banda de Piedad, and had called out a known animal abuser, a mule team driver who treated his mules cruelly. She berated his cruelties to his face as he sat in his wagon. Suddenly, he swerved his wagon and it struck Sra. Arredondo, crushing her between the wagon and a brick wall. She was terribly injured and died on her way to the hospital. Ironically, the force that killed her was provided unknowingly by the mules she was trying to save. Word of her killing stirred a popular reaction in Havana, and a fountain was built and dedicated in her memory.

These heroes of humane action for animals, Señor Russo López and Señora Arredondo, seem obscure today, a full century later, but their spirit lives on--not really in great historical fame--but in the lives and values and actions of millions who support the protection of animals.

Les Inglis

Cemetery Musings

2011-07-29T12:28:00.000-07:00

Cemetery Musings

Twelve years ago on a trip to Argentina, I learned of the Argentine fascination with death. A visit to the Recoleta Cemetery near my hotel made that preoccupation clear. Recoleta has so many mausoleums, monuments and sculptures that walking through it is something like walking through a museum. When I started to travel to Cuba, I learned this interest in one's ancestors isn't limited to Argentina; it's a Latin American thing.

Havana's huge Cristóbal Colón Cemetery far surpasses Recoleta in size, beauty, history, etc. Its elaborate monuments may be unsurpassed in the world. This is a tale of two gravesites in the Colón Cemetery with a little of what they can teach us.

La Milagrosa

On a hot day in August in the first years of the 20th century, a young Cuban wife, Amelia Goyri, died in childbirth. Her little baby girl did not survive the birth either. Her distraught husband, José Adot buried them with the baby placed between her mother's legs, as was the Spanish custom at the time.

José began visiting the gravesite every day, a routine that lasted 40 years until his death. That's remarkable in itself, but it was hardly the most remarkable facet of this story of love and devotion.

A few years after the loss of Amelia and her baby, José's father died, and the grave was opened to accept his remains. A shocking surprise awaited those who attended the father's burial. They stood in stunned disbelief as they saw the baby was nestled in her mother's arms. To the devout Cuban Catholics, this was a true miracle! Today a beautiful monument of a mother holding her baby in one arm and a large cross in the other stands over the grave, and every day at all hours, young people kneel, pray, and light candles, petitioning God to make their babies healthy.

Jeannette Ryder

Jeannette Ryder was a contemporary of Amelia and José. In 1906 in Havana she founded the Banda de Piedad (the group of compassion) and dedicated herself to helping animals for the rest of her life. Devoting all of her time and treasure to helping animals, Jeannette militated against cruelty to animals and bullfights. (Even then bullfighting was illegal in Cuba.) She has appeared in these blogs before (see posting of 7/30/10).

When Jeanette died in 1931, she was buried in Havana's grand Colón Cemetery. Her faithful dog, Rinty, refused to leave her gravesite, and even returned when forcefully removed from the cemetery. He refused food from the cemetery staff and gradually wasted away and died at his mistress' grave. Today a gorgeous bronze covers the grave replicating Jeannette lying in repose. Curled at her feet is Rinty, whose dedication has caused the site to be called La Tumba de la Lealidad (the tomb of loyalty).

The Parallels

José and Rinty remained faithful to their loves for the rest of their lives. Each came to see his loved one honored with an artistic monument. Both graves, only a few blocks apart in the cemetery, have inspired well-known stories now part of the Cuban culture.

While Amelia's gravesite is known as La Milagrosa (The Miracle) and has become a well-known story to Havana's religious people, it is an icon of familial love. Rinti, inspired by his all-consuming love for Jeannette, did something we rather more expect of dogs than people. He refused to leave even to sustain his own life. Consumate loyalty.

Isn't it odd how we sometimes get more love from our animals than we do even from those closest to us?

Les Inglis

2011-07-29T12:26:00.001-07:00

Bigotes

2011-07-24T12:07:00.001-07:00

Bigotes

I suppose one should know a cat's name before one starts to write about her. But I don't. The subject of this little story is a mottled grey female cat who lives at Havana's Presidente Hotel. Lacking her name, I'll call her Bigotes, which means Whiskers in Spanish. Bigotes is the hotel's cat, and she spends most of her time on the wide porches that border the south and east sides of the hotel. She can also be found from time to time in the beautiful pool area on the north side.

The Presidente is 1-1/2 blocks from the Malecon, Havana's coastal highway and alongside Vedado's Avenida de Los Presidentes, arguably the grandest boulevard in Havana. Bigotes lives in a high rent district.

Bigotes looks a lot like Marble, a favorite Calico we had who lived a long and happy life --half of it in one of the barns at our farm. Marble was more colorful than Bigotes (what good is it to be a Calico if she doesn't have lots of color?) But Bigotes is still quite pretty, and, like Marble was, she is well-oriented toward people. The hotel porch and pool areas are filled with tables and chairs, peopled with guests, served by waiters and bar attendants, and patrolled by Bigotes.

I met her on my first trip to Havana six years ago. Missing my own dogs and cats, I would stop to pet her and talk to her whenever I saw her. She liked the attention. On my second stay at the Presidente, I realized she is a long-term, stable resident of the hotel. She's well-fed (probably by some employee of one of the hotel's two very good restaurants), and I could see little bowls of water set around for her. Somebody besides me loves this cat, I thought.

Thus it went through the years, and each time I returned to the Presidente. Bigotes was there for me to enjoy. This year, in March, my traveling companions, Nikki and Mariane, got to know Bigotes as well. They wanted to know if she was spayed and how old she was.. "Yes," George, the younger bellman assured us, "She's 9 years old, spayed and gets good medical attention as needed."

And it couldn't be otherwise, I reasoned. She'd wander away if she didn't have a source of good food, and, if she had not been spayed, a constant procession of litters of kittens would have done her in long ago.

I like the Presidente. Not a slick modern hotel, it was built in 1928. It's economical (about $70 per night compared with $160 for Henry Flagler's masterpiece, Havana's Hotel Nacional.) The Nacional is the twin sister of Palm Beach's The Breakers.

Well, the Presidente isn't as slick as the Nacional, and you won't see many celebrities there, but then the Nacional doesn't have Bigotes for guests to pet.

Les Inglis

Estafadores

2011-07-15T10:40:00.001-07:00

Estafadores

In case the title of this post looks strange to you, it's just the Spanish word for "swindler." Anyone who has traveled outside the US knows you have to be constantly on your guard when you are obviously a tourist. Cuba is the same as most other countries--lots of locals are on the streets to try their cons on the visitors.

As an example of little cons, there's the guy who wants to show you where they make the cigars. He gets a little tip from the cigar factory, and if you buy any, you pay an inflated price. The guy who sat down next to me in the Central Park told me how his little brother is sick and needs milk to get well, but the store that sells milk only takes CUC's, convertible Cuban currency that the locals never have. A peanut vendor sells me a paper cone of nuts and tries to give me worthless old peso coins in change for a 1 CUC coin I gave him.

But recently I learned of bigger cons after bigger money and with far more sinister game plans. If you've read earlier blogs about Cuba the dog and Bella, you know we've devoted some time to rehoming street dogs to families in the north. An expensive and exacting activity, lots of time is needed to work out the details properly.

The usual situation is the tourist sees a street dog begging for food, and falls in love with him or her. That tourist goes home, finds our website, and we get emails asking if there is a way we can find that dog. Perhaps the dog is at a beach resort, a tourist area, or hanging around a hotel. If Aniplant gets involved, we can get veterinary help, a health certificate, and find a way to fly the animal to the US or Canada. Well that's a big job with Aniplant doing the work, but it can be done. We've taken on a number of such projects. Except for the emotional appeal of saving "that little hungry dog I found on vacation," it would be far more efficient to stop by your local shelter and have your choice of breeds, colors, sizes, and ages.

The big swindles can come if the tourist makes that commitment to the dog with only a few days left before he or she must leave and then is forced to rely on strangers to try to keep the dog temporarily, get it vet care, and get it to the airport when you can arrange a ticket to fly it to you. "No problem," the pressed tourist says, "I can pay for any expenses involved" to the helpful stranger near the hotel.

"No problem", says the casual thief, "I am a dog lover, I have a clean place for him to stay, and I know a great vet." The tourist thinks to himself, "someone is up there really looking out for me."

I have no doubt the park swindler with the sick little brother would also immediately offer to give a dog a good temporary home and get him to one of the best vets in town. Like the great retailer, Marshall Field, whose motto was, "give the lady what she wants."

And about how much for a couple of weeks' or a month's fostering, food, vet, etc.? Maybe 300 or 400 CUC's (about 1 CUC per $) will do for now, and the tourist is sure he or she can find a way to send more if there are delays before he is flown to north. The tourist and the thief write down their addresses, phones, even emails, but a week later if you go to that address, the little dog will be gone.

Sue, who didn't initially know about Aniplant, contacted us after returning home, and, at my suggestion, asked Nora to check on the Dachshund dog, Diva, and its "foster home" that she had arranged. The wife of the guy she found in the park gave up the dog to Nora (see picture of the Diva substitute), and Nora emailed its picture to Sue. Guess what? Wrong dog! When they knew a real animal protector was coming, they found a different dog to give to her.

Normally, Nora is very careful to be sure she is receiving the right dog, but the email Sue had sent with pictures went astray, and Nora was flying blind when she got to the house with no idea of what the first dog looked like. But still, the dog needed to be removed from this home--the place wasn't suitable for housing a dog.

Sue, a good soul who had placed many dogs in the past, wants to take both dogs if Diva, the first dog, can be found again. It's bad enough when a dog is abandoned in a strange place by the swindler for easy money, but it can be a death sentence for the dog. At least when street dogs are in familiar environs, they can eke out a living begging for food. Right now we don't know where the first dog is, but we're looking.

In another case, we heard of a traveler who came back to Cuba to get the dog for which she had made casual arrangements with a street person, and found the caretaker demanding a large additional payment--basically a ransom demand.

And even if you aren't swindled and inexperienced people don't handle the dog's paperwork carefully, the dog can be held at the flight destination and possibly even killed by Customs. This could happen even after a successful fostering by a well-meaning friend.

Dogs, cats, cigars, peanut vendors, milk for my little brother--all seem to attract swindlers to scam the tourists' money. Frankly, rehoming a street dog isn't a good idea even when you have qualified help, but how do you tell that to a recent traveler who fell in love with a dog a couple of weeks ago when she was in Cuba?

Les Inglis

Imagine

2011-07-02T13:28:00.000-07:00

Imagine

Imagine you wake to find yourself on the streets of a large city, hungry and scared. You don't seem to have any connections there, and you don't have any idea of where you fit in. There seem to be two kinds of people on the streets and they don't all talk alike. But some, the minority, seem to have more than enough to eat, and they often throw away leftovers. If you're lucky enough to be around when they throw food away, that's what you eat. If not, your old companion, hunge,r always hovers nearby.

Your leg hurts from a run in with a car, and you limp a little. You wonder if it will ever be much better, but at least you did learn to cross the street when people do to avoid other mishaps with cars.

You've learned there are a few people on the streets who like you--even pet you and feed you scraps. You've learned these are usually same the people who look well fed, and you learn to hang out in the part of town where the kinder people congregate. You like them, but they usually walk away. Your beat is hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions.

You can't remember a family or a real home. You remember a little of your mom, and you haven't seen her in a long time. Your memory is more of her smell and feel than what she really looked like. But that's all in the past now--you really don't expect to see her ever again, and that cute little bunch of brothers and sisters you were with were picked up by men in a truck never to be seen again. You wonder if you were lucky the men missed you that day. When there is little food, you're not so sure you were lucky to have been overlooked.

One day a well fed find man paid far more attention to you than you expected, and your life began to change. That man was a tourist, but he picked you up, gave you food and a temporary home and even a bath and lots of medical care. They made your leg stop hurting. You had changed from street dog to companion animal. You learned you had a name, Fidelity, and your temporary caretakers trained you to a cage and a leash. But after several days you wondered where was the kind man who changed your life?

One day a lady picked you up in a car and drove 2 hours to an airport. There they all seemed to make a fuss over you as papers, tickets, and health certificates were bandied about. Finally, stowed in a travel carrier and accompanied by lots of baggage, you are placed in a pressurized, air-conditioned baggage compartment for a 6 hour long, dark and noisy transfer to Toronto Canada.

You felt a spark of recognition as the kind man met the plane around midnight. Others gathered around including reporters flashing their cameras, and suddenly that strange, far away, inhospitable city became a distant memory.

You had one more long flight from Toronto the New Orleans to reach your new forever home with the kind man where you'll never lack for food or medical care or love and companionship again.

Imagine if all street dogs had a good home.

Les Inglis

PS Fidelity arrives at his new home on the same day as this posting.

My Little Black Book

2011-06-25T12:37:00.001-07:00

My Little Black Book

After six years of working with Aniplant, a Cuban organization that protects animals, I have developed an interesting address book of people who have their own links to Cuba. I get calls, here and there, from people who do interesting things in Cuba, sometimes for animals, sometimes for humanitarian projects, and some even for religious work in Cuba.

The first contact in my address book I found browsing on the Internet. I had had a friend, Margaret, who visited Cuba as part of an educational tour to Havana. This was before George Bush cut off such educational contacts. I have always been curious about Cuba, and I wanted to visit there, but Bush moved faster than I did, and tours like the one Margaret took were terminated by the US Government before I could arrange one. But my Internet browsing found Rick Schwag, President of Caribbean Medical Transport, an idiosyncratic lover of The Pearl of the Antilles.

Rick had a license from the US Government to affiliate with people and authorize their trips to Cuba for humanitarian purposes. Thus began our adventure helping Cuban animals. Rick still helps Cuba by sending shipping containers full of donated mattresses, bicycles, wheelchairs, medicines, etc.

Another important contact in my address book is Alex Vicente, my travel agent. Alex is a Cuban American, makes several trips a year from Miami to Havana, and his travel agency, ABC Charters of Miami, arranges charter flights on a regular schedule back and forth to Havana. Many people think travel to Cuba is illegal, but it's not--it's just complicated. Alex can help anyone going for the right reasons.

A woman named Darci Gallati who lives in Canada found her way into my address book. Her organization, Candi International, is a charity that helps people fly newly adopted animals out of the Caribbean to new homes in the north. That activity, too, is complicated, but they're good at it and have made many families more complete with loving adopted companion animals.

My address book is replete with names of veterinarians and vet techs who have traveled to Cuba and participated in Nora's traveling weekend sterilization campaigns--names like Sylvia McAllister, Scott and Paula Mather, Dr. Dick White, and others who have spread their skills far beyond the neighborhoods where they keep their offices.

I could go on for many pages, but you get the idea. This is not just a few animal lovers trying to do good things; it's a huge informal network of good people who have had the kindness to focus on Cuba and make a difference for the animals and people there.

Les Inglis

Iron Curtain Remnants

2011-06-11T11:12:00.001-07:00

Iron Curtain Remnants

I guess there isn't any iron curtain anymore, and its disappearance has lost for us a big subject of curiosity. Most of us never did venture beyond the iron curtain when it did exist, and now satisfying that curiosity isn't even possible. Well, that is if you don't count Cuba.

Cuba happily placed itself behind that curtain shortly after its successful revolution in 1959. They adopted communist ways and we all watched as their gradual separation from our western world took place. Pretty soon it was hard to get there, even though the island is almost our closest neighbor.

Even today, vestiges of life on the other side of the iron curtin remain. On the streets are an inordinate number of Ladas, a little Russian car that looks like a Fiat and doesn't work any better, either. Cars are precious in Cuba, and if one breaks down, it is repaired by any means possible. Cars are never junked, and local mechanics give them more lives than a cat.

But it isn't just the old cars that hint at the iron curtain. Cuba has a fleet of taxis as modern as any. For the most part they are Kias and Hyundais. A few newer Peugeots can be seen as well. These South Korean and French cars come from the western side of the iron curtain, but it is the absence of modern US cars that tells us of the long years of curtained separation.

