Welcome Nala

These blog postings are about Cuba, its animals, and its people.  But occasionally something happens worth telling here, even if it doesn't fit the usual topic.  So it is with Nala.

Charlene monitors the websites and emails of dog and cat rescuers, especially one in Miami.  For the most parts the animals needing homes they help don't fit our situation, and anyway with two dogs and six cats, it isn't like we need more pets.  On the contrary, we pay a big price for vet care, grooming, immunizations, and pet food, and Charlene pays an even greater price keeping the house clean and caring for them.  We don't need more animals.

But, a few weeks ago, she saw a picture of a little unfortunate six year old dog who couldn't accompany her owner on a move, and something tugged at her heartstrings.  Her name was Nala, and when she told me about her, I knew Nala was very likely to be added to our menagerie.  I thought that this could be a risky situation, and I knew I couldn't get away with opposing our taking Nala.  Charlene decided to tell her rescuers we'd take her if no one else could be found.

A few days later Charlene told me Nala's rescuers hadn't been successful in finding a home for her, and so we were going to have another resident in our house.  I knew it was going to happen and that I had better make the best of it.  When the rescuers made plans to drive here from Miami on a Sunday, we offered to meet them halfway, as the trip is 250 miles or more one way.  But they were good rescuers and wanted to see Nala's new home before they gave up control of the dog.  Really it's comforting they are so dedicated to the welfare of the animals they place.

So, on December 16th in the late afternoon, a red Toyota pulled into our driveway with Lucille and Vivian in the front seat and Nala in the rear.  The dog seemed a little too long for her legs, suggesting a Daschund in her history, and when you petted her, your hand felt greasy.  Lucille apologized saying her owner should have bathed her before releasing her.  I wondered if she had ever had a bath.

She had an old, dirty collar on her and a good sized rope for a leash.  The collar bore a beat up old tag with her name and a phone number on it.

Lucille and Vivian stayed for an hour or more while we all chatted and watched the interaction between Nala and our dogs and cats.  It soon became clear there wasn't going to be a war, and they may all really like each other.  With a long drive still in front of them, Lucile and Vivian left for home, and we settled down with a new family member.

Nala has a pronounced limp on her right front foot.  We knew about it before we agreed to take her.  Early the morning after her arrival, Nala met Dr. Marty who had been scheduled to spay her.  We had x-rays, and Marty said the limp was due to an early growth plate injury, and there isn't a surgical fix for her limp.  Actually, she is kind of cute as she walks with her head bobbing up and down to lessen the weight she puts on that foot.  Sometimes when she runs, that foot won't even touch the ground for several paces.

Nala has been here 11 days as I write this.  She tears up and down the stairs now after initially not knowing what stairs were for.  She is still curious about the cats, but they clearly are not her enemies.  She was slow to come close to me, but she immediately took to Charlene, following her from room to room as she moves through the house.  Now she sits long periods with me also.  She took over two dog beds—one in our bedroom and one in the living room.

It's still a little surprising to see a reddish-brown dog in the house, for many months we've only had Peachy and Princess—both white.  When she is in the sun, you can see there is a lot of red in her shiny coat.

I knew it wouldn't take long for Nala to become part of the family as she certainly has.  If she were suddenly gone, we'd feel a big loss and an emptiness.

Of course we don’t expect that to happen.  If we have anything to say about it, ours is the last home she'll ever need.

Les Inglis

Supply and Demand 

Obispo Street in Central Havana begins near the Museo de Bellas Artes (fine arts museum) and runs east toward the Bay of Havana, ending at the Plaza de las Armas and San Francisco Square.  It's narrow and congested, so the city made it a pedestrian street.  Sixteenth century cannon are partially buried in the street forming immovable iron sentries through which cars cannot pass.  Cars can cross Calle Obispo at intersections, but they can't drive in it.  For longer than the Castros have run Cuba, Obispo Street has been dedicated to shopping, its entire area filled with people strolling, window shopping, and lugging their purchases.

Most of the shoppers are tourists, as the street runs near several tourist attractions—museums, the ballet, and the Capitolio, among others.  What also makes this primarily a tourist street is that the shops price their goods in CUC's, Cuba's convertible currency.  This money, roughly par with the US dollar, is used for hotels, restaurants, and taxis and is exchangeable with major hard currencies like the dollar, pound, and euro.  What keeps most Cuban citizens out of Obispo Street stores is that unless one works in a tourist related business and can earn tips, one can't get his or her hands on many CUC's.  You're paid in old Cuban pesos (moneda nacional or MN) valued at about 24 pesos to the
CUC.

The real rub is that those stores, handling sanely valued money can buy any merchandise they want, but for those shopping with only MN, only bare necessities are easily found.  So, not only does the Cuban worker live with the knowledge that workers in other parts of the world are paid salaries many times greater than they can earn, but also they can walk down Obispo Street and see the merchandise they can't afford.

There is a small puppy store on Obispo Street, but like those here at home, there is little effort dedicated to good puppy health, and absolutely no interest in the welfare of the animals.  Cuba has no laws for the protection of animals.

There is also a pet supply store where you can buy (with CUC's) dog food, collars, leashes, etc.  Prices there are steep—I saw a plain dog collar for 14 CUC.  Pet food isn't made in Cuba, so if you can find it at all, it will be in CUC stores.

The largest book store in Cuba surely is La Moderna Poesía (modern poetry), which occupies an impressive Art Deco building on a corner of Obispo Street.  When I was studying Spanish, I used to shop at a store with the same name on Calle Ocho (SW 8th Street) in Miami.  Surely that store must have been run by the same family as the one in Havana.  The Miami store had a larger selection of books in Spanish than any other store in the US—including Barnes and Noble.  The variety was so great; I used to bring home half a dozen books from every trip I made to Miami.

A few years ago, I decided to step into Cuba's La Moderna Poesía just to see what it was like.  The first floor was much larger than the Miami store, and yet the books were very scarce.  There were no bookshelves, only large tables.  Books were laid out individually or in low stacks and all were spread out to take up plenty of room, as if the manager wanted to make his book stock look much bigger than it was.  Not finding anything I wanted to buy, I left after a little while, remembering how I couldn't leave the Miami store without making several purchases.

The shopping experience in Havana is a lesson in supply and demand.  Among citizens, low salaries mean low demand and scant supplies.  Among the tourists, however, money isn't a problem (relatively speaking), so supplies are available to meet their demand.  Like all economic laws, this applies to the haves (mostly tourists) and the have nots (most citizens).  The only problem is most of the haves also have passports and homes and a return ticket to their homes in another part of the world.

 

Les Inglis

Compassion

 

Recently Nora sent me an email explaining how she got a little behind in her work.  Here it is with some of my parenthetical clarifications:

Dear Les,

Every evening for the last 15 years I carry or send food to a lady who is now 90.  She and her sister were very good friends of Maria's (Nora's adoptive mother who was a nationally known Cuban singer-songwriter).  They even played four-handed piano together.  The sister died, and I was left in charge of the lady who was then alone.  She is of poor eyesight, but strong minded.  She never forgot the building where she lives was built by her father in 1944.  She had a little wooly dog who died at 16, given to her by Aniplant's adoption program.  She and her sister were members of Aniplant since its founding (in 1987).  On the little dog's dying a few months ago and having such solitude and misery, she began to care for dogs by the day and by the hour—that is to day care them or to foster them.

But the reality is that who regularly attend those dogs are María Julia and myself.  (María Julia is Nora's friend who minds her household and pets when Nora travels or is tied up working.) Those dogs are well attended, and have no problems.  When Pablo was rescued from the streets, we had no place to take him as males can't go to Aniplant's headquarters.  Aló Presidente is the only male (and he doesn't take kindly to other "machos").  Foster care costs at least $3.00 a day, and those who usually do it ask for even more, so we decided to take Pablo to the old lady's place while he convalesces.  But as Pablo needs medical care, day by day, I take him for his treatment even sometimes twice a day.

Tuesday, on coming back from feeding the lady and playing with Pablo, who is very nice, I slipped on exiting the bus. It was dark and raining, and I broke my ankle. Now María Julia is attending him, as I can't until next Tuesday when I get a cast.  Then I think I can help.  I'll tell you.

Nora

This little vignette tells me a few things:

1.     Getting from one place to another in Cuba can be hazardous.

2.     In Cuba your best social safety net is your friends.

3.     It's tough to get old in any land, and it's certainly no picnic in Cuba.

4.     A dog in need is lucky if he falls under the protection of a compassionate person.

In Pablo's case, he has attracted the help of three compassionate women—Amanda the American who found him and will adopt him, Nora who cannot ignore a needy animal, and the 90 year old lady who is fostering him.

That word, compassion, needs some comment.  This story shows that true compassion is indivsible.  You can't be compassionate for one and not another.  It would be impossible to have real compassion for animals without some of it for people too.  Nora's email clearly demonstrates the scope of her compassion.  It isn't enough she has 12 dogs in her home, but she has 10 more at Aniplant's headquarters, runs an animal protection organization, and has time for a daily caregiver's visit with the old lady and Pablo.  María Julia has 8 dogs in her home as well.

True love can happen anywhere.

 

Les

Aniplant's Humane Heroes

Jeanette Ryder was a Wisconsin lady who married a doctor and moved to Cuba at the beginning of the twentieth century.  She was a compassionate woman who took pity on any suffering living being.  By 1906 she had formed the Banda de Piedad (band of pity or compassion), a group dedicated to alleviating the suffering of orphans homeless animals and accident victims.

She had the support of the government and with that and her own money and donations, the Banda de Piedad grew in importance in the Havana area and soon operated ambulances to pick up accident victims.  The group grew, and its good works made Havana a better place to live.  She died in 1931, but her charity lived on into the 1950's.

In 1957 The Cuban government issued commemorative stamps to honor Jeanette Ryder.  A 4 centavo stamp bearing the picture of a little boy and his dog and a 12 centavo stamp bearing the picture of Jeanette were printed side by side in sheets of 100 stamps, and arrangements were made with stamp collectors to mail a stamped envelope from Havana on the first of issue of the new stamps.  First day covers are coveted by collectors, and the envelopes often bear special markings having to do with the commemoration.

I can't recall how, but Charlene's computer work for TAP got her name on a stamp collector's website and linked her to an interest in Jeanette Ryder.  Since then we have been shown and acquired stamps, first day covers, the original postal order that established the commemorative issue, a pamphlet in Spanish and English giving historical information about Jeanette and Banda de Piedad, and even an original 10 x 10 stamp sheet of Ryder stamps.

A few years ago we decided that on behalf of Aniplant, TAP would produce The Jeanette Ryder Award to honor special people who have aided Aniplant in its humane work for animals.  The award is mounted in a picture frame displaying a pair of the stamps, a copy of the pamphlet, and a first day cover, along with plaques showing the name of the recipient.  The frame is fitted with glass on front and back so both sides of the pamphlet can be seen and read and so that all of the cancelations on both sides of the first day cover are visible.  Julie London, a Sarasota artist produced the awards.

The first Jeanette Ryder Award was given to Dr. Andrew Rowan, Chief International Officer of the Humane Society of the United States, and CEO of Humane Society International.  Dr. Rowan has been generous with his advice, support, and good wishes, and his Award was given to him on March 4, 2012, the date of the 25th anniversary of Aniplant's founding.

The second Jeanette Ryder Award was given in April, 2012 to Dr. Dick White, DVM of Dick White Referrals in England.  Dr. White has done charitable work for animals for many years, particularly in China and now in Cuba.  He has funded the establishment of a veterinary clinic in the Aniplant headquarters on Principe Street in Central Havana.  He is also conducting educational seminars for training Cuban vets.

Congratulations to both Dr. Rowan and Dr. White.  They surely deserve recognition as humane leaders in the vein of Jeanette Ryder, the Banda de Piedad, and of Aniplant itself.