By far the most impressive vehicles you can see in Cuba today are the new Yutong buses which come from China. They are streamlined, comfortable, quiet, and ubiquitous. It would be hard to find a bus in the US today that matches them as they move tourists to all parts of the island. They pull up and idle at Havana's big hotels while hordes of Brits, Germans, Spanish, and French board, deboard, and move their luggage around. The omnipresence of Yutong buses speaks to the growing influence of China in today's Cuban life.

Yes, if you look, you can still see vestiges of the iron curtain in Cuba, but it is a different country today than it was in the years before the Soviet Union self destructed. Then it was a secretive, cloistered place suspicious of strangers, while today's Cuba courts tourists from anywhere and moves them around their lovely island in the most beautiful buses you've ever seen.

Les Inglis

A Better Answer

2011-05-27T14:16:00.000-07:00

A Better Answer

If you're a Canadian, you don't have any tropical vacation spots in your own country--you have to plan international travel to sit on a beach under a palm tree and enjoy the sound of the waves and the feel of the breeze. So you get on a plane, and if you don't want to go further than necessary, you land in Cuba, The Pearl of the Antilles, and the former crown jewel in the Spanish Empire. And the beaches are spectacular, the weather perfect, and the people are friendly. No wonder so many Canadians make the trip. There are no travel restrictions to fight as we have to do here in the US.

Most Canadians love their vacations in Cuba, and few have anything negative to say about their holidays there. One exception we hear is that many deplore the large number of street dogs and strays they see in Cuba. Like other third world places, animals don't get much humane treatment there. But a number of Canadians with kind hearts want to do something about the strays. Often they take pity on the stray and try to arrange its adoption and move back to Canada when they get back home.

Too often we get calls about a dog or a puppy near a resort that is accepting handout food from the tourists and seems to beg to be adopted and taken far away to a new home.

It's hard to counsel people who've allowed some hungry little dog to steal their heart, and who've searched the Internet for someone to help save the unfortunate little animal. But we feel obligated to educate these good-hearted people in the realities of saving the street dogs of Cuba. To arrange a successful adoption and transport takes much more time and money than you might think.

First there's the problem of finding the animal, and then you have to verify that it doesn't have an owner. If this takes place in many parts of Cuba, that might mean a long round trip from Havana for a vet or a volunteer. It could take two trips to find the right dog and bring it to Havana.

Then there's arranging a foster home for at least two weeks, vet exams, deparisitazions, more vet tests, waiting for test results, and arranging air transportation back to Canada. Most of these projects cost more than $500 in expenses before the dog is put on a plane (and this number does not include air transportation charges).

Yes, it might be nice to bring that little lovable animal into your home and to be able to tell your friends of the sad plight he or she faced when found. But for all that time and expense, how much more have you done to reduce animal suffering than if you had visited your local animal shelter and picked out a healthy, life-long friend from a huge range of breeds, sizes, shapes and colors?

No, as much as we all want to help save a hungry street dog from his stark, unhappy street life, we have to realize that isn't always the best answer. We need to stay focused on our main activity, conducting massive spay-neuter campaigns. That, at least, helps street animals by drastically reducing their numbers.

When we discourage these kind souls who want to help, it isn't for lack of compassion--we've got it in spades--it's because we have a better answer. We don't want to seem callous, but we have to focus our energies where we can do the most good for Cuba's animals.

Les Inglis

Our Cost Rican Connection

2011-05-22T12:05:00.001-07:00

Our Costa Rican Connection
You've heard lots in these blogs about Nora Garcia, Aniplant's President. Nora is the central nervous system of animal protection in Cuba. But this time I want to write about another woman who has played an indispensable role in our work in Cuba.
Lilian Schnog is a Dutch woman who comes from Aruba. Years ago she and her husband, Ben, made the move from Aruba to Costa Rica, settling into a beautiful home halfway up a mountain, near the capital, San Jose. Many years ago, I was a Director of HSUS at the time I first heard of Lilian. John Hoyt, HSUS's President and I were talking about the formation of HSI, Humane Society International, when he told me he was making a quick trip to Florida. Lilian had called him and wanted to meet and talk with him about some problems at the WSPA (World Society for Protection of Animals) shelter near her home where she volunteered her time to help the animals.
John met with Lilian and agreed there should be changes at the shelter. Lilian was willing to make a major contribution to acquire the WSPA shelter and animal hospital if she had the support of HSUS, which Hoyt was willing to promise. Her plan was put into effect, and Lilian replaced WSPA's shelter manager and began to run the enterprise, certainly in a more humane fashion.
About that time I made two trips to Costa Rica and was able to see the changes for myself. Lilian was in charge, doing really important work, and HSI had people visiting to advise on improving the animal hospital function. Over the years, HSI and AHPPA, (Asociación Humana Para la Protección de Animales), Lilian's shelter, have maintained their association and in a recent year, Lilian was awarded HSI's highest honor for animal protectors.
When we wanted to supply anesthesia medicines, to Aniplant's spay-neuter campaigns, we needed a source of the meds and a way to get them into Cuba reliably. Lilian did some checking and found out there are no restrictions on trade between Cuba and Costa Rica. She works regularly with a distributor of medicines who exports to Cuba. So our problems were solved. If we could pay for the needed meds, Lilian could buy them and have them shipped to Nora in Cuba. We've done this several times now, and we have a reliable, legal way to ship drugs that Nora cannot otherwise acquire. Also, both Lilian and Nora are certified as persons who can buy, store, and handle controlled substances, which many of the drugs we buy are.
There are many wonderful people who work to help animals. Some are right in our home towns and some are spread out across the globe. We, and the dogs and cats of Cuba, are fortunate to have Lilian Schnog as a friend and a participant in what we are doing in Cuba.

Les Inglis

Doggie Bags

2011-05-15T12:52:00.000-07:00

Doggie Bags

Walk around the older parts of Havana and you'll conclude that Cubans spend lots of time sitting on their front stoops. It doesn't matter that the front door is open, as most of these houses don't have air-conditioning. So the door and most of the windows are open, and the owner sits on the step up to the front door with his feet out on the sidewalk.
And the family dog? He's inside unless it's time for him to go out. Then he just lets himself out. The owner doesn't worry about the dog getting lost because he knows the dog will show up at dinner time when his food is set out or even sooner when it's time to get in the shade to avoid the hot sun. So the whole thing about keeping a dog is a pretty casual affair, both on the owner's aprt and on the part of the dog.
Dogs in Cuba almost always get the table scraps from the family's dinner table. You can't buy commercial dog food there unless you're very rich or have CUC's (tourist money) to spend. Neither CUC's nor riches are common in the hands of Cuban people, so table scraps it is for the dog. A few lucky dogs are fed a cooked down mixture of rough rice and slaughterhouse waste (fat, scraps, brains, eyeballs, etc, etc.) That's what the eight dogs who live at Aniplant's headquarters get.
You may already have asked yourself how you can tell if a dog on the street is a family pet or a stray. I'm sorry to say there is no certain test, as Cuban dogs seldom sport collars or ID tags. One not very accurate test is to look at his body. If the ribs are not easy to see, it might be someone's pet, just out for a little pit stop.
No Cuban leaves food on plates in a restaurant, and when I'm there I don't either. You ask for a foam plastic box or perhaps carry a supply of plastic shopping bags like Nora does. Cubans define "doggie bags" better than anywhere else. Here is a country full of animal lovers who share their scant provisions with their animal companions.
When I walk away from a restaurant with a plastic box full of leftovers, I immediately look for a hungry animal, but then I'm faced with the question, which dogs are pets being fed, and which are truly needy street dogs. And one should not make quick decisions in that situation. If I see a dog near a stoop sitter, I ask if that's his dog. I wouldn't want anyone feeding my dogs something, and he probably wouldn't either. I'll offer the owner some of my leftovers if he wants, but I'm really looking for an animal whose ribs are showing. When I find one and no apparent owner is near, there's little difficulty in getting him to eat.
I'm thinking , "Good, now I don't have to carry this box of leftovers around," and the dog is thinking, "Good, now I don't have to be hungry all day."
Les Inglis

Our Neighborhood Feud

2011-04-30T08:15:00.000-07:00

Our Neighborhood Feud

I gave a little talk at a nearby Rotary Club this week, and I decided to call the talk, "A Cuban Scrapbook." While planning what to say, I felt I couldn't only talk about our work with the animals there. I knew I'd have to give them a little background on Cuban and US history and relations.

This year we mark 50 years since the US and Cuba broke off diplomatic relations. For the first 16 of those years there wasn't even an interests section for the other country in either capital.

With such a long freeze in relations, there's little wonder US citizens know very little about Cuba. And yet, before the current estrangement, the US and Cuba had a huge amount of interaction. At the time of the Castro Revolution (1959), the US owned 71% of all the business in Cuba and 76% of all its arable land. Pre-Castro, there were lots of Americans in Cuba and vice versa. Today it's a fight to travel between the two countries, and most people avoid the fight and don't even go.

So I sketched some of what it was like in the old days when the two countries were on good terms. We moved rapidly from 1492 to 1898, the Spanish Colony years--all except for 1762 when the British occupied a small part of Cuba. Later The Brits traded their Cuban holdings for Spain's part of Florida. (I wonder who got the better of that deal?)

Finally I got around to why I go to Cuba. That is to help Aniplant protect Cuban animals. Our little charity, The Aniplant Project (TAP), raises money to help Aniplant in its projects. TAP really got going in 2007, and the cooperation between TAP and Aniplant has been growing every year since then. Take a look at some then and now comparisons:

Item /Then/ Now
Sterilizations yr /624 / 3077
Headquarters /8th floor, broken elev/ restored 1st fl showplace
Isolation /no visits to US for years /2 visits in 2 years for Nora
Anesthesia meds /hospital cast off- outdated /fresh modern vet drugs
Electrocute strays /frequent /completely ended

We're not bragging, just trying to show how things are changing for Cuba's animals. Also the rapid growth of animal protection work is partly due to pent up demand from earlier years.

And for every dog or cat that is sterilized, the population of street animals is reduced by thousands in a few years.

Les Inglis

Getting There

2011-04-22T13:10:00.001-07:00

Getting There

Getting to Cuba for a US citizen isn't easy, but it can be done. Most people who want to go are shy about running the gauntlet of rules and regulations that form the US embargo of Cuba. But if you dig in and wade through the regulations, it all begins to make a little sense, and there are plenty of people to help you. First, Google the Office of Foreign Assets Control--OFAC will do. After you have passed though the rules covering travel to Cuba, it won't seem so difficult.
You'll need to fall under one of three main areas which allow travelers to go to Cuba--Humanitarian, Religious, and Research. These classes of travelers can affiliate with one of many organizations licensed by the US government to authorize your travel. Many people can find something in their background or education to link them to one of these three exception areas. Also, under recent changes promulgated by the Obama administration, educational trips for small groups are now being offered to promote people to people exchanges.
As a starting point, you'll use a travel agent licensed by the US government to arrange Cuba travel. I can direct you to a good one in Miami if you need it.
But every i must be dotted, and every t must be crossed if you go. In November 2009, two friends and I ran into a real problem as we arrived at Miami's airport for a week in Cuba. The desk man studied our papers for a long while and then told us we had the wrong kind of a Cuban visa, and we could not travel that day. It was unbelievable, having jumped all the hurdles we were told to. It seemed the licensee was a religious organization, and our Cuban visa was for tourists. Well, Cuba requires a special kind of visa for religious organizations, and it levies fines on airlines that don't get the paperwork right. It hadn't been our fault as we never intended to do religious work, but we couldn't go that day.
We were crestfallen after months of planning, preparations and driving 240 miles to Miami's airport. We slowly gathered up our luggage and went out toward the parking lot, hardly knowing what to do next. Before we got to the garage, I heard a man running after us and yelling for us to stop. It was the desk agent, and he told me he had found a loophole that would allow us to go after all. Back inside he adjusted our paperwork and passed us on through. I was so grateful, I offered him a nice tip, but he wouldn't take it--explaining he was just doing his job.
The reason for telling this little story is to illustrate how you have to be ready for adventure if you want to go legally. It's still a little like buying a ticket on a roller coaster.
As for those who would sidestep the formalities and fly to Havana through a third country, my advice is don't do it. Like the old saying, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature." Don't mess around with Uncle Sam either.
Sometimes even when you try to do everything right, you can still run into trouble. Thankfully, we were helped by a ticket agent who must have known how important our trip was to us.
Les Inglis

El Acuario

2011-04-10T11:30:00.001-07:00

El Acuario
You couldn't pay me to go to Sea World. This attraction that offers performing dolphins and whales is iconic among animal rights folks as a place to hate. And why not? They capture sea mammals and teach them to do tricks for the paying customers. Once made into a Sea World performer, a dolphin or whale will never know free swimming again and will always be constrained to circle endlessly in what amounts to large swimming pools. And, after a few weeks or months of this captivity, these animals lose their ability to hunt for food. That is the final insult. Even if we freed them all, they'd die in the wild.
But we decided to visit El Acuario in Miramar near Havana--more to understand what it is than to patronize exploitation. El Acuario is right next to the sea, and, during recent hurricanes, storm surges had invaded the property, damaged some buildings and caused the escape of some performing dolphins, probably followed by their starving to death. Restorations of the buildings were underway, but moving slowly--it had been years since the hurricanes. We wandered the grounds waiting for show time, and we stared at the non-performing captives--turtles, sea birds, and other small animals.
When it came time to be seated for the show, we had our choice of seats, and we moved to the center of a circular bleacher structure, about half way up to the top. There, before us, was a large, oval shaped pool with gates controlling access to two smaller pools, one on either side of the main pool. Large, flat stage areas were in front of and behind the large pool where the trainers did their work. There were two male and two female trainers and plenty of buckets of fish used by the trainers as rewards for tricks well done.
I commented to Nora that the dolphins seemed happy, and she wisely told me not to confuse the calmness that comes with resignation with contentment. Mulling that over, I thought how sad not to be able to swim in a straight line for more than a few yards. And how sad to be fed from a bucket instead of hunting and chasing your dinner. How defeated a new performer must be when he senses he'll never again explore a new part of the sea.
The show was professional and entertaining, the long days of training to get them to do their tricks was evident if you thought about it. But in El Acuario as well as in Sea World the show is designed to keep you from thinking about the captivity, the resignation, or their loss of freedom.
Thankfully El Acuario has no orcas or killer whales. It's quite enough to think about these exploited dolphins, prisoners of animal exploitation. As the show ended, we were invited to a small group that gathered on one of the stages to pet two dolphins who beached themselves so we could pet them. I wondered what they thought of us as we petted them, and even talked to them.
Les Inglis

It Just Doesn't Get Better Than This

2011-04-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

It Just Doesn't Get Better Than This
They say that men and dogs formed their historic symbiotic alliance shortly after men congregated in communities. More adventurous wolves would set aside their fear of men and approach them in their refuse dumps. They had so much to give to each other that a historic cooperation of the two species formed and grew rapidly. Dogs provided men with security, protection, and hunting cooperation and received food from mankind's leftovers. Both species offered the other faithful commitment and received companionship, the most valuable gift of all.
Now, thousands of years later the bonding has continued and permeates most of our lives. Hector, a Cuban boy in the early grades, walks home in his school uniform and comes across a stray puppy, pausing to play with him. When he knows he must get on home, he walks off, but the puppy follows, crossing streets wisely only when Hector does. By the time they get to Hector's house, the dog has a name, Coco, after Hector's best friend who moved away months ago.
"Can I please keep him, Mom? Please?" We all know how those conversations go. This mom loves her son enough to allow Coco into the family in spite of the extra cleaning work he'll cause and the need to share out the family's food a little further. She knows what the dog can add to Hector's life.
She has given him a great gift--something far better than a toy soldier or a bike. That gift will last longer in Hector's life than even Coco will. In no time Hector will learn what a true friend his dog is. He'll learn loyalty, dedication, companionship, and responsibility, and sadly, even separation and loss someday when Coco dies. But Hector will replace Coco with other dogs and enjoy their company his whole life.
This story is repeated millions of time a year. It took place in Cuba, but something like it is happening everywhere, everyday. It has happened to me perhaps 20 times in a long life, and I can still feel the presence of dogs long gone while I love the ones still here. Sometimes when I put my arms around Peachy, our big Golden Doodle as she walks by my chair, I feel Boy, a German Shepherd who used to sit next to me on our back porch stairs. Even though Boy left us twenty years ago, it's all still there, the love, the feelings, the happiness.
I couldn't imagine a life without dogs. I hope I never have to.
Les Inglis