Les Inglis

Writer's Block and Loving Animals

I wonder if all writers don't occasionally face writer's block.  I know I certainly do.  After nearly three years of weekly posting to this blog, I sometimes stare at a piece of paper and feel I have nothing to write.  Cuba and protecting its animals offers many opportunities upon which to expound, but sometimes in the midst of such richness I come up blank.

So it was last week when, after long consideration, I decided to write about "politically correct" language and how it even affects animal rightists.  I touched on scientists, the women's liberation movement, and race relations before getting to the language strictures propounded by animal rightists.  In particular I argued for thinking of my dogs and cats as little people—as if they were my children.  To me, the term, "pet," is an honorific denoting love and respect—much more so than the PC term, "companion animal."

I was glad to overcome my writer's block with this topic when I received a comment from my good Cuban friend, Maylin.  Maylin is a well-educated Cuban woman who, among other accomplishments, is a member of the Board of Directors of Aniplant.  She lives in the Havana suburbs.  She speaks Spanish and English fluently and is an excellent sequential interpreter.

Maylin's skill was the reason Nora suggested her as an interpreter for my keynote address last March at Aniplant's 25th anniversary celebration.  I can handle a short speech in Spanish well enough to avoid driving the audience out of the room, but I certainly wanted to do better than that for my talk at the anniversary.  Enter Maylin, who sat next to me at the head table, shared a microphone, and rendered my English words into correct, fluid Spanish.  She has also many times translated correspondence to help Nora, who does not speak English.

My blog on PC language had stimulated Maylin to tell me a story from her own past.  She began with her agreement that calling her pets "chicos" was a term of love and respect—much like the feelings she has for her son.  She went on to tell of her encounter with some young English speaking girls who clearly didn't respect animals.

But here it is in her words:

 

            DEAR LES:

 

            I have always referred to my dogs as "my chicos" which is something like my kids—not exactly             but you know, more or less.  People immediately ask me with a hint of sorrow, "Oh, you don't           have kids." That makes me sooo angry!!!  And I answer back clearly:  I have a son, a beloved          one...Meaning one human son, but I also have four legged kids, or chicos, they are MY DOGS!

 

            I have an anecdote I always remember.  One cloudy day I was on one of my neighborhood             errands injecting Ivomec into some poor dogs with mange that I had been treating and some             young girls, very nicely dressed, were staring at me as if I was an Extra Terrestrial. One of them     asked me why I did that, and I explained briefly.  Then the other, the fanciest one, spoke to her       friend IN ENGLISH thinking I was not able to understand, saying "poor thing, she could be crazy    because she certainly is old"

 

            It happens that they were English students at the University and thought themselves the real             queens of England.  Then I looked in the eyes of the one who spoke and said in perfect English:            It is a pity how ashamed of you dear William Shakespeare would be if...he had the opportunity to    hear your words and know your thoughts!  Certainly you should read him more to learn what the   word HUMANITY means.  If you prefer a more modern writer, I suggest another William, but this            time it is William Somerset Maugham because critics say that his novels and short stories are the           very soul of human kindness.

 

            I turned my back on them, and resumed my dog task.  I think they were speechless.

 

            Well, dear friend thanks always for your blogs.  Give my love to Charlene.

 

            MAYLIN

Politically Correct 

Years ago, in a board meeting for a large humane organization, I said something like "The dog in the street knows when he is hungry."  A friend suggested I should say "it" instead of "he."  He said that we wouldn't want to anthropomorphize the dog.  In this same vein, some stuffy scientific types want us to use "that" rather than "who" as a relative pronoun when referring to animals. My friend in the board meeting was suggesting it is unscientific to ascribe human feelings and emotions to an animal by using he, she, his, her or hers.

Well, after a career as an engineer, I'm as scientific as the next guy, but I admit I think of my dogs as little people.  I can tell when they are happy or sad—feel good or bad—and they can tell the same things about me.  Sorry, scientific world, but to me Peachy and Princess are like my kids, and I'll always think of those two girls as "she."

People try to manage the language to press their political points of view.  While we used to say (even though not very grammatically) "everyone has their favorite color," it saved us from assigning a gender to "everyone."  Some years ago the women's liberation proponents were fairly successful in getting us to use "his or her" in place of "their."  And they were pretty effective in doing away with "mankind" instead of using their preferred "humankind."  I'm sympathetic to this idea of equalizing the sexes.  I'll admit I like it lots better than trying to think of Peachy as an "it."

During my lifetime, we've run through a whole progression of words for blacks or African Americans.  Use the wrong word and you're sure to insult or hurt feelings.  I try to be especially sensitive to this stricture, and I hope I always will be.

Animal rightists are not above a little language tinkering.  They recoil at the word, pet, and insist upon "companion animal."  The idea is this elevates the status of the animal.  I've tried over the years to use "companion animal," but the word, pet, keeps working into my writings.  In no way does the awkward, Latinate phrase, companion animal, make my pet seem better.  My pet is something I love, caress, take care of, and defend.  After a very few humans, there is nothing I love more than my pets.

In one of my recent blogs, I talked about a new dog in our house as an "acquisition."  That drew a comment from a good friend, Diana, who pointed out that "acquisition" connotes purchase or ownership and non-human animals deserved better descriptions than that.  Diana, thank you; you're absolutely correct, and my use of the word was insensitive, especially for someone who has had pets his whole life and tries to be an advocate for animals.

For many years now, I've thought of myself as an animal rightist, but I've also come to realize that I don't always speak that language correctly.

Les Inglis

Gaining a Home and Family

 

Here's an often repeated scenario:

A tourist plans to spend a few days in Havana.  Perhaps she is part of a people-to-people tour, an educational tour about dance or music or art.  She checks in at Havana's Hotel Inglaterra right in the center of Central Havana and walking distance from lots of interesting places to see—the Capitolio, art museums, the ballet, Chinatown, and so on.

Every time she walks out of the hotel, she enters Central Park and makes her way through a surprising number of Cubans passing time in the park.  Many are all too ready to chat her up and try their soft swindles for money on her, but she avoids them.

From her first day in Cuba she has seen an inordinate number of dogs in public places—many in the park or near the hotel.  Mostly they aren't running or walking.  Like the human park goers, they are stationary—passing time.  One particular dog catches her eye each time she leaves or returns to the hotel.  It's a little dog, smaller than the US average like most Cuban dogs are.  It's none too heavy; in fact outlines of his ribs show through his fur.  Curled up near the base of one of the hotel's columns, she worries about how the little dog can live.  She asks a bellman about the dog, and he tells her it's a homeless dog like so many in Cuba.  She'd like to help it if she could, but doesn't know how.  She's leaving in a couple of days.  She snaps a few photos and brings him something to eat.

She gets back home and browses the Internet looking for a way to help the dog.  She finds The Aniplant Project website.  With the aid of her photos, Nora Garcia of Aniplant in Havana sets out to find the dog.

That's the scenario, and it happens a few times every year.  It sets into motion a search, which if successful leads to vet care, fostering, and adoption or, less frequently, rehoming to the US or Canada.

While Aniplant is an animal protection organization, it cannot address the individual needs of all of Havana's homeless pets, and it does not operate a homeless shelter for pets.  Still, they respond to those tourist inquiries about individual dogs, especially if they are sick or injured.  Instead, they endeavor to address Havana's homeless animal overpopulation with regular, massive, low-cost spay-neuter campaigns.  5000 such neutering operations were performed last year.

Animal advocates have long believed that sort of campaign is the only effective humane way to reduce populations of street animals.  But the rescued street dogs that are adopted or rehomed to other countries make heartwarming stories, and indeed we have told several of them in these blogs.

How do you find a stray dog in a city of 2 million people, perhaps only starting with a picture and a sighting one or two weeks old?  Well it isn't easy, but it can be and is being done.

Posting the pictures is an obvious start in the search.  The location of the tourist's sighting is a starting point, and you don't have to cover a wide area.  These dogs stick to tourist areas like parks, hotels, and museums.  That is because tourists are a much better source of food than native Cubans.  As a result of pervasive food scarcity, natives don't waste food.  On the rare times they go to restaurants, they bag the leftovers and bring them home.  They don't buy lots of street snacks, but tourists do, and like here at home they often discard part of them.  Homeless animals rapidly find and consume any edible discards.  They don't readily move away from tourist areas, which become their homes.

So, a couple of blocks in each direction is as far as you have to go with pictures or posters,  Also the park sitters are really a quite stable group.  It tends to be the same people day after day.  Nora finds the regulars and chats with them about the dog she is looking for.  Cubans are easy to talk with and are as likely to start the conversation as Nora is.  Also in my experience, Cubans are often animal lovers, so they're motivated to help find the dog in question.  Pablo, a recent rescue, was found after talking with a small group of young men who are regulars at the park.  They liked the dog, played with him, and had even given him a name—Bucanero, the Spanish word for pirate and also a popular brand of Cuban beer.

Those young men were protective of Pablo (or Bucanero).  They wanted to know what Nora was going to do with the dog.  She convinced them that Pablo was destined for a good home in the US.  These guys, Pablo's de facto owners, happily gave their consent to Nora's taking the dog.  Of course it didn't hurt that Nora is a public figure in Havana.  Her Saturday radio show and a weekly television appearance during which she gives advice about good treatment of animals make her easily recognized.

So, even though Aniplant is not in the rescuing, business, it still sometimes finds itself searching, vetting, adopting and rehoming animals.

In the past we've told the stories of Pablo, Bella, Cuba and other dogs who are happy to have been extracted from homelessness and delivered to a better life.

Les Inglis

Street Dog

Pro-Life
 
I follow Tom Friedman and his op-ed column in the New York Times.  Today he straightened out my thinking on this pro-life vs. pro-choice business.  Basically, he said you can't call yourself "pro-life" if you oppose gun control laws, environmental protection regulations, universal health care, etc.  Being "pro-life" can't start at fertilization and end at birth; it demands a pro-life position on all the issues of our lifetimes.  That shines a new light on a major polemic in the news today.  Picking and choosing some life issues while opposing others trying to make life longer, better, more enjoyable, and healthier is little more than political clap-trap.  And such fragmented thinking wastes our time and deflects our thinking away from issues government can do something about, like the economy, national security, etc.

 

As I mused over this way of looking at life issues, I realized that what we are doing in The Aniplant Project and at Aniplant in Havana is certainly pro-life in a broad sense.  By sterilizing thousands of dogs and cats, I suppose you could say we're interfering with their God-given reproductive lives.  But doesn't that sound silly?  We're really promoting a lifetime of well being, and we're diminishing the animal's chance of future abandonment, hunger, and illness.

 

Yes, and some of the dogs and cats who show up for our sterilization clinics are already pregnant.  In those cases, sterilization becomes abortion, but few people would militate against ending these pregnancies because those pregnancies only make the possibility of animal abandonment and the terrible life that follows more likely.
 
Even those who have a holistic pro-full-life point of view probably would not object to terminating unwanted pregnancies when discovered in our s/n clinics, especially in a place like Cuba where abandonment sometimes follows animal pregnancies.  It's not a callous, heartless attitude that causes pets to be left to live in the streets; it's a generally depressed economy that makes feeding every living thing in Cuba an iffy proposition.  While a family might have enough scraps and leftovers for their cat, they know there won't be enough food for the family, the cat, and a litter of kittens.  Once nursing has ended, it becomes time for separation.  The children cry, and the adults insist, while not showing how terrible they feel.  It's so much better to have Tabby spayed, and that's where Aniplant steps in to help about 5000 families a year sterilize their pets.  The weekly clinics move through Havana's neighborhoods offering sterilizing services on a love offering basis..  Those with no money to pay for it get it for free.

I never really thought about it before, but in a sense, like Tom Friedman I'm a pro-lifer.  I'm working for better, longer, healthier lives for Cuba's companion animals and happier lives for Cuba's pet owning families.  If you want to help, visit our website at https://www.theaniplantproject.org.  All pro-lifers are cordially welcome.
 