Man's Best Friend

2011-03-26T10:23:00.001-07:00

Man's Best Friend
Usually these blogs are about Cuban animals or Cuban people, but this time I want to start with an American dog named Danny Boy. We came to know Danny when he was boarded at our vet's office while his master had surgery. Danny is a beautiful example of a Border Collie with symetrical black and white markings. Our vet showed him to us after hearing that his master died during surgery. We went home that night talking about adopting him, and by morning it was decided: we wanted him. When we called, his master's wife (who never liked the dog) had already picked him up to take him to a shelter.
A few phone calls later, we found Danny at Sarasota's Humane Society, and they agreed to hold him until we could pick him up. At 9 years old, Danny knew the ropes. He immediately got along with our other dogs and with our cats. We learned how smart Border Collies are when he needed only about two minutes to teach me to play toss with him. (I'm a fast learner, but he's an even faster teacher.)
But Danny does one thing better than all the other things he does--he is absolutely loyal to his master--and now that's me. When I wake up in the morning and get out of bed, he comes around the end of the bed as if to say, "good morning." Not most days--every day. When I'm writing or reading or using the computer, he's right there in sight and he moves from room to room with me always.
I heard a story about a dog in Cuba who reminds me so much of Danny. Baldo was another dog completely dedicated to his master. His master became sick and had to enter the hospital, and Baldo waited at the hospital entrance, expecting to see his master when he was discharged. Tragically, his master died in the hospital, but Baldo didn't know it.
Someone must have taken pity on Baldo and must have given him food and water, because Baldo maintained his vigil for 15 days without leaving. Finally some good soul called Nora Garcia, the President of Aniplant, Cuba's only official animal protection organization. Nora found Baldo and arranged for his adoption by a new family. Now, years later, Baldo is alive and well and focusing his love and faith on a new master.
Danny, Baldo, and countless other dogs prove every day that dogs deserve their "man's best friend" description. They'll stick with you through thick and thin--through happy times and adversity. They don't care if you are rich or poor--good looking or ugly. All they really want is the occasional demonstration of love--a pat on the head or a scratch on the neck, and they'll become your loyal friend for life.
Les Inglis

Learning in Another Land

2011-03-19T06:53:00.001-07:00

Learning in Another Land
We were walking up Havana's most famous old street, The Prado. The street has a large, park-like central walkway, elevated a few steps above from the lanes of traffic to either side and shaded with century old trees. Kids were playing in the walkway while adults watched them from benches on either side of the parkway. There is something special about this street with many of the buildings on either side restored. We crossed the traffic lanes and walked up the small sidewalk next to the buildings. We looked into an open window and saw about ten young children quietly reading, and my friend, Nikki, who is a teacher from Holland, spoke to the young lady who was obviously in charge of the children.
She told us in good English this was a temporary location for her library. She was teaching reading to the kids, who were all dressed in the standard uniform of all the primary grade school kids in the country. I was stricken with the perfectly quiet and obedient manner of the children. They each had a reading assignment. The teacher invited us inside the library. Books were piled on tables and shelves, and every child had a book and was reading with great interest. Except for brief initial peeks to see who these strangers were, their heads turned back to their books, and there was not even a hint of talking among the children.
I remembered my own grade school classes, and how the arrival of someone new in the classroom was always an excuse for some chatter with the other kids. My teachers seemed to tolerate this break in discipline for a short while, but it didn't happen in Cuba. No, Cubans of any age take education very seriously, and when it is time to study, no other activities are permitted or tolerated. It wasn't just this small group of readers--you could see the respect in the uniformed boys and girls at the grade school across the street from our hotel. When classes were done, they lined up for their rides or walked along the sidewalks talking politely. There were no antics, no exceptions to the decorum, even after school was out. The same was true before classes, when they all took their positions in the school yard to pledge the flag and sing the national anthem.
As we left the library and the small class of readers, there were practically no eyes lifted from the pages. These kids were completely engrossed in their books, the way any serious reader would be. Education in Cuba is a respected right of every individual. They seem to regard it as sacred, and the idea of causing a disruption is the farthest thing from the minds of the students. Surely this attitude is carried forward into adulthood for many. Cuban radio has lots of music and some drama and comedy shows, but above all, are the news programs and the didactic programs. Aniplant presents three radio shows now and one television show every week on animal protection. If Cubans want to learn something about caring for their dogs, they listen to their radios. It isn't hard to find one of Nora Garcia's little lessons about man's best friends.
Judging by the number of people who stop Nora on the street for advice about their pets, the advice she offers about animals is just one more kind of education that informs the lives of Cubans.
Les Inglis

Alicia and the Drainpipe

2011-03-11T12:33:00.001-08:00

Alicia and the Drainpipe

Ballet audiences around the world from New York to Monte Carlo to Havana love her as Cuba's prima ballerina, but I love her for her love of animals. And Alicia Alonso Martínez deserves all the love she gets for whatever reasons. She has lived and danced in many places, winning fame and fortune as she stirred ballet audiences. For the animals, she has been a friend and supporter of Havana's Aniplant, the country's only recognized animal protection organization. This is a story of her love for animals.
Alicia, in her role as director of the National Ballet had charge of the National Museum of the Dance, an impressive mansion on Havana's spectacular Avenida de los Presidentes. The museum had its cat mascots, and one had had a litter of kittens. One adventurous kit explored too far and disappeared falling from a gutter into a drainpipe. When the museum staff discovered one kitten was missing, they called Aniplant for help. Everyone scrambled to find the kit, and eventually someone heard the soft calls from inside the drainpipe. The kitty was stuck at a turn in the pipe. Firemen were called, but they were reluctant to cut open the pipe on the historic old house.
Alicia, never uncertain about helping animals, gave the order: "Cut whatever you have to to save the kitty." And cut they did to find the kitten unharmed and safe. The firemen who first spotted the little creature had to pull the cat out by its tail, squawking and scratching.
All this was years ago, but the little cat went on to become the museum's mascot, and Nora, Aniplant's President, says that cat still lives there in the mansion on Vedado's most beautiful street.
This story reminds me that we think we know famous people from their public performances and their publicity, but we really don't. They all have private lives, some just as interesting as their public lives. In another example of her love for animals, Alicia was recuperating from an eye operation when she ignored her doctors' orders not to move around and took her dogs for a walk. Surely she deserves her being named a "Person of Culture" by Cuba, and not just for her dancing.
Les Inglis

Las Terrazas

2011-02-18T11:40:00.000-08:00

Las Terrazas
Less than an hour's drive west of Havana puts you well into Pinar del Río, Cuba's westernmost province. The little town of Las Terrazas is not very old, but its big attraction is nature, not history. In 1984, UNESCO designated the area as one of its Biosphere Reserves, and the Cuban government built the little town to accommodate the tourists it would certainly draw. As our van left the main highway, we bounced along increasingly narrower roads, climbing into the Sierra del Rosario Mountains.
We seemed to be in an ageless jungle with a huge variety of lush greenery, but our guide told us that this was all a huge coffee plantation not so many years before. For whatever reasons, the coffee growers left this region for Cuba's eastern provinces. Coffee horticulture gone, the land was bare and terraced for a short time until the tropical jungle quickly reclaimed its own. Now you have to look hard to see evidence of the terraces, hidden by the thick leaves, vines and branches.
The small village of Las Terrazas has a super restaurant called EL Romero, a few gift shops full of locally made artworks, and a stunning tourist hotel with an open air lobby to take advantage of the tropical climate. Hikers' paths wind through the mountain, crossing streams, climbing and falling. The day we were there, tourists decked out as hikers trod every visible trail.
We had dinner at El Romero, and our guide for the day was Tito, the man who had developed the restaurant for its owner, the Cuban government. Tito's specialty is using locally available foods, and the menu is completely created using only foods grown locally. For example, the delightful salad was made of lotus shoots which were harvested from plants growing in the shallow waters of the mountain lake we gazed at from the restaurant balcony. We bought books of El Romero recipes, presented on compact discs, and when I got home I Googled for a source of lotus shoots. All I could find was one source on the other side of the world in Burma. I have a suggestion for Fidel and Raul: export lotus shoots, and you'll have more export business. I'll be the first customer.
As we dined, peafowl and other domestic birds paraded the grounds around the restaurant. They knew they were safe as the "local foods" served at El Romero are plant based foods only--no carnivores, please.. The other dishes rivaled the salad, and we all ordered something different, and we shared among our group. Tito was not only the creator of a terrific dinner, he was a local celebrity, and our van was waved through any gates where others had to pay an entrance fee.
As it happens, the island of Cuba is at its narrowest at Las Terrazas. It's only 40 miles from the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Straits to the north to the Caribbean Sea to the south. And, how fortunate the Sierra del Rosario Mountains are right there. We got back on the bus and ground up a little road, sometimes no more than two tire tracks and a little gravel. At the summit was the old head office of the coffee plantation, and everywhere you looked it was downhill. But, most surprising you could see both bodies of water, the Gulf and the Sea, in the clear times between the passage of wispy little clouds. Yes, the entire width of the island was within our range of vision.
Most people will agree Cuba is a beautiful place, and those who have visited Las Terrazas understand why UNESCO chose this beautiful area as one of its Biological Reserves.
Les Inglis

The First Day

2011-02-04T10:49:00.000-08:00

The First Day

Well, today is the first day of the rest of my life. How many times have I heard that exhortation to begin anew--that reminder that opportunity offers itself every day if only we can recognize it when it knocks?

For a guy who retired sort of early without much of a plan, I've had a long time to try things to occupy me, but not many of the ways I have busied myself have been filled with meaning and importance. Well, that is until a Wednesday in November, 2005 when I came to know Aniplant, an animal protection group in Havana Cuba. Surely that day turned out to be the first day of the rest of my life.

I met Nora Garcia, Aniplant's President that day, and she began to show me the very different world Cuba's animals face. I thought I knew something about animal protection before that day, but I've been learning more every day since then. Cuba, like many smaller, poorer countries, has too many dogs and cats loose on the streets. Some have homes, and others face life as homeless waifs hoping to find something to eat, and coping with illness and occasional abuse.

Meeting Nora then was the start of a long cooperation that has included furnishing drugs and supplies for vets, funding anesthesia meds for Aniplant's spay-neuter campaigns, hosting her in our home so she could meet local contributors, traveling to and participating in Expo 2010, a convention for animal shelter operators, and visiting a number of Cuban activities associated with animals. As time has gone by, there has been more and more to do.

It didn't abate when my wife, Charlene, became active in Aniplant. In addition to being the only good typist in our house, she is the most informed person on animal issues I know. She believed, rightly so, we should formalize our work, and she singlehandedly created, applied for, and/or secured our 501(c)(3) from the IRS, our incorporation from the state, our registration as a charity in the State of Florida, our website (http://theaniplantproject.org) , and today she acts as critical proofreader of my scribblings in this blog.

We see no and seek no end to our task of helping Aniplant. Thus that day in 2005, whether we could have guessed it or not, was the first day of the rest of both of our lives.

Les Inglis

Starving Lion

2011-01-28T08:11:00.000-08:00

Starving Lion

The word "emaciated" did not begin to describe the lion--you could see every rib, and he looked sick, tired, and old, not the king of the jungle he was meant to be. He paced along his enclosure, and a sympathetic tourist snapped his pictures. That tourist felt the lion was being abused and sent the pictures to PETA, the wonderful animal rights group in Norfolk, VA. On December 4th the matter came to me, and I was asked to see if we could help the lion through Aniplant, Nora Garcia's animal protection organization in Havana. Of course we had to try.

As it turned out, the zoo was in Santiago de Cuba, 500 miles from Havana at the extreme eastern end of the island. It couldn't have been farther away. But distance is no obstacle for Nora, who has animal friendly connections in all parts of Cuba. My contact at PETA was Stephanie Bell, their manager of cruelty investigations, and the nearly two months it took to resolve the matter seemed like an eternity to both of us.

Nora, in the meantime, got a report on the lion from a local supporter. As it happened, Aniplant was forming an investigative committee to evaluate conditions at zoos across the country. She used Aniplant's position as the only officially permitted animal protection organization, and her new committee to bring the lion's plight to the attention of powerful officials in the area.

Nora quietly pressed forward with a plan to help the lion, while Stephanie and I woke up each morning hoping the lion had not died. His picture surely looked like he was at death's door. On January 24 we got Nora's report, which I'll let speak for itself:

Dear Les,

Now we can report on the lion--at least the real information we got from the new director of the zoo.

The lion is timid, fearful, frightened, and did not have adequate attention, and as a result, its two companions ate while he hardly did.

This situation was not treated nor solved by the Park Director, and there were many complaints about the poor animal.

The intervention of the Party Director in that province (a high official) and the Popular Power and the Minister of Environment (another high official) and of course of Aniplant was achieved.

Solution: The old Director of the Park who had been there 30 years was fired, and his duties spread to other employees.

The lion is very young, hardly one year old, is now isolated and is eating alone. He's receiving vitamins and minerals (in short supply in Cuba) and he has gained some weight, judging by recent photos. He isn't on exhibition. He's not sick, but he is recovering.

The current Director, appointed only a week ago, is named Kenia Ortíz Reyes, a graduate in Social Communication and she has lots of motivation and compassion.

There are 13 lions in the zoo including the timid one, 2 black and one brown bear, and a rhinoceros. A hippo died a short time ago of something he ate--bad digestion. There are also birds, and other smaller animals.

The Park Director appreciates the interest shown and hopes for collaboration and help to improve conditions for the animals.

We are well connected with the Director and she and I phone each other often.

Whatever additional information won't have such a delay--it will be very rapid.

I hope you and Charlene and Stephanie understand the wait and that you understand my report.

A hug and kiss,

Nora

Les' note: I love happy endings

Street Animals

2011-01-14T11:07:00.000-08:00

Street Animals

Animal lovers who travel to Cuba usually spot homeless dogs on the streets. They often are pitiful, emaciated, and sick. It's only natural to want to save them and even adopt them.

Thus (TAP) and Aniplant often get requests to find and rescue a given dog, get it healthy, and then ship it to a new home in the US or Canada. Usually these requests come via email from the travelers after they've returned home. We try to help when we can, but this is a very inefficient use of our resources and those of the traveler.

First of all, street dogs aren't always easy to find. They often keep moving in search of anything they can eat. Also, usually they are sick. If we are lucky enough to find an animal, we have to find a foster home for it, get vet treatment and inoculations, await some test results, coordinate with airlines, buy a travel carrier (at inflated tourist prices), travel to the airport, and coordinate all this (with translations) via email with the new adoptive family. If needed, travel to other cities away from Havana means renting a car, hotel stays, etc. The traveler must bear all of these costs.

A far more efficient approach is to leave the street dog in Cuba and visit an animal shelter near your home for your new companion. You'll find a large variety of healthy animals (more than 30% are purebred, if you want a specific type), and very reasonable costs.