Les Inglis

My Menagerie

 

On the walls of the southeast corner of my study hang pictures of the dogs we have had in the 32 years of our marriage.  Only our most recent acquisition, Princess, is yet to join the gallery, but it is inevitable she will.  We've had more cats than dogs, but only Inky, a Maine Coon and one of the first, hangs on my study wall.  To tell the truth, it would be impossible to fit pictures of all the cats into the free wall space left in my study.  From our point of view, it's not a case of too many animals, but rather one of too little wall space. 

I should have known we'd have so many animals—Charlene had 4 cats when I met her.  It was a clear mandate: love me, love my cats.  So we've always had a menagerie in spite of its concomitant work and expense.  When we had a farm, a few of our dogs lived outside, and some of the cats lived in one of our barns.  They all seemed to so well, thanks in no small part to many long trips to the nearest good vet and also to many station wagon loads of pet food (unavailable at any price in our tiny hamlet, Patriot Indiana.) 

But our household dogs and cats are only part of the story.  In Cuba we're connected to another menagerie.  First there was a pack of about ten survivors of Havana's streets living in Nora and her mom's 10th floor apartment. When I first saw them there had to be 10, and since then, their number has ranged from 8 to 12.  Whenever I visit, a knock on Nora's front door ignites a riot of barking that finally abates when I take a seat.  Nora had one little roly-poly curly who wants to snuggle up by me.  They're all delightful, but she's my favorite, though I can never remember her name.

Another part of my Cuban menagerie is 10 to 12 lucky dogs who are permanent residents of Aniplant's slick new headquarters.  There you'll find the protagonists of several of the posts in this blog.  My all-time favorite is Aló Presidente (see my 8/20/10 post to this blog), a curly black Cocker-like leader of the pack who rules the roost from a defended fort between a large box and a wall and under a table.  He couldn't be more my dog if he were here in Florida, sitting next to me as I write this.

Aló has a female counterpart, Bella, also beautiful, long haired and hospitable to visitors.  Bella perhaps belongs to Angela more than she belongs to me, not for any lack of my love, but for the amount of Angela's.  She is a flight attendant from the UK, who was on one of her layovers in  Havana, who spotted Bella, sick and shy near the Plaza de Las Armas, a popular tourist spot.  At home Angela got on her computer, found us, and then Nora found Bella, took her in, treated her pneumonia, and then adopted her into the headquarters pack.  Bella means "beautiful" in Spanish, and the name certainly applies to this dog.  Angela takes every flight she can work to Cuba, and she is a regular visitor to Aniplant's headquarters, always bringing treats and toys for the whole bunch.  Bella's story is told in these posts on 2/26/12.
 
And, although I'll only see most of the other Cuban dogs in my menagerie only once, I can't end this post without a mention of them.  They're the dogs and cats whose owners bring them to Aniplant's clinics for low cost sterilization.  Aniplant's primary activity is spaying and neutering animals.  They do thousands every year with TAP funding the medicines.  When I visit Havana, I always try to visit one of the Saturday clinics that move weekly through the neighborhoods.  There animal lovers and their companion animals wait patiently for their turn in the veterinarian's schedule.  It's a great gift to the animal to be neutered, and each operation is also a gift to the community because massive spay/neuter programs are the only humane way to reduce the population of homeless animals.
 
So, while I usually don't know their names, I pet them, chat a little with their owners, and mentally add each one to my Cuban menagerie

 

Les Inglis

Chinatown 

On my first trip to Cuba I was surprised to learn Havana has a Chinatown.  I wanted to see it, but why the surprise?  After all, the Chinese, as the most populous country in the world, for centuries had sent its people to the far corners of the world.  Thus we have Chinatowns in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco—why not Havana? 

To find Havana's Chinatown you only need to walk around to the back side of the Capitolio, Havana's most famous building.  Then take a few steps past the Cuban Telephone tower where my friend, Dulce, worked many years ago.  (The Cuban Telephone company was the first US owned business to be nationalized after the 1959 Revolution.)  Now you can see a large oriental arch with a pagoda roof at the entrance to Barrio Chino, Cuba's Chinatown.

Once through the arch you see Zanja Street is closed to autos.  It's a narrow pedestrian street stuffed with Chinese restaurants, each with a young man or woman out front trying to show you a menu.  In truth, after several visits, I've never passed completely through the street.  I always got waylaid by the menu hawkers and guided in to a table for lunch.

Of course they all have the traditional Chinese dishes—chop suey, Bhudda's delight, lo mein —but these restaurants also offer rice and bean dishes like my favorite, Moros y Cristianos, which is black beans and white rice.  I'll admit I could probably find something more exotic, but I happen to love beans and rice.  I think after years of practicing vegetarianism, my tastes have become simpler.  Anyway the many types of beans and of rice and the many ways of cooking them offer vegetarians a large variety of dishes.

You can sense that life in Cuba isn't easy for most people, including Chinese restaurateurs.  Coping with shortages is a constant problem.  On one of my Chinatown visits I was given a paper napkin.  As I opened it, I discovered the napkin was actually half a napkin neatly torn into two rectangles along a fold line.  Other periodic shortages force waiters to explain that not every menu item is available every day. 

Service is good or bad depending on your luck in choosing a restaurant.  Most dining is on the second floor so you can't see how crowded the place is while out on the street dealing with the menu hawkers.  One time we were we were worried to see our little table for three was right next to a party of twelve at a long line of tables pushed together.  I knew we were in for slow service, and I was right.

The servings always seem large to me, but in Cuba everyone has a plastic bag to take home leftovers.  Nora calls the plastic bags the Cuban's second stomach.  Not having a bag was no problem for me—for a few coins the restaurant offered styrofaom boxes for leftovers. 

My leftovers were for a couple of dogs I'd seen in a fenced vacant lot used as a parking lot.  These dogs obviously belonged to the lot attendants and ran to me when I stopped by the fence.  A few words is Spanish got me permission to feed them.  I knew they would love even beans as you could see traces of their ribs under their fur.  It turned out there were three dogs, and I divided the food into three portions.  The dogs politely each ate his own portion and didn't bother his canine friends.  How like my own dogs, I thought.  They never bother their housemates when they are eating. 

I made the parking lot stop to feed dogs two times on different trips a year apart.  The lot attendant said he remembered me, but he my just have been being polite. 

I know the dogs remembered me, though. 

Les Inglis

Pablo 

Amanda was on vacation in Havana when she spotted a black dog in Central Park who really looked terrible.  He was thin and listless and not very interested in eating.  She was alarmed, as the reason street dogs hang around the park is to get handouts from the tourists.  If he didn't want to eat, he might be very sick. 

Like lots of animal lovers, Amanda bonded instantly with the dog, and she began to think that it's not right an animal should be anonymous, so she gave him a name.  Pablo was her choice.  She called her vet back home and asked him if there was anything she could do for Pablo, given his circumstances and the fact that she soon had to fly back home to California.  She had a Cipro tablet with her, and the vet counseled her to give half of it to the dog, so she did.

Next, she talked to the concierge in the hotel, the Park Central, about finding a local vet to help the dog.  He told her the carriage horse drivers usually knew vets, and he was right.  Reynaldo, one of the drivers took her and the dog to a state run vet clinic where the vet examined Pablo and gave him more medicine.  All of this took place on a Saturday.  Amanda, who had to leave soon, tried to pay the vet to care for the dog, but he wouldn't take more than a small payment for the medicine.  He did promise to take him home and care for him and bring him back on Tuesday, so she agreed. 

Here the story gets a little confused—the vet said the understanding was that he was going to bring the dog to the clinic at 8:00 am on Monday, and Amanda understood Tuesday was the day.  It didn't help that Reynaldo was the only one who spoke a little English besides Amanda. 

Back at her hotel, she did a search for animal protection in Cuba and came up with a couple of possibilities.  The Aniplant Project (TAP) was one such contact, and we relayed the situation to Nora Garcia, Aniplant's President. 

Here's where it gets crazy.  The vet brought Pablo to the clinic on Monday morning, and, with no one there to pick up the dog, gave him to a person he did not even know.  Nora showed up on Tuesday morning, and all she got was the vet's story.

From a dog lover's standpoint, the vet was irresponsible in trusting the dog to someone he didn't even know and leaving Amanda and Nora with no path to trace his whereabouts.  From the vet's perspective, he was at the clinic at the right time and this was just some other tourist who may already have even left the country.  He had a clinic full of sick dogs to run.  From the dog's standpoint, the chances of his new custodian being a dog lover able to give Pablo a new home were slim to none.  He had a better chance of being abandoned again. 

I was injected into the middle of this polemic translating Amanda's questions to Nora and Nora's answers to Amanda.  Our best hope was that the stranger who received the dog really wanted him and that we could somehow find out who he was to resolve Amanda's anguish. 

If the dog was to be abandoned again, I was hoping it would be again near Central Park.  Dogs in that area know where to search for food and have many more tourists from whom to beg.  That seemed not too likely since abandonment is usually done without regard to the dog's needs.  Amanda had some photos which Nora reproduced and posted in likely spots, hoping someone had seen Pablo recently. 

Meanwhile the emails and phone calls continued.  I really felt sorry for Amanda not knowing how this animal could so completely be lost to her.  But it all came to a happy conclusion when on Sunday, eight days after being taken to the vet; an email arrived from Nora which said: 

We just found Pablo.  He's again in the same park in front of Amanda's hoetl where she found him.  Today I fed him as he is extremely thin.  Tomorrow we start treatment, and we are looking for a foster home.  I'm sending pictures. 

Nora 

All's well that ends well.  In later correspondence, Amanda decided that she wants to adopt Pablo and bring him to her home in California.  That's a long and very complicated procedure, but it has been done before with the help of friends at APAC Varadero, Air Transat and Candi International.  We'll cover that activity as it develops in these blogs. 

Les Inglis

An Encounter with Big Brother

An Encounter with Big Brother




My friend Ray and his friend Chuck decided they wanted to travel to Cuba, and Ray called me one day to learn how I had managed to go there 8 times. Ray is a successful businessman who has traveled all over the world, so I could understand his wanting to go to a place most of us think is completely forbidden by US law. Remembering Ray was a supporter of TAP, I told him they could probably qualify for the humanitarian exception to the US travel restrictions. His interest in our work in enabling massive spay/neuter campaigns, his willingness to carry some veterinary supplies in his luggage, and his desire to visit Aniplant's headquarters could all be considered in getting a license to travel legally into Cuba.



I started him off with a referral to a friend at Cuba Religious Initiative, an American NGO licensed to permit qualified US travelers to visit Cuba. After that I didn't have much contact with Ray, as he is an experienced world traveler, and I knew he could handle the details of his travel arrangements. I did suggest he stay at Havana's Hotel Nacional, and he told me he had a need to be in Costa Rica, so he would fly from San Jose to Havana for a four day stay. I alerted Nora of his visit so he would be able to visit the Aniplant headquarters and other points of interest.



Several days before he left, instead of vet supplies, I gave Ray a 10 pound pack of TAP brochures which Nora had requested of Charlene during her trip to Havana in April. I had carefully identified the contents and destination of the package. We wished Ray well on his trip.



They bought Cuban Tourist Visas in the San Jose airport and traveled to Havana on a Wednesday arriving at Havana's Terminal 2, a modern facility with all the trimmings like jetways. Their troubles began as they passed through Cuban Immigration. "What is the purpose of your trip to Cuba?" asked the agent. "Religious," said Ray, prompted by his US license from Cuba Religious Initiative. That was really the wrong thing to say. The CRI license is actually not for approving religious travelers. Its name comes from its founder's close connection to Jewish groups in the US and Cuba. I had used the CRI license without incident for a group of 5 travelers earlier this year, and we were all there for humanitarian (spay/neuter, animal protection) purposes.



Ray didn't know Cuban Immigration is particularly sensitive to religious matters. You can visit the country and even call on religious sites and go to church, but they don't want you preaching. They also require a much more expensive religious visa than the tourist visas Ray and Chuck were carrying. That precipitated a 3 1/2 hour long interview in the airport arrival terminal during which Ray and Chuck showed the agents their US license to travel.