We certainly hate to pass by those poor sick animals we see on the street, but we must keep our eye on our objective, which is to spay and neuter as many animals in Cuba as possible. Ultimately this is the only practical wayto address overpopulation of dogs and cats in any locality. We are not being cruel when we resist out-of-country adoptions--we're merely addressing their plight in a more effective, although longer term, way.

But if you have your heart set on bringing an animal home with you, plan ahead. Travel with a pet carrier, and plan to be there at least 7 days after getting the dog for vet work and tests, and arrange to fly your new friend on the same plane you use to return home. It will be expensive and demanding, but we all know how hard it is to try to put those sad, skinny creatures out of your mind and keep on walking. Rescue one if you must, but understand how much it will really require in cost, time, and effort.

Les Inglis

Cuba's Strays

2011-01-07T12:43:00.000-08:00

Cuba's Strays

After Cuba the Dog flew from Cuba to Toronto, his new best friend, Ashley, talked to a couple of reporters, and suddenly Cuba was in the news. Newspaper and magazine articles told locals of the lucky little puppy from a roadside zoo near Holguin, Cuba who was so cute that Ashley fought to find a way to rescue him and ship him to her in Canada. It was a story with a happy ending.

But for every Ashley who visits Cuba, there are hundreds of tourists who go there, see pitiful dogs on the streets in distress and go home resigned to the hopelessness of it all. Of course it isn't just Cuba. In some third world countries the dogs have it even worse. But we're here to tell Cuba stories, and, regarding stray dogs on the street, there is much to talk about.

Rachel had been to Viñales on the north coast in the western part of Cuba. She didn't focus on a particular dog, but commented on their generally poor condition--ribs showing, skin in terrible condition. And they looked desperate and hopeless. Some say animals have no human emotions, but real animal lovers can see the stress in their faces.

Rachel suggested that perhaps tour guides should be working to help the strays because the sight of them is a downer for their clients, the tourists. Well, interestingly we had that idea come up before. Juan was a tour guide on a tour bus that ran from Havana to the Cuban city of Trinidad. At a rest stop, Peggy spotted a hungry stray dog and gave her lunch to her. She befriended Juan thinking that she might have his help in finding the dog later and in sending it to her in Massachusetts.

With a little detective work and the Internet, Nora found Juan and learned the number of the room in a Havana hotel where he stayed between bus trips. When she finally got him on the phone, he made it clear he couldn't be bothered helping a dog. Why had he been so friendly with Peggy, exchanging cards and offering to help? Well that was before tip time. After the tourists file off the bus and press a gratuity into his hands, Juan is focused on the next busload. Tour guides have enviable jobs because of their contact with foreigners and especially because their tips are in hard currencies, which will buy whatever you want in Cuba. I've heard stories of doctors who took jobs as taxi drivers to have access to hard currencies. Even the jobs of hotel chambermaids are enviable for the same reason.

Charlene and I saw the same attitude in Puerto Rico when we chartered a car to take us from San Jose to Ponce on the other side of the island. Nearing Ponce, we spotted an emaciated horse with hooves grown way too long--a pitiful picture of cruel neglect. It bothered Charlene so much she called our driver when we got back home. She wanted to connect with the owner or a rescuer, provide some food and try to save the poor creature. Well, it was the same thing as Juan in Cuba. After tip time, there is little willingness to get involved in rescuing an animal. And don't depend on tourist resistance to force a change. Nora writes, "The suffering seen by tourists affects only a few of them, not a large majority." Yes, unfortunately, if you are true animal lover, you're a rare bird.

And even though the government pushes tourism in Cuba, they have few resources for helping animals beyond collecting strays off the streets and killing them. Nora said, "You can't get permission to collect charity for animals without their bringing up other causes like sick children, AIDS, schools, and milk funds. They always bring up something seen as more important than the animals."

We keep coming back to a perennial truth. Massive spay-neuter campaigns are the only effective answer to the overpopulation of homeless animals. HSI is running a program for 15,000 operations with government help in Nepal. In Cuba, the animals' best hope is Nora and Aniplant and its group of volunteers.

Les Inglis

Refuge

2010-12-31T07:36:00.000-08:00

Refuge

Here in the US, animal refuges perform a service for society as a whole. In our modern era it is thought cruel to abandon a dog or cat, and why not? Both dogs and cats have lived for thousands of years as partners with human beings, and they have developed a symbiotic relationship with us. From the time long ago when the first wolves dared to come a little closer to humans in their garbage dumps and were thus rewarded with some discarded scraps of food, dogs--and to a lesser extent cats--have been giving up their independence bit by bit to earn a living as our companions.

And what did we get from this growing relationship? Well, watchdogs for one thing, hunting helpers for another, and just plain enjoyable companionship. Yes, our domestic animals--our home companions--have been gaining a living in return for giving up their original antagonism to us and standoffishness from us. After a few thousand years of this developing relationship, our dog and cat friends can no longer fend for themselves in the wild. Indeed, anyone who dumps a cat in the country thinking he will be able to live on the birds and field mice he can catch is fooling himself and betraying the cat.

So it makes sense we would come to recognize our duty to our symbiotic animal friends and establish shelters, refuges, and pounds to avoid their starving to death when they become homeless for any reason. Even though many such unfortunate animals are killed (hopefully by humane methods), such an end is better than condemning them to sickness and starvation without a home. Thus nearly every community has some provision for homeless dogs and cats. It's a societal obligation and rightly so.

In Cuba, privation is ubiquitous, and there is little resource to be devoted to cats and dogs. The government tries to sweep strays from the streets in an attempt to control rabies and present a prettier environment for tourists. But such dog and cat orphans caught in those sweeps are only held for a short time and then killed, often by poisoning. It's a national shame.

I have often said the Cuban people love animals, and one way they have shown that love is that a few have stepped in to try to offer homeless animals a place to live. Rosa runs a refuge for dogs, Rebecca one for cats, and Jose for both. Across the country are good souls who take in and care for animals. They strain their own comfort and well-being to provide some for their canine and feline charges. In doing so, they provide a valuable service for society at large.

The refuge operators are motivated by their love for animals, not by any monetary rewards. Some, who know they must limit the numbers they can help, live stable, enjoyable lives. Others who don't set reasonable limits progress into what we call animal collectors. These, unfortunately, do no favors for themselves or the animals--they only spread misery and often hunger and sickness among their collections.

Still, well controlled or not, Cuba's private animal refuges try to discharge their communities' duties to our animal partners, even if their efforts seem makeshift by modern sheltering standards. Aniplant tries to help these refuges with advice, medical help, and some food rations.

Les Inglis

Cuban Zoos

2010-12-24T06:08:00.000-08:00

Cuban Zoos

Most animal protectionists have a low opinion of zoos. While arguably they offer some education, they subject their animals to unnatural lives of confinement and stress. Surely animals have the right to be free of such treatment. In these respects, Cuban zoos are no different from zoos anywhere else.

The first Cuban zoo I visited was the Havana City Zoo. Built before World War II, it was quite modern for its day. Most animals there were shown in relatively spacious simulated natural areas appropriate to the animals in them. Instead of bars, the animals were contained by moats and steep walls to prevent them from mingling with the general public. This was the state of the art when it was built. I can remember visiting a similar zoo in Cincinnati when I was a young boy. It was the pride of Cincinnati at that time well before we began to think about the rights of animals.

Only there is a difference between the Havana and the Cincinnati zoos. Cincinnati's is kept clean and well-maintained, while Havana's needs lots of attention. In Havana the walkways and the animals' display areas were littered with scrap paper, food wrappers and debris. Each display area has a water pond, but in Havana, most of those have no water in them. I recall thinking; I wonder of those poor bears have to wait for it to rain to get a drink of water? All in all, the Havana City Zoo was a disappointment and a reminder that many civic services are showing signs of neglect.

The other zoo in the Havana area is the National Zoo. This one, in the care of the state, is in much better condition, and occupies hundreds of acres in the far outskirts of Havana. Just as open grottos were state of the art before World War II, now the state of the art is like Lion Country Safari--having large open areas simulating various landscapes from around the world with free running animals. The observers go through the park protected in vehicles. As we did so, we saw lions, antelope and water buffalo. Certainly this provides more freedom and realism. But in an absolute sense, it is still confinement.

The director of the National Zoo is a tall, personable man very dedicated to his work. Our tour was accompanied by a discussion of each free-ranging area, and we could get very close to the animals here. And the place is well-maintained without litter or mess.

As we concluded our tour, we were shown an older part of the zoo. There iron bars defined a large collection of cubicles with too many primates. At least they were well fed and cared for. It was a reminder that nothing is perfect. Today, the government recognizes that zoos need to be improved. Very recently a commission was established by the Ministry of Agriculture to function within Aniplant to review zoos and recommend improvements. It includes vets, techs, a sociologist, and Nora Garcia, Aniplant's President. It will work with the environmental authorities in Cuba to recommend the creation of needed improvements for the benefit of animals.

Thus the 23 other municipal zoos in Cuba will be moved toward and humane practice.

Les Inglis

Cuba the Dog, Chapter Two

2010-12-17T06:44:00.001-08:00

Cuba the Dog, Chapter Two

As I wrote the previous chapter on Cuba the Dog, he was scheduled to fly on 12/5. Of course, nothing happens in Cuba as scheduled. It turned out Cuba had not been fed in three days before Nora picked him up. It took, therefore, three days for him to fill up and start giving fecal samples needed for worm tests. So, 12/5 was too soon, and we rescheduled his flight for Sunday, 12/12. Fill up, he did, the vet got his samples, and tests proved the deworming treatment had done its work. Cuba was certified as healthy and parasite free.

Now we needed a travel cage for a small pup. As I've said before, everything is available in Cuba if you're willing to pay the price. There wasn't time for Ashley to buy a cage and get it to Cuba, so Nora bought one for $60.00 that could be had in the US for $15 or $20. She told me she got a good price (by Cuban standards). One more hurdle jumped.

Ashley had found a charity in Canada that arranges flights to Canada from the Caribbean for dogs that tourists want to adopt. The actual flight for Cuba the dog would be from Varadero to Toronto, and it wasn't going to cost Ashley anything. But to qualify for this benefit, the flight had to be on Air Transat which flies out of Varadero, not Havana. And the way things work is you have to present the dog's paperwork one day ahead of the flight to Air Transat's cargo representative, Javier. That meant Nora had to make the 100 mile trip twice from Havana to Varadero in a car rented form a friend. So Nora met her friend, Javier on Saturday in Varadero, made the arrangements, and drove back home to Havana. Then she got up early to drive back to the Varadero airport by 8am on Sunday to check him in for his 10am flight to Toronto.

Throughout this extra week of arrangements, Ashley, as a good mother would, sent emails worrying about every detail, we translated and forwarded the email traffic both ways, and it was clear Nora had thought of everything. Nothing was going to go wrong.

And nothing did. Cuba had a comfortable 3 or 4 hours in the baggage hold of the plane (which is heated and pressurized just like the cabin), and Ashley and her partner were waiting at the Air Transat baggage facility in Toronto as Cuba debarked (strange word for a dog story) from the plane.

And, true to her word, Ashley sent us a bunch of photos of the happy pup in his new home. A couple are shown here, and my favorite is Cuba, the little pup from the tropics, having his first encounter with snow. May he always be as happy as he was that day.

Les Inglis

María Alvarez Ríos

2010-12-10T06:21:00.000-08:00

María Alvarez Ríos 1919-2010

I met María in 2005 on my first trip to Cuba. She was the adoptive mother of my friend, Nora García Pérez, the President of Aniplant. Nora and María lived together with their 13 dogs in a 10th floor apartment in Vedado with a view halfway back to Florida. On that first encounter we all sat in her living room, petting the dogs, and Nora introduced us to her famous mother. María impressed us from the beginning with her perfect English, and we found out she spoke five languages fluently. It didn't take long to get her to sit at the piano and play and sing several songs for us.

María was a nationally known entertainer in Cuba, much as Rosemary Clooney was in the US. She was the beneficiary of a formal musical education which only polished her prodigy, evident since she was five years old. In her long career she was singer, songwriter, and author. She translated several European operas into Spanish from their original languages, and to some, she was their music teacher. To children in Cuba, she was a bright, happy writer and performer of children's songs. She composed songs for José Martí's poems and for those of other famous poets. When I met her, she was in her late eighties, but her classic beauty was still quite evident.

María and her husband adopted Nora after Nora lost her parents when she was in her teens. These two women shared an intense love for animals, and the well-traveled María took Nora with her to the US and Europe. They attended animal protection conferences and built up the knowledge of the field. Finally with their participation, Aniplant, Cuba's only officially recognized animal protection organization, was formed in the 1970's. A few years later, Nora became Aniplant's President.

I found a few videos of María on the Internet (a link can be found on our website: http://theaniplantproject.org). In those videos, her lovable dogs play an entertaining part.

Cubans are grateful for her musical talent, and those of us who work for animals are so happy she always spoke out for the animals.

María, we loved you for your music and your ethic towards animals. We'll miss you, but we're glad we had you for as long as we did.

Les Inglis

Cuba the Dog

2010-12-03T06:54:00.001-08:00

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

To Have and Have Not

2010-11-26T07:56:00.000-08:00

To Have and Have Not

Cuba has two currencies. The original is called "moneda nacional (MN)" and is what the common citizen carries around and what shows up in his paycheck. It takes about 25 pesos of moneda nacional to equal one dollar US. In the early 1990's, after the fall of the Soviet Union, times were tough in Cuba as their support payments from the USSR dried up, never to return. The Cuban government's reaction was to allow dollars to circulate--that's right, good old American Greenbacks. That gave people a hard currency to use in trade, but I imagine Fidel and his friends soon tired of having George, Abe, Alexander, and Andrew's pictures in their wallets.

They didn't try to replace the MN peso with a hard currency because they didn't have enough assets to back a true, universally used hard currency, so someone invented the CUC, which means convertible currency. CUC's are worth about $1.08 each, and it is the currency you use as a tourist while in Cuba.

Now don't expect to get a supply of CUC's at your local bank for your trip to Cuba--it won't happen. The only place you can exchange dollars and CUC's is at the Cuban airports on arriving or leaving and at various Cuban currency exchanges, perhaps in your hotel. But before you load up on dollars to exchange for CUC's in Cuba, you should know that the Cuban government assesses a 20% penalty for exchanging dollars and CUC's. Frankly it's better to buy Euros at home and then exchange CUC's with Euros once you're there.

Oh, and don't forget to spend as many of your CUC's as you can before heading to the airport to leave. When you try the EURO/CUC exchange on leaving, they'll see you are flying to the US and insist on giving you dollars for your CUC's, even if you want Euros. And of course they get the 20% penalty too. So CUC's are a hard currency, sort of, and with them you can buy nearly anything you want in Cuba. Yes, if you have the CUC's, which ordinary citizens don't, you can get nearly anything you want. Let's see how it works.

A shiny new Peugeot or Hyundai taxi charges you CUC's while the citizen flags down 1950's era jitneys which give off smoke and noise. He pays in MN Pesos. Even the cute little Coco Taxis accept CUC's, but the citizen pays MN for an old man powered Pedi cab ride. A foreign national with permission to live and work in Cuba gets paid from his company in hard currency and can even buy a new car--paying in CUC's of course. The man in the street is on foot in the street because he'll never have enough CUC's to buy a car, and he couldn't anyway because he can't get official permission to buy it.

This two world existence has created a privileged class in Cuba. They aren't wealthy Cubans; they are the hotel maids, waiters and taxi drivers. They get their tips in CUC's and have access to many consumer items that only ex-pats and foreign business people can buy.

And if you're a dog owner with CUC's what is the local vet's office like? Well, you can find some who cater to the moneyed people. I priced a 20 pound bag of kibbled dog food in the vet's vestibule. It was $57 CUC--not exactly cheap. You don't need a prescription for your pet meds, but they are on sale at the vet's. The prices are in CUC's, which limits the clientele considerably.

On Calle Obispo, Havana's main tourist shopping street, there's a pet store. There I priced a decent looking dog collar at 14 CUC. Too steep for my budget, I thought. So no wonder you don't see the Cuban workers in those stores--their salaries range from the equivalent of 15 to 25 dollars a month. Yes even specialist medical doctors can't afford to shop in those places.

Here in the US we complain that taxes are too high and the dollar doesn't buy enough, but at least we don't have to contend with two currencies, one of which is worthless and the other reserved for visitors.

Les Inglis

Going Behind What's Left of the Iron Curtain

2010-11-19T08:02:00.001-08:00

Going Behind What's Left of the Iron Curtain

If you are a US citizen visiting Cuba, it's initially hard to be sure you are welcome or not. As you land at Havana's Jose Martí airport, your plane taxis past a modern airport building bristling with jetways and populated with planes from all over the world, British Airways, Lufthansa, Quantas, and many others. But you keep on taxiing until you come to a low building that looks like something out of the 1950's. No jetways, no Varig from Brazil. If there is another plane around it is another little charter flight from the US like Sky King Airlines.

I remember an afternoon kid's radio program called Sky King in the 1940's. It wasn't very good, and the charter airline with the same name is nothing to write home about, either. Well, back to the airport--it's a ghost of the past, and if you ask a regular traveler, he'll tell you only the US flights use it. The airport terminal seems to be a vestige of the pissing contest the two countries have carried on for 50 years. By now you don't expect a jetway, and you think you'll be lucky if they roll up a set of stairs to help get out of the plane.

Once inside you're in a big room with a line of kiosks across the back side of it. Attendants there keep you standing behind a red line on the floor until you are motioned to one of the agents-in-a-box. This box is different from those at home in that the agent's desk is above your line of sight. You can't see what he's doing as he inspects your passport and customs card. You may get some questions here, especially if you are traveling with some medicines, as I always am. There's no smile, no "welcome to Cuba," just a chilly stare, and finally a bunch of rubber stamping noises, and your papers are handed back. You've been standing in a narrow passage between two kiosks, and you guess that you must leave it through the door you didn't use to enter. You think at least he spoke English.

You emerge into a large baggage room and place your handbags on the conveyor of an x-ray machine. You might ask, "Why do they x-ray arriving passenger's things?" Well, it's their country, and if that's what they want, you have to comply. If you're carrying a bag full of vet meds and supplies, the kiosk guy has probably fingered you for another interview with a Customs agent. It's happened to me 3 out of 5 times. They invite you over to a small circular stand up table and begin a fresh set of questions. This agent is probably female, pleasant, and has a nice smile. The questions are the same as those on your customs form, and after a while, she decides you're not a terrorist, and you can go look for your checked luggage. Of course it isn't up yet because every Cuban national on your flight has spent a fortune on purchases in the US and then checked them as luggage. There are flat screen TV's in huge cardboard cartons, microwaves, computer towers, and almost everything else easy to get in the US and hard to get in Cuba. Most of the stuff comes in a cocoon of blue plastic film, and it takes the baggage crew the better part of an hour to disgorge the plane's checked luggage.

I'm lucky to have made friends with the Havantur agent lady. She recognizes me every time I show up. She assures me and my two traveling companions that our stuff will show up on the carousel eventually. And it does. Another line has formed as an agent checks every traveler's bag tag with his luggage receipt. My Havantur friend walks us around that line, and we emerge from the old building into the rest of Cuba. This is the first opportunity we've had to see the crowds waiting to meet the travelers, and there in the middle of the crowd is Nora and our driver. We leave Cuba's version of the TSA, and our adventure begins.

Les Inglis

Waste Not, Want Not

2010-11-12T06:35:00.000-08:00

Waste Not, Want Not

Both Cuba and the US have laws preventing the use of drugs beyond their expiration dates. While some suspect the biggest reason behind these laws is to insure the profits of the drug companies, these laws are studiously respected, and thus we can all rest assured the medicines we receive are fresh. Expiration dates are common for many medical supplies also like latex gloves, injection syringes, sutures and staples, and bandages--even gauze pads. Vets as well as medical doctors respect the expiration dates, so animals as well as humans need not fear drugs which have lost their efficacy.

Here in the US, older drugs are segregated, and, if the nurse in charge is extremely careful, drugs within a couple of weeks of their expiration dates can be returned for credit to the drug manufacturer. More often than not, this tight time frame for returning expired meds is missed, and they end up being destroyed. US vets are as religious as medical doctors in following the law.

In Cuba, however, things are different. While medical doctors and hospitals use fresh drugs only, vets who treat dogs and cats there have to make do with whatever they can find to treat household pets. The state owns the farm animals and the vets apply their best practice and fresh drugs on them. But household pets are of no interest to the state, and it is difficult to find fresh drugs in the doses that apply to smaller animals.

Many Cuba vets work with donated outdated drugs given to them by hospitals. Jose, our vet friend who works in Old Havana (see Making Ends Meet in this blog for June 11) has a box of old injectable drugs given to him by a hospital. He has become an expert in how long past the expiration date various kinds of medicines are still effective. He has found some anesthetic drugs work several years after expiration. He also has found some drugs can be substituted for others and work almost as well. In Cuba--with veterinary medicines--necessity is the mother of invention.

Is it a bad thing these drugs are used after expiry? Well, I'm not so sure. How many dogs and cats have survived surgeries, infections, and other threats due to the good offices of Cuba's fine, hard pressed veterinarians? A huge number, I believe.

Here at The Aniplant Project, we have been collecting drugs too old for return from several vets. With a little trouble these can be inventoried, packed, and shipped to Cuba. If Nora Garcia, the President of Aniplant, can't use them, she can trade them to the may vets she knows for their help in her weekly spay-neuter clinics

If you have a vet, ask him if he has outdated meds and supplies. Tell him we can use them to help Cuban dogs and cats. Good vets care about animals everywhere, and many vets are happy to donate when asked. Another source of these medicines are drugs left over after a pet dies. People often give them back to their vets. Regardless, call me if you get any such meds or supplies (941-928-8343 anytime). I'll take them off your hands, and you can become a participant in helping lots of needy animals really close to us--just across the Florida Straits/

Les Inglis

Means of Communication

2010-11-05T07:26:00.000-07:00

Means of Communication

The only three ways we really have to interact with Aniplant in Cuba are mail, email, and actual visits. And these often seem to be less reliable than I would have them. Mail between the US and Cuba is a somewhat iffy proposition.

Several months back I found a postal regulation covering mailing items to Cuba. Prior to that I had failed to get a letter or a package through to Nora. Starting at the beginning of this year, with a package of vet supplies and that postal regulation in hand, I marched into the local Post Office and accosted a woman behind one of the counters. She looked at the address on the package, saw the destination was Cuba, and began to tell me they couldn't accept the package. She pulled up several screens on the display at her desk and then repeated it couldn't go.

I asked for the Postmistress come over and to read the regulation I had found, and she looked briefly at it and then started pulling pages up on her little screen. "Nope, there's no way to send it," she said, and I was beginning to look bothered. I know hundreds of thousands of Floridians have relatives in Cuba, and they mail them packages all the time.

"Wait a minute," said Alice from the end counter; "I have something on Cuba here." (Alice is the only attendant in the Post Office I can trust to know what can and cannot be done.) She had pulled up a page on her screen, and the Postmistress walked down to her desk. Now the first attendant joined them to make a trio reading Alice's screen, and finally I was told it could be shipped after all. Since then I have sent a half dozen boxes this way, but the staff at the Post Office still look like they wish I would use another Post Office for my Cuba business.

Email is another story. There is no human behind a desk to argue with you, but when your server doesn't deliver everything you send, you wish there were a real person around. I've used Microsoft Outlook for years to send email without a problem, but it has failed completely recently, and it became so unreliable I had to stop using it altogether. Then I started to use Comcast's Smart Zone, but it only thought it was smart. Still, some of my sent items never arrived. I set up Hotmail and Gmail accounts, and now I'm using Windows Live Mail on a new computer.

Well I'd like to tell you that email problems are a thing of the past, but no such luck. All I can say is most stuff arrives here OK, so don't stop writing. Most of my outgoing works too, but every so often, my outgoing emails go into a black hole.

The final and best means of communication is to visit Cuba. I've been there 5 times, and I have another trip planned for late February. Cuba is such an interesting place that it's worth figuring out all the licenses, affiliations, approved agents and charter flights. Of course one little misstep, and they don't let you fly, and then you're no better of than you were with mail or email.

Les Inglis

A Morning Reverie

2010-10-29T05:55:00.000-07:00

A Morning Reverie

There’s a little park three blocks from my hotel in Havana. It takes up a full city block and is surrounded by homes and apartment houses on three sides. On the fourth side is the Sala Rodán Theater, a performing arts hall built in the 50’s in the classic style. Panels in the walls are decorated with tributes to classical musicians like Webber, Mozart, and Brahms.

The park has large reflecting pool empty for the last five years, statuary, monuments, Japanese trellises, large grassy areas, some shade trees, benches, and paved walkways. When I’m in Cuba, I visit the park each morning to pass the time between breakfast and my first planned activity. It’s a good time to make cryptic notes in my little pocket notebook which is always with me in Cuba.

The park is dedicated to a mayor of years gone by named Germán López. Don’t try to find him on Google as this name is about as common as Pete Smith is in English. I find a bench near López’s monument and sit to enjoy a slice of Cuban city life.

Over in a corner of the park about 30 women have lined up in rank and file and are doing exercises to the call of their leader facing them. They look like a group you might see at the beach or the local Y. They don’t seem any more fit than the average Cuban, but they’re trying to be. My favorite aspect of the park is man’s best friend, several of which lead their human companions around the park.

First a Boston Bulldog sniffs at the legs of my bench and then comes up to check me out. Satisfied, he takes his human off in another direction. Next a little brown short-haired spaniel approaches me, his human standing behind him a respectful distance. Now a dark haired terrier—uh oh, no owner. Well this guy knew exactly where he wanted to go, and didn’t even give me a tumble. Was he stray? Definitely not. You could tell by his well fed look. He moved off diagonally across the park and reached his home, an apartment house nearly a block away. I watched until he disappeared.

A bus stops and unloads its entire capacity of young men and women. They’re all students at the ballet school in the Rodán Theater.

As I write, a lone musician plays scales on a trumpet. After a while he is joined by another horn player, and their perfect tones sound in harmony. I glance at my watch, stand, and slowly move off toward my hotel for another day of exploration.

Les Inglis

Dog Show in the Pearl of the Antilles

2010-10-15T07:48:00.000-07:00

Dog Show in the Pearl of the Antilles

Animal protectionists seldom take much interest in dog shows. First of all, the owners of show dogs generally keep them in pretty good shape, and secondly there are always demands on protectionists to help less fortunate dogs—often to help with dogs in dire straits. Still, I admit to watching the Westminster Show in New York once a year. I frankly didn’t imagine they had dog shows in Cuba, but they certainly do. Nora and I and Xenia and Bob, my fellow travelers, had been invited to such a show by Nora’s overseer in the ministry of Agriculture, so one Friday morning we found ourselves driving west of Havana toward the suburb of Playa and a dog show being held there.

To get to Playa you drive along 5th Avenue through the fancy suburb of Miramar. In Miramar the houses are palatial, and most of the embassies and the homes of foreign businessmen are located here. I remember particularly the little kiosks with armed guards which stand at the corners of the fenced yards of the various embassies. People who live in these mansions can well afford show dogs if they wish. The dog show was in a futbol (soccer) field, and we were shown to comfortable seats in a tent n the middle of the field. The field was parceled off into little show rings, each for one of the many breeds. Next to us on one side were the Huskies, and on the other side the Cocker Spaniels were strutting their stuff. I figured it was a good time to take some pictures and wandered off among the rings.

This isn’t the real Cuba you see in most places. It looks more like a weekend activity in any affluent suburb in the US. One difference I note is that the participants showing their dogs are nearly all quite well dressed. After much wandering and picture taking I realized the show had an international flavor. Many dogs had come there from other countries in Latin America, and a few were there from Europe. This is another reminder that it’s only here in the US that we think of Cuba as a mysterious forbidden island. Practically all the other countries of the world think of Cuba as a great place to visit.

After a pleasant morning watching the show dogs, we prepare for our ride back to town to an invited luncheon at the Ornithological Society. A mix-up with drivers made us an hour late, but in Cuba everyone is on Tropical Standard Time (which means, “whenever”). That day we had a great lunch in a land where you cannot always be sure of getting a good meal.

I think dog shows are good if they stimulate an interest in having a dog in your family and loving it. If those shows are a means of showing off your property and if the dogs are not kept in a loving home situation, their treatment is a source of irritation to protectionists and to the dogs themselves.

Les Inglis

Lifesaving in Cuba

2010-10-08T07:41:00.000-07:00

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.

Aniplant Headquarters

2010-10-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

ANIPLANT HEADQUARTERS

Aniplant maintains its headquarters at 128 Principe Street in Central Havana. It used to be on the eighth floor of a building with a non-working elevator. I first saw it on my second trip here, and we were all winded by the time we got to the top. During that trip, Nora told us that in Cuba you can’t buy or sell your home. You can only arrange trades between properties. But those trades have to be documented by legal paperwork. In the Cuban “paradise” legal work is free, but it is also in very short supply. Nora had indeed found someone who would trade his home in a central area on the first floor for her HQ on the eighth floor. But she had been waiting four years for her legal project to come to the top of the lawyer’s pile. We found out that a little monetary encouragement would move the matter to the top, and the transaction completed in a couple of days.

Months later I asked her how the new HQ was progressing, and she told me a tale of woe that was hard to understand. It seems the old resident of the Principe property had stripped everything when he left. Even the electrical switches were removed from the walls. She didn’t have the resources to bring it up to a useful space. It was just overwhelming, so we decided to help. On the next trip, we gave her money to fix the place up, and the work began. Still, even a year after that, she was nowhere close to finished. By this time (late 2008), she had enough money resources to get the work done, but the project was clearly on tropical standard time, which suggests it might never be completed. We set a goal to have it done for the November 2009 trip, but when I saw it, I had no idea how well Nora and her group had finished the project.

Every part of the place was painted freshly, and all missing electrical and water piping had been replaced. The front room, a large meeting room had beautiful framed color photos of street dogs of Havana, and two new chandeliers lit the room. The outside passageway to the kitchen area in the rear was also painted, and decorated with hanging tropical plants. The second room, behind the meeting room is to be a veterinarian’s office, and it was painted and furnished. It looked like the vet was ready to set up shop. Two rooms behind the vet’s office were not finished because they contain building materials, and Nora told me of her plans to build a second story over them and beneath the 16 foot ceilings. Every door had a gate of grating on it, so the HQ dogs (eight of them) could be confined wherever they wanted them.

As I was walking around amazed at how much they had accomplished, the dogs were let loose, and we were overcome with a pack of the happiest, barking animals you can imagine. I could immediately spot Aló Presidente, the black dog we had rescued from the streets in 2007. He was the happiest of all of these lovable canines. Well, he should have been, seeing as how he was the only male in the group of eight. Well, such matters are not what you might think, as of course all the HQ dogs are neutered. Aló is not really the boss of the group, however, because there is a large female who seems to call all the shots in the group. Needless to say, the tremendous progress at the headquarters made me feel that everything we and Nora and her volunteers had done was really working, and that Aniplant has a bright future.

Les Inglis

(See lots more about Cuba and its animals on our new website: http://theaniplantproject.org )

Machismo

2010-09-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

Machismo

I’m a firm believer in spaying and neutering all your dogs, but I wasn’t always so sure. I can recall the years right after we bought our farm in Indiana. The ink was hardly dry on the paperwork when a stream of abandoned dogs came by the place, and we began to collect our menagerie. The first was a young female Beagle who stole our hearts. Before I knew it she was our house dog when I never before had plans to have another dog. Of course it made sense to me to have her spayed and of course we did.