Now agents of Havana's Terminal 3 (where all the flights of US origin arrive) are used to seeing such licenses, but they give them little attention as they have nothing to do with Cuban immigration. They aren't in the business of enforcing US travel regulations. Chances are the Terminal 2 agents Ray and Chuck were talking with had never seen a CRI license before, and certainly they rarely saw US citizens at their terminal. Here the agents were with two gringos there for religious purposes (by their own admission) with some sort of curious US paperwork with the word, religious, in its letterhead. From their point of view these guys were very suspicious.



Ray and Chuck were more than a little shaken by their long, contentious interview. At the end of it, they were allowed to go into town and to their hotel, but were instructed to appear at an Immigration office and buy religious visas. Ray called me that evening and I joined them in feeling apprehensive. As a general rule, you don't want to mess around with immigration agents in any country, much less in Cuba. I immediately emailed Nora, and she acted immediately with her friend (and Aniplant Director) Maylin, a competent English translator. They arranged to meet Ray the next day and to call on the Aniplant attorney.



On Thursday, the Aniplant attorney heard the story, felt there was nothing too serious, and advised them to enjoy their brief time in Havana and show up for their return flight to Costa Rica where it would be resolved prior to their departure. The rest of Thursday and all of Friday were therefore devoted to tourist activities. Saturday at the airport, they were told they could not leave and that more steps were needed to resolve the issue. Of course the Immigration office in town was not open on the weekend, so they planned to show up there Monday morning.



They had to return to the hotel, register for two more nights, and kill time for the rest of the weekend. Ray realized the extra costs of the hotel and expenses for the extra time were going to strain their cash resources. Here at home and in most foreign countries that wouldn't be a problem. But in Cuba credit cards on US banks cannot be used. (The originally planned 4 nights had been prepaid, but now the extra expenses of the longer stay were mounting.)



They found time to go the Aniplant's headquarters in Central Havana and see the renovations we had done to the 200 year old building—new utilities, water system, bathroom fixtures, an added second floor, painting and tile work, and a new veterinary clinic. Ray told me how much he had liked Aló Presidente, who I consider sort of my dog. See Aló's story in these blogs dated August 20, 2010 and titled "Aló Presidente." Nora and Maylin took care of Ray and Chuck, never leaving them to sort out problems on their own. They loaned them the money to get home which was needed until they could get back to a place where their credit cards worked again.



They all showed up at their 8:30 am appointment at Immigration thinking a resolution was imminent, but these agents were acting pretty tough. They repeatedly asked, "Did you come to Cuba to work (preach)?" They finally were directed to appear at another Immigration office downtown at 10 am on Tuesday. That meant still another extra night in the hotel as they could not leave on Monday's flight. Worse news: at this Tuesday interview Nora and Maylin would not be allowed to attend. Still worse news: They would travel to that office in an official car (as if they might escape when all they wanted was to go home.).



At 10 am Tuesday they showed up and began still another session of pointed questioning. They had checked out of their seventh night in the hotel and had their luggage ready to go. They were reserved on a 6 pm flight to Costa Rica (3:00 check in) and hoped this meeting would not last long enough to make them miss that flight.



Finally, out of the blue and with no stated reason, one of the agents told them the matter had been resolved. They had determined Ray and Chuck had done nothing wrong. They were free to buy their tickets, go to the airport, and leave.



They had to drive into the western suburbs to change their tickets then drive well out of town to get to the airport. Nora and Maylin were with them and had promised Ray that they wouldn't leave the airport until their plane was off the ground. They arrived at the airport with little time to spare.



Believe it or not, after running this gauntlet of probing agents and of the airport officials questioned them again. Once came the questions, the answers, the uncertainty. Finally a smiling face told them, "OK you can leave; it's clear you did nothing wrong." They barely had time to board the plane.



Nora and Maylin did indeed remain at the airport until they saw the plane lift off from the ground.



Sometimes to be in another world you don't have to be very far from home. Ray and Chuck now have a story from behind the Iron Curtain they can tell their grandchildren, and Nora and Maylin can be proud of their prowess as animal protectors—only this time the animals they protected were human animals.



Les Inglis

Excess Baggage

Excess Baggage

I read a daily newspaper-like website called Havana Times. It seems to be a place for free speech and offers an opportunity to add comments to each article. Writers seem to come from all political leanings—old line Stalinist Communists, modern Cubans who support the government, disidents, Cuban expatriates who have fled to the US, and these last are further divided between those who hate the Castros and those who just long for a return to normal relations between the US and Cuba.

I try my best to keep politics out of what I write about Cuba. After all, our main interest is to improve life for the animals in Cuba, and politics is mostly a "people" business. Therefore, why should I weigh in on political topics? I'm not disposed to criticize my own country and when I'm in Cuba, I know my presence as a guest will only be tolerated so long as I stay away from political themes. Fine by me.

One article by a Cubana seemed to take offense that US visitors there often bring items along to pass out as gifts—like bars of soap, or tubes of toothpaste or perhaps shampoo. She felt it was somewhat demeaning to accept such gifts, as there are sources for them in Cuba and accepting them would suggest Cubans live a much more basic existence than they actually do. Perhaps they can't get US brands because of the embargo, so this means no Colgate toothpaste. But this doesn't mean no toothpaste at all.

Well, in my visits I've always used hotels and talked mostly about animal matters, so I can say that even after eight trips, I don't have a full appreciation of the daily lives of Cubans—their problems, their pleasures. Surely there is pressure on workers to feed, house, clothe, and transport, but I'm sorry to say that I can't articulate the details of these pressures.

Every trip I've made I've taken lots of meds and vet supplies. This is an area where I know the locals sometimes face severe shortages. Once, the organization that gave me the US license to travel to Cuba asked me to carry a few packages of personal items to specific people in Cuba. A box arrived at my house from them with a few packages of toothpaste, vitamins, soap and such. I'm sure that charity believed that mundane personal items were needed and wanted in Cuba.