The second dog was more problematic for me. Boy was a down on his luck German Shepherd who had mange, not enough to eat, no owner, and had taken up living in one of our barns. Charlene immediately wanted him neutered, but I had a few doubts. She knew the drill far better than I did, and she recited the better disposition and better health we’d notice after neutering him. But I was thinking he won’t be as good a guard dog, and anyway it almost hurt even to think about ending his manhood—or doghood, if you will.

Well. Charlene settled it by explaining that if we didn’t do it, I wasn’t going to have any use for my own manhood. Boy was neutered with dispatch, and immediately we could see the improvements in his life. He was then about 2 years old and lived twelve more years in robust health. That’s a good long run for a 72 pound Shepherd. He was a super guard dog who always protected the farm. I learned a lot about my ignorant prejudices and became a big proponent of neutering all dogs and cats, male or female.

In Latin America the word for the way I used to be is machismo, related to our “macho.” We don’t have an exact equivalent except what we borrowed from the French, “chauvinism.” Well, whatever you call it, it abounds in most parts of the world. It contributes to a general male reluctance to sterilize male animals. They even go further south of the border with men in a group tending to talk louder and longer than the women. Men somehow seem to try to play a more powerful role in everyday life.

This attitude is one factor to combat in getting the maximum number of animals neutered, but even so, I’m impressed with how many men show up with their dogs and cats in their arms for the free or low cost sterilization clinics Aniplant operates every weekend in Havana and other cities. Nora Garcia has found the key to building a demand for the sterilization service—and that key is education. In one television show and two radio shows every week, she exhorts the Cuban public to sterilize their animals, and she’s effective and convincing in this important public program. Just note that last year the number of cats and dogs Aniplant did was 4 times the number of dogs and cats they did just three years before. Progress like that doesn’t happen by accident; it comes from good planning and hard work.

Oh, and it comes from our donors too. Most of the anesthesia medicines used in the Aniplant clinics are paid for, purchased and shipped out of funds donated to The Aniplant Project, Inc (our new corporate nane).

So, thanks for your support and keep striking a blow against chauvinism. We’re all better off when you do.

Les Inglis

You Have to Love Nicole

2010-09-17T07:48:00.001-07:00

You Have to Love Nicole

We have a wonderful friend named Nicole who lives in Holland with her husband and their several animal friends. She’s a dedicated animal person, and we came to know her after she had traveled on vacation to Cuba. A year ago she saw an injured black and white dog near her hotel in Pinar del Rio, Cuba’s westernmost province. She couldn’t catch him, but even after returning to her home, she worried about the little dog. Through my friend, Rick Schwag of Caribbean Medical Transport, she was put into contact with me, and I tried to help her through Nora Garcia, the President of Aniplant in Havana. Nicole wanted to find the dog and try to help it. Nicole gave us the information she had; I translated; and Nora began a new search for the dog.

I should interrupt this story to say that Nora is the best connected person I can imagine for getting things done in Cuba. Once she knew the details of the little dog she got an amazing amount of help to search for the dog. There were volunteers from the hotel staff, the local vet, and even the President of the Pinar del Rio Scientific Advisory Council for Veterinary matters. They all tried to find him or learn more about him.

Not all of these stories have a happy ending, and I’m sorry to report the dog was never found, but a new coalition of animal lovers was formed. Nicole was so happy to get Aniplant’s help, she decided to hold a large fundraiser for Aniplant in her hometown. They invited musicians, friends, animal lovers—everyone they could think of—and it was a big success, raising a nice sum of money for Nora and her group. Part of it went to AHPPA in Costa Rica to buy and ship anesthesia drugs to Aniplant, and the rest I delivered to Nora personally along with a very generous personal contribution from Nicole and her husband.

That was a beautiful way to say thank you to a little organization that had never had enough money. Nora was overwhelmed with the donations, and Nicole became one of my best email friends.

Now this would be a fitting end to the story, but Nicole and her best friend, Marianne have planned and produced another fundraiser for Aniplant with equal success. This one was in June of this year. They invited musicians, friends, animal lovers—everyone they could think of—and it was a big success, raising a large sum of money for Nora and her group. This time I’m delighted to say I won’t have to carry the funds they raised to Nora. Nicole and Marianne are planning to be in Cuba with me when I go late next February, and they can bring their own donations.

I wouldn’t miss being there with them for the world.

Les Inglis

A House in Central Havana

2010-09-10T06:41:00.000-07:00

A House in Central Havana

Let me describe for you a typical small home in Central Havana. The street in front is narrow, but two cars can pass each other with no problem. Narrow sidewalks help make this possible. It doesn’t happen often because there is little auto traffic on this street. The lot width is about 25 feet, and the house is built right on the lot lines so the houses on either side touch the next door neighbor. The only way to the small patio at the rear is through the house.

The living room is the largest room in the house, about twenty feet square, and it sits just behind the front wall. The front door and a large shuttered window open to the street. If the family is sitting in their living room and a neighbor walks by, they can carry on a conversation through the window without leaving their chairs. Like many places in Latin America, the window and door are fitted with iron bar grates—the one on the door is hinged and used much as we would use a screen door. But there are no screens and no air conditioning. Except in storms, the door and window shutters are swung inside to provide air circulation.

The living room has a tile floor and a beamed 16’ ceiling stained a dark wood color. Behind the living room along one side wall is a wide, open air hallway giving passage to the rear of the house where it ends at a small bathroom. As you go down the open passage, you pass two small bedrooms on the right. Doors between all the rooms allow you to move through the house without using the open air passage in the case of rain.

The largest room in the rear is the kitchen which has a small refrigerator, but its single most noticeable feature is a built in wood grille about six feet wide covered by a hood and chimney. Yes, cooking is over a wood or charcoal fire, but this family also has an electric hot plate next to the grille.

The back door opens onto a 20 by 25 foot open patio with vines on the walls and a large tropical fruit tree from which melon sized bright green fruits hang. The patio is completely enclosed by the walls of adjacent houses.

This home could be up to 200 years old, so the water, electricity and bathroom are all later additions. You can see all the wires and pipes which run from the roof down the inside walls to the faucets, switches, or receptacles at useable levels. A large plastic tank of very recent vintage on the roof is fed by the municipal water system.

This family loves animals and has a couple of dogs. If they’ve taken the precaution of neutering them, (which service can be had for free from Aniplant), they can be let out in front to relieve themselves. If not, their female dog soon would end up pregnant, and they’d soon have to find homes for or abandon the puppies. In this case, neutering has been done, and the worst that is likely to happen to their pets is to get into a fight or be hit by a car. But these dogs are wise to the dangers and come back to be let in after a while.

One other hazard is they can be mistaken for strays and rounded up by anti rabies teams. Too bad nearly no one uses collars and tags for their dogs. I suppose it is possible to tell strays from family dogs, but it isn’t easy. Family dogs, as a rule, look nourished and healthy and keep their fur looking good. But mistakes happen and they are sometimes are swept up and taken away by the municipal authorities. To read what a pet-loving family must do then, see my blog of June 4.

I’ve written this to help understand a little of the way our Cuban neighbors live. It’s quite different from our lifestyle here at home. The common element, a love for animals, is shared by many on both sides of the Florida Straits.

Les Inglis

Similarities and Differences

2010-09-03T06:22:00.000-07:00

Similarities and Differences

As the first country in the Western Hemisphere to proclaim, fight for, and win independence from European colonial powers, the United States became an example to emulate for the countries of Latin America. During the 1800’s, the US example prodded most of Latin America to break the bonds of Spanish and Portuguese rule. Many countries had to fight for their independence, but for some, particularly in Central America, merely proclaiming independence won it.

Cuba had a tougher time throwing off the Spanish yoke than any other Latin country—not surprisingly as it was thought of in Spain as the richest prize delivered by the Conquistadors. Not for nothing did they call it “The Pearl of the Antilles.” Cuba fought three wars of independence with Spain, losing the first two in the 1860’s and winning the last one (with American participation on Cuba’s side) in 1898. The result of what we Americans call the Spanish American War ended once and for all Spain’s dreams of having an empire in the Western Hemisphere.

Cuba established a democracy with a political system much like ours. Ties between the US and Cuba were many and strong, and the two nations became major trading partners. When it was time to build a new Capitol building in Havana, it developed into an amazing look-alike for our own Capitol

The Capitolio, built between 1926 and 1931, housed Cuba’s House of Representatives and its Senate. Its tall dome looks a little skinnier than ours, but none the less elegant. If anything, the semi-circular halls of Congress at either end are more tasteful appendages than our enormous rectangular wings. Today the Capitolio is a museum. Inside you are met with the Statue of the Republic, a bronze, gold leaf coated reminder of our Statue of Liberty, 50 feet tall, and the third tallest indoor statue in the world. She even has her right arm raised like Liberty’s. A replica of a huge diamond is set into the floor at the center of the domed hall. The real one was stolen years ago, and recovered, but never reinstalled in the floor.

It’s amazing to compare the past fraternity of Latin and North American nations with the mutual suspicion that seems to reign today. Amazing, yes, but not surprising when we realize that every nation must find its own way in the world. I’m as much a patriot as the next guy, but I don’t believe that just because something is American (meaning of the US) that it is therefore better.

Still, in the animal protection realm, for all the puppy mills, factory farms, industrial fishing, and hunting abuses we have in this country, animals here are much better off than they are there. Aniplant and The Aniplant Project are working to make the Cuban animals’ world better. But stray and even sick animals can be found in disturbing numbers in Cuba. Efforts to improve the animals’ lives there are growing, but they are still in the early stages of development. And while the average Cuban is at heart an animal lover, household pets don’t yet receive the respect and attention they need and deserve. Part of the problem is economic, of course, but there is a need for much more humane education and a general elevation of the regard in which the family holds its animals.

The optimist in me thinks we’re making progress for animals in Cuba. You can learn more about our efforts at a new website, http://theaniplantproject.org . Please visit it and make up your own mind about the value of the work we are doing for the animals of Cuba.

Les Inglis

Cristo de La Habana

2010-08-27T07:45:00.000-07:00

Cristo de La Habana

From many parts of Old Havana you can see Havana’s harbor, and as you look across the water to the cliffs on the other side, two landmarks stand out—El Morro Castle, once a prison, and a large statue of Christ. The castle is an ancient Spanish fort, placed there to protect the harbor, and it is pictured in many tourist brochures. The huge statue of Christ is not so well known as the fort, but it too has an interesting story.

The monument was a gift to the people of Havana from Fulgencio Batista, Cuba’s last dictator before the Castro Revolution. A plaque at the base of the monument used to name the donor, but in recent years it has been removed. The date of dedication, Christmas Day of 1958, is interesting. That date was exactly one week before Batista’s downfall and retreat into exile and Castro’s triumph on January 1, 1959.

Latin America has its share of huge statues of Christ. Arguably the most famous and one of the largest (130 feet tall) is Christo Redentor which stands, arms outstretched to his flock, looking over Rio de Janeiro. And Christ of the Andes is also well-known—standing on the Argentina-Bolivia border on the summit of a mountain range. The tallest and newest is Cristo de la Concordia in Cochabamba, Bolivia. This one is not so well-known. But I’ll argue Cristo de La Habana (at 65 feet tall) is one of the most beautiful of all. It is a white marble realistic rendition of Christ wearing a flowing robe. Arms are not outstretched, but held up in front of the body in a teaching pose.

Christo de la Redentor which stands on a mountain-top overlooking Rio is taller, better known, and has a setting unmatchable in Cuba, but as a product of the 1920’s and 1930’s it has an unfortunate (and I think inappropriate) art-deco feel to it, which Havana’s Christ avoids to the credit of its sculptor. And Rio’s statue of reinforced concrete will never match Havana’s white marble.

If you tunnel under the water and drive to the crest of the hill, you’ll find the monument stands in a well kept park with a wonderful view of the city. Sometimes local kids set up a ticket booth and try to sell tickets to the park, but it really is a free park. Other kids offer to explain the history of the park and the harbor. We tried that one and found he didn’t know much about history or where in the bay the USS Maine had been sunk.

On my most recent visit to the park, I discovered how the park stays looking so good. A man with a herd of goats was urging them around the grassy areas. These Cuban lawnmowers make no noise, pose no danger to the herdsman, and don’t require gasoline. It seems to be a win-win solution for man and animal.

Les Inglis

(See lots more about Cuba and its animals on our new website: http://theaniplantproject.org )

Aló Presidente

2010-08-20T07:25:00.000-07:00

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

Lunch TIme

2010-08-13T07:04:00.001-07:00

Lunch Time

We all have asked for a doggie bag when we can’t finish a good restaurant meal. Sometimes I wonder if the waiter thinks, “That’s for him, not the dogs.” Well, he is justified in thinking so, as many little bags and boxes of leftovers have waited in my refrigerator for my appetite to return. In our house, the dogs eat well, usually without leftovers, and some of them need special food anyway.

In Cuba, few people fail to take home the leftovers, and they often eat them themselves, like I do. We were at a large lunch gathering in a restaurant near Havana’s harbor when my friend, Nora Garcia, spoke up for all the leftovers. I knew these would go to the dogs as she has more than a dozen at home, and 8 more living at Aniplant’s headquarters. She always comes prepared with plastic bags. Food doesn’t go to waste in Cuba whether for dogs or people.

Nora and I had a plastic bag of beef chunks with us as we walked away from the restaurant, and we didn’t go half a block through the Plaza de las Armas, when we found a cute black dog wagging his tail and hoping for a treat.

It was as though he knew what was in Nora’s purse, and, of course, we stopped to feed him. He could have been a stray or he might have belonged to one of the booksellers in the Plaza. (Collars and tags are rare in Cuba.) Either way, his slender build suggested he could use some extra calories.

Well, you know the rest of the story—he got the leftover beef, and he will probably remember that meal for the rest of his life. Another time we were at the same restaurant at a table on the sidewalk, and I saw another dog out near the street hoping for a handout. I had some leftovers, so I took them out front and left them on the sidewalk for the dog, who happily attacked the food. The restaurant manager looked like he didn’t want the mess right in front of his place. I told him not to worry; it would all be cleaned up.

Sure enough, the dog “licked the platter clean,” meaning the sidewalk. The manager was satisfied, I felt really good at making that dog’s day, and nothing went to waste.

We usually visit Havana’s Bario Chino for a Chinese meal on each trip. I always order moros y cristianos, that is rice and beans, and the serving is unusually large, so I leave with leftovers. A couple of blocks away is a square block that has been torn down and made into a not-very-busy parking lot. It is fenced and the operator has three dogs. I ask permission to feed them, he gives it, and I parcel it out in three portions to the delight of the dogs. The man says he remembers me from year to year, but I’m not so sure.

Still, I know the dogs remember.

Les Inglis

The Embargo

2010-08-06T07:01:00.001-07:00

The Embargo

In southwest Florida we are blessed with a few stations of National Public Radio. The Naples station, WGCU, which I can receive, has a show called “Sound off with Sasha” every Friday at noon. Sasha is the genial hostess of the show which presents interviews with public figures including telephone caller participation. Topics cover a wide range, but politics and public policy are the most common.

Sasha is very well informed on the topics she covers, and her accent tells us she is from Eastern Europe, but her English is as good as any American’s, and her shows are always interesting and educational. My wife, Charlene, told me in advance Sasha was going to have a former State Department employee talk about US policy toward Cuba and suggested I be one of the callers because of my interest in Cuba.

The appointed Friday arrived, and I called in. I waited through the questions and answers of a couple of callers ahead of me while listening to the show on the Internet. When my turn came I described my being in Cuba on the night Barack Obama won the Presidency. There had been a huge interest in our election among the Cubans, and many of them asked me if I was as happy with the result as they were. (I was.) As my brief time with the guest grew short, I asked this challenging question, “What benefits does US policy toward Cuba (the embargo and the travel restrictions) offer to US citizens?”

Perhaps there had once been reasons for those sanctions, but clearly none can be found today. The guest, somewhat surprised, basically just said my question was rhetorical and didn’t answer it. That’s a cheap cop-out, I thought, but I was already off the air. Everything else the guest had said that day was supportive of US policy toward Cuba, but after his having presented so much in that vein, I was surprised he had ducked my question.

But, on further thought, the reason is easy to understand—the embargo and the travel restrictions do nothing for US citizens and our citizenry is beginning to understand that. These policies, which help us not one bit, can’t possibly do the man on the street in Cuba any good either. Meanwhile, over the last fifty years Cuban leaders have seemed to thrive, so our policies only punish the average Cuban. Governments are often irrational. This one (ours) is keeping in place an embargo and travel restrictions that serve only as historic relics of the Cold War. All those who set this policy in place are long since dead, as is the Cold War, but the insanity goes on. In an age when we need exports, we turn our back on 11 million close neighbors who all would love to have access to American products.

These posts are usually about animals in Cuba, so let me ask, how do you suppose the animals fare when life is made more difficult for their human guardians who can’t get parts for their cars and many other necessities? Of course, the animals in a household rank even lower that the poor people who are oppressed by our policy. It’s not a good thing when a 50 year old flap for nearly forgotten reasons makes things tough for an entire country and its cats and dogs.

Les Inglis

Cuba's Humane HIstory

2010-07-30T08:16:00.000-07:00

Cuba’s Humane History

Jeannette Ryder was an American doctor’s wife who moved to Cuba and founded El Bando de Piedad de la Isla de Cuba (The Cuban Group for Compassion) in 1905. Originally she worked for alleviating the problems of humans and animals, but eventually she focused on the protection of animals, notably militating against bullfights and rescuing strays from the streets. El Bando de Piedad worked tirelessly for animal welfare until Jeannette’s death in 1931. She is remembered today in Cuba as the mother of Cuba’s humane movement. A Cuban airmail stamp was issued in her honor in 1957.

Today, Ryder’s gravesite is a must-see point of interest in Havana’s huge Colón Cemetery, where it is known as La Tumba de la Lealdad (the tomb of loyalty). The grave is covered with a beautiful sculpture of Jeannette lying peacefully, while curled at her feet, lies Rinti, her faithful dog, who, at her passing, found her grave and lied there refusing food and water until he also died. Fernando Boarda did the sculpture in 1944, thus immortalizing Ryder’s lifetime of work for the animals.

Aniplant (Asociación Cubana para la Protección de Animales y Plantas) is the modern day successor to El Bando de Piedad , having organized in 1986 under the then new Cuban law #54. Aniplant is the only organization doing animal protection work permitted in Cuba. Originators of Aniplant included Alicia Alonso, world famous ballerina, and María Alvarez Ríos, nationally famous singer and author. (María is Nora García’s adoptive mother.)

Nora García began her work in Aniplant as Secretary of the organization, after having pursued her interest in animals since childhood. In 1992 she was named President of Aniplant, and there began a notable expansion of the organization’s work. Today, Aniplant, under Nora’s leadership, spays or neuters more than 2000 animals per year, disseminates humane education through two weekly radio shows and a television show., aids dog and cat refuges, and promotes adoption of dogs and cats. Nora is known throughout Havana, and she is constantly stopped on the street to answer questions about people’s pets.

Aniplant is embarking on an expansion program, and in the last few months has absorbed an informal local group in Varadero, Cuba’s beach playground to the east of Havana. Look for other such mergers as time goes on.

When I started researching the humane movement in Cuba, I was struck by the parallels between Jeannette Ryder and Nora García and between El Bando and Aniplant. Both leaders—indeed both organizations—were driven by a need to help the animals who suffered through ignorance, neglect, or fate. Today’s Aniplant is the modern image of El Bando de la Piedad, and Nora is surely the reincarnation of Jeannette Ryder.

The animals of Cuba owe much to these two remarkable women whose work inspires us.

Les Inglis

Advertising

2010-07-23T05:46:00.001-07:00

Advertising

Advertising is so common here in the US that we filter out most of it from our consciousness, and so for us it’s difficult to sense the absence of something we filter out. Thus, my first couple of days in Cuba were accompanied by a faint feeling something was missing. Of course it was advertising, one of the essential tools of capitalism.

In Cuba billboards are non-existent except when the government wants to tell you something. Pull open the glass door of a tourist shop, and there are no Visa or MasterCard decals on it. If you listen to a Cuban radio station, it has no commercials. Life in Cuba, for all its serious problems, is free of voices, signs, billboards trying to get your attention, and it generates sort of a vague, empty feeling at first, until you realize what’s going on.

In the communist “utopia” central planning decides on one source for whatever is needed. Thus: no competition and no need for advertising. Stores don’t hang out signs touting their wares, and even the iconic Cuban cigar makers don’t spend money touting their products. Somehow everyone finds out where to get what he or she must have, but it isn’t through advertising. Signs promoting products somehow seem anti-communist and are clearly frowned upon. One source for each product, a communist ideal, kills Madison Avenue’s Tower of Babel.

Well, there is an exception, and that is the government. It can and does place billboards with political messages wherever it chooses. The scarcity of billboards makes the political messages all the more powerful. Driving south from my hotel, we climb a hill and wind through a park. “Venceremos,” (we shall win) shouts a billboard we pass by. A park in front of the US Interests Section (the equivalent of our embassy) sports several billboards with partisan slogans and even an unflattering caricature of George Bush. Allusions to nazism in America are common.

We aren’t above playing this same game; an electrically lit signboard with a moving message was installed high on the US Interests Section building, and it showed political messages from the US point of view. It caused lots of attention as it could be seen for many blocks along the Malecón, Havana’s seaside expressway. Not to be outdone in his own capital, Fidel planted a field of 50 flagpoles with large black flags which effectively hid the moving message board from drivers on the Malecón. El Comandante won this battle and the US signboard came off the building.

While grown men, leaders of their countries, played tit for tat or one-up-manship, Nora Garcia, President of Aniplant took advantage of the prohibition of advertising to promote the protection of animals. One of her volunteers is a top-flight photographer who blew up pictures of some of Cuba’s dogs and cats and put them on signboards that other volunteers could carry in public places. (A la the old “Eat at Joe’s” type signs you used to see men carrying to promote restaurants in the US,) The volunteers with their signboards provoke many questions, and they promote Aniplant spay-neuter clinics, solicit membership, and dispense general humane information.

Even Fidel doesn’t silence voices in support of animals.

Les Inglis

Getting Around Town

2010-07-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

Getting Around Town

Less than 300 miles from where I sit is a city of 2,000,000 people with a poor excuse for a transportation system. Havana has no subway, no ell, no streetcars, an antiquated and inefficient bus system, and the average citizen can’t afford to use the taxis. Fortunately the city is tightly compacted so most people walk to where they want to go.

When I first visited there, the busses were camellos hardly more than semi trucks where the passengers rode in the trailers. I was amazed at the rush-hour crowds waiting at main intersections—often more than two hundred people. Amazed, that is, until I saw a camello pull up, more than 100 people get out of the double doors in the middle of the trailer. Then more than 100 got on the trailer, and the tired old tractor truck ground through its gears to get up a little speed between stops. Of course there was no air conditioning, and every window was wide open.

The camello name (means camel) came from the twin humps of the trailer as the mid section with the doors was built closer to the street to make entrance and exit a step rather than a climb. Fidel and company replaced the last camellos only very recently with new busses from China, but there still aren’t enough of them.

Taxis prowl the city—usually clean new Peugeots or Hyundais. But they cost too much, and they only accept CUC’s, the Cuban convertible currency which average people don’t use. Thus taxis are only for tourists.

Using the old 50’s style US cars that local mechanics have kept running for 50 years or more is a possibility for a Cuban with a long way to go. They all know a hand signal code to ask for rides from the jitney driver. Nora Garcia showed us how that works as she stepped into the street to flag down a 53 Buick for a ride out to the suburbs. Nora quickly negotiated a price for our ride out to and back from the National Zoo in the suburbs.

Some people think of these iconic relics as collector cars, but most are beyond restoration and in bad condition that would not interest collectors. This one growled with a broken muffler and had two wires sticking out of a hole in the dashboard where the radio used to be. To start the engine the driver touched the two wires together and the engine started. I saw a floor shift and asked the driver about it as Buick got rid of those more than a dozen years before this one was new. The driver told me the car had a Toyota truck chasis, engine, and transmission. The only part of the old Buick left was the shell of the car. Some of these old cars have been rebuilt with Toyota engines repeatedly.

There is a train in Cuba, and it can take you from Old Havana east to Cardenas and Matanzas. A few use the trains to commute, but two legs and shoe leather are the most common transportation.

Everywhere you go you see dogs in the streets. All are loose, and many are pets with homes, but a good number are strays with a bleak future. Old, sick, and dying dogs out in public are bad for the tourist business, and the government rounds them up using teams of prisoners and trucks. The strays are kept for a few days and then dispatched with strychnine—a very unpleasant way to die.

But, more about Cuba’s treatment of man’s best friend in a later chapter.

Les Inglis

Evolution

2010-07-09T08:25:00.000-07:00

Evolution

In 2007 we began to plan a system of support for Aniplant’s regular weekend spay-neuter clinics. One of the first assumptions I needed to make was the average size of the animals to be neutered. I figured a good sized US cat might weigh over 10 pounds, and dogs at home surely average between 20 and 30 pounds. But I had already noticed that the average Cuban dog is nowhere near 20 pounds. More like 15 pounds, I thought, and we used that weight to estimate the amount of Ketamine we would need per animal for anesthesia.

In succeeding years it has become clear the average dog is even less than 15 pounds as each order of Ketamine seems to go farther than we planned. Why are Cuba’s dogs so much smaller than those in the US?

Well, my engineering training has given me a healthy respect for science, yet I’m ill-disposed to engage in the war of words between religion and science about how everything came to be. Still, I must say Cuba’s small dogs are the result of an evolutionary process. Now before any of you write to take issue with that idea, please hear me out.

Cuba was part of the abundant western world until January 1959, when Castro’s revolution took over. In 1959 with 71% of Cuban businesses owned by the US, Cuba then mirrored our own 20th century success. But very shortly after the
Castro takeover, a schism developed between the US and Cuban governments. These differences rapidly led to the nationalization of US-owned businesses in Cuba and soon also to Cuba’s gravitating into the communist sphere (the only other option).

From the beginning, Cuban people fell onto hard times. Getting enough to eat was a daily problem, not always suitably solved. Pet dogs and cats, used to eating scraps from the family table, began to know the pangs of hunger on a regular basis. You might say, well OK, but 50 years is a short time to see an evolutionary change. And I’d agree with you if we were talking about people, but among dogs and cats, 50 years can easily be 50 generations. For a human comparison, 50 generations is about 1000 years, and surely we’ve seen many evolutionary changes in people in the last 1000 years. For example, the average person’s height and weight have increased as food became more abundant. The lifespan has increased due to modern sanitation and, to a lesser extent, due to modern medicine.

So 50 generations of too little food to eat shows up first in dogs and cats as it has done in Cuba. No doubt John Scopes and Charles Darwin would embrace my evolutionary canine weight theory while William Jennings Bryan would castigate me roundly.

Another side to this discussion is the tameness and near-symbiotic relationship between humans and dogs. That too came from evolutionary selection, as the wolves who had less fear of humans came to live nearer them, ate their leftovers, and gradually took up joint endeavors like sheep herding, protecting homes, etc.

And when Peachy, my beautiful rescued Golden Doodle barks at strangers, I can sense traces of ancient wolves standing guard in my home, and I can thank the process of natural selection.

Les Inglis

Papa in Cuba

2010-07-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

Papa in Cuba

For all the animosity that flows back and forth across the Florida Straits between the Cuban and US governments, the two nations celebrate one literary hero in common. That man was Ernest Hemingway. Papa Hemingway made his name in the US literary world, but, after a stint in Key West, he decided to make his home in Cuba, and landed there to stay in 1939 with Martha Gellhorn, his third wife. Martha, wanting roots in the area, soon began a search for a home to replace the hotel rooms they were using.

Finca Vegia is the home she found and talked Ernest into buying. It is situated on a high hill south of Havana, and from its front porch one can see the entire city of Havana and the sea beyond. Every tall building is identifiable in the hazy distance. Papa and Martha bought it, fixed it up, and lived there for the rest of his life. Ernest loved cats and dogs (some say cats more than dogs) and even established a little pet cemetery on the grounds. A half hour away is the village of Cojimar, where he kept his fishing yacht, Pilar.

Life at Finca Vegia was idyllic for them. They traveled; he fished; they received famous visitors; and they played in the Havana of the 40’s and 50’s, scene of tropical revelries and the city at their feet. Papa built a four story tower for an even better view of the city, and he fashioned a writing studio on the top floor. The first floor became a cattery for his many feline companions.

Today Finca Vegia (roughly “farm with a view”) is a Cuban national treasure and a first class museum. You can’t walk in the house, but you can walk all around it and peer into every window, all open for your photographic convenience. Fresh off a full restoration, the place is perfect and kept spotless with Ernest’s personal effects, like reading glasses and pens precisely placed on desks and tables, just as he left them. 9000 books strain shelves built in nearly every room. Ada Rosa Alfonso Rosales is the museum director, and, with her friendly staff are prepared to answer nearly every question about the Hemingway years at the Finca. The museum offices are in the old garage where Papa’s 1947 Lincoln Continental convertible and his 1956 Chrysler New Yorker convertible used to sleep. (Ada Rosa told me last November that the museum had found and acquired the Chrysler, and had plans to restore it.) Today’s descendents of Papa’s animals range through the area.

On my first visit to the finca, Nora Garcia and I were walking up its long driveway. I had just given her a donation, and she said, “That’s great, now Aniplant can become guardian of the animals who live at the museum.” In later years she has kept that promise, and I’ve seen her bring flea treatments and inoculations to the dogs and cats on our return visits. Aniplant has even conducted a spay-neuter clinic in the nearby town of San Francisco de Paula.

Thinking about those little dogs and cats, I can’t help feeling a connection with Papa, his characters, and his life.

Les Inglis

One Man's Meat...

2010-06-25T07:21:00.001-07:00

One Man’s Meat…

If there are two elements of Cuban society that work well, they are education and health systems. These systems intersect in the University where doctors for people and veterinarians for animals are trained. These professional workers deserve and receive the respect of the man in the street, but they are paid little better than any other workers. So the vets often operate a sideline offering medical care to pet dogs and cats.

A cow or a pig is a unit of production, and therefore it is considered the property of the state. In their regular jobs vets often care for farm animals, but your family’s dog or cat is of no interest to the state, only to his owners. Many of the medicines and supplies used by veterinarians for dogs and cats are scarce or nonexistent in Cuba—especially if they are packaged in the smaller doses made for dogs and cats. Products like flea and tick remedies, dog shampoos, and heartworm medicines are needed in Cuba, although they are abundant here.

In the US many of these meds have expiration dates, and it is illegal to use them after their expiration date. They often sit on a veterinarian’s shelf for months after their expiration dates and are then thrown away. In Cuba drugs have expiration dates too, and those dates are observed for humans, but not for dogs and cats. Sometimes a hospital will even donate outdated drugs to veterinarians.

We have been asking US vets to donate outdated pet meds to us for use in Cuba. We have collected significant quantities for Aniplant in Havana. Cuba allows each visitor to bring in 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of “health products,” and most travelers between Miami and Havana use this allowance to bring in soaps, shampoo, or toothpaste for relatives there. But on our trips we have each been carrying 10 kg of donated outdated vet meds and supplies.

Also notable among Cuban vets is a lack of pill-type medicines. When they have medicines, they are usually in injectable form. The outdated pills we bring in from the US are very welcome as they last longer, are easier to apply, and don’t require the use of sterile syringes.

Nora Garcia, the president of Aniplant, dispenses some vet services from her headquarters on Principe Street in Central Havana. But she knows countless other vets who work in her free weekend spay-neuter clinics. Nothing goes to waste in Cuba, and the extra outdated vet items she doesn’t use herself are traded to local vets for help in the clinics.

Cuban vets have become experts in which medicines last the longest after their expiration. One vet from Old Havana told me he had some old anesthesia drugs from the Cuban campaigns in Angola (in the 1990’s) that still worked.

Waste not, want not.

Les Inglis

Radio Days

2010-06-18T06:39:00.000-07:00

Radio Days

A trip to Cuba is like traveling backwards in a time machine. We’ve all seen the old cars still plying the streets of Old Havana and Vedado. But less known, perhaps, is the prominence of radio in the country’s communications. It’s far more patronized and important than television.

Yes, your hotel room in Havana has a TV set, but it is hooked up to satellite receivers unavailable legally to the man in the street. In your hotel room you can even get CNN, but a Havana man depends upon Radio Progreso for most of his news and some of his entertainment. Radio Progreso, owned and operated by the Cuban government presents news, music, talk shows, soap operas, and educational programming. You can listen to it on 630 kilo Hertz in many parts of Florida.

One daily educational show is about farming, and twice a week Nora Garcia presents a program on caring for your dogs and cats. Her shows are popular and heeded by a population that loves their pets but can’t afford veterinarians or prepared dog food.

Nora deals on the radio with timely issues to help pet owners and their animals. For instance, last November we visited Radio Progreso, just around the corner from Havana’s beautiful Hotel Nacional. It was the height of the H1N1 swine flu scare, and a rumor had started that you could catch the deadly flu from your dog or cat. Nora put that rumor to rest in no uncertain terms in her Saturday morning talk. There is no way to measure how many animals were saved from being banished from their homes in a hysterical, rumor-driven wave of fear, but Nora’s voice for the animals is known and respected, and reason prevailed in Cuba as swine flu season passed.

Radio Progreso has a big neon sign (probably straight out of the 1940’s) on its old building, and I had seen it several times before we arranged to watch Nora’s show. On arrival, we had to be admitted by the station manager, who turned out to be a genial host. But, as we entered, we had one more reminder of the old-timey Cuban environment. He apologized, telling us we’d have to use the stairs to the 4th floor studio as the elevator was on the fritz.

It was worth the climb to see another aspect of the tough fight Nora and Aniplant wage to protect animals in Cuba. a fight I’m proud to be a small part of.

Les Inglis

Making Ends Meet

2010-06-11T08:08:00.000-07:00

Making Ends Meet

Cuba fought three wars for independence from Spain, a colonial power. Finally, with the help of the US, it gained independence in 1902. There followed a succession of Presidents, good and bad, with some really being dictators. Fulgencio Batista, who preceded Fidel Castro in power, was a former President who came back to power as a dictator. In the 1950’s he ran a country that had sold out to the American Mafia, and Cuba became a land of casinos, revelry, and mob influence. Many Cubans made a good living in those days, but those days have been gone for a long time in today’s Cuba.

Fidel Castro came to power on January 1, 1959, and he was welcomed by many, but not by the mobsters who ran the casinos. They were soon sent packing and the casinos closed down. Fidel got off to a rocky start that soon left him estranged with Americans (who owned 71% of Cuban businesses). After a series of nationalizations of US owned businesses, Cuba found itself an outcast in the western world. The only supporter Fidel could find was the Soviet Union.

Economically things went from bad to worse as the sugar industry (Cuba’s largest) steeply declined and a US embargo took hold. In a short time, “el comunismo” reigned in the “Pearl of the Antilles,” formerly the greatest colonial prize of Spain’s empire. Bad times prevailed, everyone pretended to work for the government, and the government pretended to pay them with shrinking pesos. Flash forward 50 years of struggle and you find the Cuba of today—where the average wage owner gets perhaps $20.00 a month and small rations of food staples. Nearly everyone cultivates a sideline to earn a little extra. The only exceptions are high political offices and those who run branches of foreign businesses in Cuba.

For Cuban companion animals this tight money problem is worse than it is for the people. Pets get leftovers to eat, or, if they’re lucky, slaughterhouse waste products (even chicken heads) cooked down with rice as a filler. Only the few rich can afford veterinary care unless they are connected with a moonlighting vet who might work evenings in his basement or garage. Yes, even professionals like veterinarians work a sideline for a little extra money. The average vet earns perhaps $250 a year in his government job. Surgery, when needed for dogs and cats is very rare, and the animals are expected to survive as best they can.

Jose, a veterinarian approaching retirement age, practices in Old Havana. To find his office, look in an empty lot walled off from the street with a rusted sheet metal fence. There’s a hole in the sheet metal, and if you duck down you can enter the yard. On one side, a concrete block lean-to like structure with a corrugated iron roof is Jose’s office. Inside are a few chairs, an old stainless steel table, a sterilizer, and a few shelves fixed to the walls. A few bottles of pills are on the shelves, and Jose shows me a cardboard box with vials of injectable meds he has scrounged from hospitals. They’re all out of date, but he rushes to tell me most still work. He even found medicines made for the Cuban campaign in Angola (in the ‘90’s) which still work as anesthesia.

Jose is a skilled vet with a good education (education still works well in Cuba), but with little support for supplies. But local people in his neighborhood love their pets and bring them to the shed to try to help them when they are sick. Jose is a regular at Aniplant’s weekend spay-neuter clinics as well. Cuban animals don’t have much going for them, but at least they have Jose.

Les Inglis

2010-06-04T06:43:00.001-07:00

Family Walks miles for Their Pet

In Cuba, the government uses prisoners to range through the ciities in trucks to pick up stray dogs. Those poor souls are caged in a facility 15 miles west of Central Havana for 10 days without food but with water. On the 10th day they get a meal laced with strychnine. Adults and puppies, males and females, they lie on the cement cage floors for up to a few hours enduring an indescribable agony. Finally their bodies are relegated to a dump.

This ridding the streets of strays is done in the name of tourism, as the spectacle of straving animals wandering, fighting, or even languishing is bad for tourism, Cuba’s biggest source of hard currency. It doesn’t matter that the zoonosis center where they are killed is staffed with technicians trained to give IV injections—there is no budget for humane injectable drugs. It doesn’t matter the staff hates their work and would love to use IV injections—there’s no budget for anything but strychnine.

And how do the prisoner crews tell owned dogs from strays? Not very well apparently, as Cuban city dwellers usually have no yards, and their dogs are let out into the street to relieve themselves. Collars and tags are rare, and many family pets have been taken away in these stray sweeps. To atone for this, the families are permitted to go to the center and find their pet and take him home during the 10 day impoundment.

On my first trip to Arroyo, the zoonosis center, I remarked on how far it was from the town center as we rode in a cab. I thought it would be hard for a Cuban family to go to Arroyo to look for their pet, since most people don’t have cars. While we talked with the staff, a man, a woman, and a little boy appeared at the entrance at the top of the hill. After a brief conversation at the gate, they were allowed to walk through the long rows of cages until the boy screamed the name of his dog. Yes, against the odds, their long walk had paid off, and they found their dog. A while later, after filling out forms, they started the trek back home, this time leading the dog on a leash.

Nora Garcia, as President of Aniplant, is negotiating with the government to replace the strychnine with injections. If it happens, the change to humane euthanasia will use humane euthanasia medicines furnished by Aniplant, but it will be worthwhile to the 2000 dogs a year being sacrificed to tourism.

Les Inglis

2010-05-28T07:57:00.000-07:00

Crossing the Street

When you see a dog out with his owner in the US, the dog is usually on a leash. I’ve always admired dog guardians who have such good control over their animals that they don’t need a leash, but I haven’t been that good at training mine. In Cuba leashes are rare, and yet dogs are numerous. I watched a family of three crossing a busy street near my hotel with their dog following them and, of course, no leash. I held my breath for the dog’s safety as they crossed the street, but he stayed right with his family, and he avoided any problems with cars.

Well, that’s OK for a family’s companion animal, but what about strays, you might ask. It turns out that strays still learn to get around on the streets without having families to follow. Three years ago when we rescued Aló Presidente on the streets of Vedado, he got our attention by following us. We were walking down the main artery of Vedado, a street with a wide parkway named Avenue of the Presidents. As we moved along, we crossed the side streets that that didn’t seem too dangerous. Aló followed us without hesitation. As we neared our hotel, we waited at the curb to cross to the wide parkway in the middle of the street. Aló stood near us and waited as if he had been our dog forever.

Finally the traffic stopped, and we stepped off to cross the crowded lanes. Aló didn’t look at the cars, he looked at us! He was still not quite fully grown, but he had already assimilated a critical survival rule for life in the city: If the humans feel it is safe to cross and start off, then it’s safe for a dog.

In Havana there are many more dogs on the streets than here in the US. Most dogs, owned or strays, quickly learn to trust people on crossing streets. I had an airline pilot friend who used to say, “There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots. The same saying can be applied to city dogs, and the dogs running loose on Havana’s streets are living proof.

No other species exists in the world today that is so connected to human beings. It’s far more than a mutual admiration society—there are countless examples of how humankind and dogs serve and depend upon each other.

Les Inglis

2010-05-25T09:07:00.001-07:00

The Havana Airport

On my first trip to Cuba, we arrived on time at the old terminal of Havana’s Jose Martí airport. That’s the one reserved for flights to and from the US. Havana has a modern airport terminal with jet ways and all the trimmings, but the old terminal for US flights is just one more little battle in the 50 year-old war of ideas between the Cuban and American governments. Christina and I were to be met by Thelma and taken to our hotel.

Well, we waited over an hour in a public area outside the terminal, and we never seemed to find Thelma. I made a pest of myself asking each woman if she was Thelma. Most of the time we just sat and watched the taxis come and go. I saw a skinny little dog walking in the street by the curb, and he looked pretty bad. He tried to scale the curb, and I could see he was pretty weak. Starvation, I thought, and I looked for something he could eat.

But all I saw was a candy stand, and it was surrounded by a bunch of people waiting for the lone clerk to help them. I waited in line for a while, and the little dog moved away until I couldn’t see him any more. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, I thought, and I rejoined Christina looking for Thelma. Eventually we got a taxi and linked up with Thelma later. Also, eventually I learned the likely reason the little dog was there.

Every year 200,000 Cubans win a lottery run by the US Interests Section (a sort of embassy in Havana), and they get permission to emigrate to the US. They have to leave their possessions in the hands of the Cuban government, give up claims to their property, and show up at the airport with no more than they can carry or wear. It’s a tough price to pay to move to the US, but thousands have done it. It’s an even tougher price to pay for their pet animals, who can’t go with their families.

If the family can’t find a new home for their dog or cat, they may take it out to the airport to keep it to the last minute. Then the dog or cat is set free at the airport to face a very uncertain future. It’s cruel, it’s thoughtless, and it’s a big betrayal, but the number of strays that can be seen at the airport testify to two contrasting futures—that of the family, bright and hopeful about a new life in the US, and their pet’s facing loneliness, unfamiliar surroundings, strangers, and nothing to eat.

Nora Garcia, the President of Aniplant, Havana’s animal protection organization, militates against this thoughtlessness in her two weekly radio programs and one on television. People in Cuba often love their animals, and Nora’s public education about humane treatment has helped reduce the number of airport dogs, but it has not solved the problem. After all, she’s trying to instill a new ethic toward animals in an old and established culture.

Les Inglis

2010-05-25T09:01:00.000-07:00

The Havana Airport

On my first trip to Cuba, we arrived on time at the old terminal of Havana’s Jose Martí airport. That’s the one reserved for flights to and from the US. Havana has a modern airport terminal with jet ways and all the trimmings, but the old terminal for US flights is just one more little battle in the 50 year-old war of ideas between the Cuban and American governments. Christina and I were to be met by Thelma and taken to our hotel.

Well, we waited over an hour in a public area outside the terminal, and we never seemed to find Thelma. I made a pest of myself asking each woman if she was Thelma. Most of the time we just sat and watched the taxis come and go. I saw a skinny little dog walking in the street by the curb, and he looked pretty bad. He tried to scale the curb, and I could see he was pretty weak. Starvation, I thought, and I looked for something he could eat.

But all I saw was a candy stand, and it was surrounded by a bunch of people waiting for the lone clerk to help them. I waited in line for a while, and the little dog moved away until I couldn’t see him any more. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, I thought, and I rejoined Christina looking for Thelma. Eventually we got a taxi and linked up with Thelma later. Also, eventually I learned the likely reason the little dog was there.

Every year 20,000 Cubans win a lottery run by the US Interests Section (a sort of embassy in Havana), and they get permission to emigrate to the US. They have to leave their possessions in the hands of the Cuban government, give up claims to their property, and show up at the airport with no more than they can carry or wear. It’s a tough price to pay to move to the US, but thousands have done it. It’s an even tougher price to pay for their pet animals, who can’t go with their families.

If the family can’t find a new home for their dog or cat, they may take it out to the airport to keep it to the last minute. Then the dog or cat is set free at the airport to face a very uncertain future. It’s cruel, it’s thoughtless, and it’s a big betrayal, but the number of strays that can be seen at the airport testify to two contrasting futures—that of the family, bright and hopeful about a new life in the US, and their pet’s facing loneliness, unfamiliar surroundings, strangers, and nothing to eat.

Nora Garcia, the President of Aniplant, Havana’s animal protection organization, militates against this thoughtlessness in her two weekly radio programs and one on television. People in Cuba often love their animals, and Nora’s public education about humane treatment has helped reduce the number of airport dogs, but it has not solved the problem. After all, she’s trying to instill a new ethic toward animals in an old and established culture.

Les Inglis

Helping Cuban Animals

2010-05-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

I've been retired for 22 years, and I really haven't been looking for something to do. Still, five years ago I took a trip to Cuba and stumbled on something that has kept me busy ever since. My traveling companion was Christina from one of the humane organizations who work for animal protection. She had the name of a contact in Cuba who did animal protection work.

Thus I met Nora Garcia Pérez, the President of Aniplant, the only animal protection organization officially recognized in Cuba. That first trip was packed with visits to zoos, veterinary hospitals, a rabies center, two vet's offices, and many other animal related activities. Christina and I quickly developed lots of respect for Nora's work helping animals. Also, it seemed Nora knew everyone in Cuba who had anything to do with animals. We left Cuba thinking there was something more we could do to help Nora in her work.

In the intervening time, I took four more trips to Cuba, learned lots more about humane work there, and found a way to make an important difference in the lives of many Cuban animals.
This series of blog enteries will be the story of what we do to help Cuban animals, the Cuban culture as related to animals, and the special challenges of working in a beautiful country so estranged from our daily life here in the US.

My wife, Charlene, a life-long animal activist,has been a source of much encouragement in this work for the animals. Her efforts have produced a formal incorporation of The Aniplant Project, Inc., and we have now applied for a 501 (c) (3) designation from the IRS, which will be formal recognition of our status as an approved charity. That 501 (c) (3) application was a big job, but it's finished, and we hope to get the IRS comments soon.

We have asked friends and neighbors for donations, they have responded generously, and we have taken modest amounts of money to Nora for her operations. We have also helped her to purchase anesthesia medicines for use in her growing spay and neuter campaigns. Using our help, Nora has made a dramatic increase in the number of animals she sterilizes each year.

I'll update this blog with new chapters no less often than once each week, and if you follow along, you'll get a good idea of life in Cuba, the plight of the animals there, and the wonderful work Aniplant is doing. We have lot sto say, but each of my additions to the blog will be about this same length. After all, if you wanted to read a book, you wouldn't have come to my blog.

Until the next time,

Les Inglis