Xenia and Bob, good friends who have gone there twice with me carry along prodigious quantities of vet items, but Xenia doesn't forget the personal either. On her first trip she had several beautiful women's handbags. They were for Nora to pass out to the volunteer members of Aniplant. We later heard those handbags were some of the most appreciated items we brought.

Charlene decided to clear out some closets and ended up with 150 pounds of women's dresses, slacks, tops, etc. I went to Salvation Army and got a huge rolling suitcase for them. Nora felt they were all useful and carried them back to Cuba as excess baggage after attending the Humane Society of the US Animal Care Expo in 2009.

While I can only speak for myself and a few close friends who have traveled with me, I can state that every donated item is offered in the hope it fills an unmet need in someone's life. There is so much we have that we probably don't need or perhaps will never use. We try to get some of this stuff across the Florida Straits as an act of love. Never is there the connotation of "alms for the poor." Instead we offer "help for our fellow creatures" (human or otherwise.)"

Les Inglis

Tropical Storm

Tropical Storms

Like an unfavorite cousin, Isaac threatened to blow into town earlier this week, and about a day ahead of his expected arrival, he changed his mind and changed course for New Orleans. We heaved a sigh of relief and thought for a minute of the poor New Orleaners sitting there below sea level with only 14 billion dollars worth of new pumps and dikes to protect them from another Katrina disaster. Probably few of us thought of the people who live along hundreds of miles of Cuba's north coast which closely parallels Isaac's track through the Florida Straits.

Well, there is some reason to worry more about New Orleans than Cuba. It's because Cuba has a hurricane protection plan that works, as has been proven time and time again. They evacuate everyone in advance of a storm, and this includes sick, elderly, bedridden, and everyday citizens. This isn't just a sheriff's deputy knocking on your door to tell you the Governor says you should leave. In Cuba it is regular radio broadcasts, arranged transportation, established shelters in reinforced buildings and lots of advance planning. In Cuba there are no gridlocked highways full of frightened fleeing people stalled in the rain and blowing their horns. Only a small fraction of Cubans even own a car. The preplanned busses that everyone must take are there, and their capacity matches the number assigned to them.

Of course here in the US, the Governor can't really tell me to do anything unless I've committed a crime or he has declared martial law, so we always have a certain number of dauntless adventurers who "ride it out" hunkering down at home with varying results. They can get off scot-free and comfortably if the electricity and gas service holds out, or they can lose the gamble and lose power, their house, or their lives in ascending order of importance.

Someone once said the best defense against a hurricane is not to be there when it arrives, and that's the sage advice upon which the Cuban plan is based. They say "go," and you "go." You can do those things in a strong man style government. And to give them their due, since 2001 only 35 Cubans have died in 16 named storms. Compare this with 1836 people dead just in Katrina's 2005 visit to New Orleans.

So we can all agree that as admirable as Cuba's record is in protecting its population from tropical storms, it comes at least partially from the iron grip its leaders have on power and from their control over individual freedoms. It's hard to imagine such power ever being wielded here in the USA.

Considering our different style of governing, I think future US performance in combating storms will be pretty much like our past record: a few lives lost in direct hits and near misses and the occasional Katrina- like disaster when we become lax in flood protection or building codes or evacuation plans or shelter availability.

One hopeful trend I've noticed here in recent years is provision for household pets in public storm shelters. This was completely ignored in the past, but today many shelters have such capability. It's a good thing when you consider that many people think of their companion animals as family members. Really dedicated pet owners would no sooner leave their dog or cat at home to ride it out while they evacuate than they would leave their first born son. Our family is in that category, and you should see us when we evacuate.

We have to rent a large SUV as neither of our cars are big enough for 2 dogs, 6 cats in cages, 2 people, and our necessities for a few days., Preparing all this takes a couple of extra days which injects us into an even more iffy "cone of uncertainty." More than once we have found ourselves 200 miles from home, holed up in a motel, and walking the dogs in the rain while the storm turned, followed us, and the weather back home never got worse than slightly breezy with a light rain.

Les Inglis

Santeria

Santeria

When he or she feels the need to pray to his god, a Cuban
can be as likely to go to his santero as he would be to go to his priest. For many Cubans, both Santeria and Catholicism
are practiced in a weird duality less common in the rest of the world. It's like spiritual matters are referred to
one of two religious systems which somehow exist side-by-side within the Cuban
culture.

How did this come to be?
Major factors in Cuban history since the arrival of the Spanish have
something to do with it. Cuba is
particularly sensitive to the residual effects of Spanish rule and slavery—having
suffered greatly from both influences longer than all the other new world
countries. Slavery didn't end in Cuba
until 1880, and Spanish domination, with its pervasive corruption continued
until 1898 despite three Cuban wars of independence.

The Spanish, from the time of Columbus oppressed the African
slaves in Cuba to work the plantations.
They required of the slaves faithful participation in the Catholic Church. The slaves, knowing you cannot dominate a
person's mind, gave outward obedience by keeping Catholic shrines, crosses,
saints, etc., but in their minds these symbols represented Santeria orishes
(channeling entities that connect with Santeria's one god, Olorum). Thus a slave girl kneeling in front of an
altar with an idol of a Catholic saint was really communing with Chango, an
orish. The name Santeria was derived
from "santa," the Spanish word for "saint," and because of
the deception involved, was disliked by many as the name of the religion. Some still prefer "the Yoruba Religion"
named for a tribe in Africa.

Common practice is to follow both religions, choosing
between them based on the nature of one's religious need. The Cuban will use the Catholic Church and
the national health system for support during preventative health care, inoculations,
and for surgery, but he would see his santero on spiritual, emotional, or
mental matters. The santero will not
intervene medically beyond giving some herbs, chants, and drumming.

One facet of Santeria widely disliked is the practice of
animal sacrifice. Most sacrifices are
birds and turtles, but goats and sheep are victimized as well. These sacrifices have stimulated opposition
based on animal cruelty laws here in the US.
In the early 1990's a case was taken all the way to the US Supreme Court
with some help from the Humane Society of the US, but the court held the
sacrifices are constitutionally protected as a religious freedom. The Texas court system also upheld a man's right
to religious sacrifice of animals in 2009.

It's too bad that animal sacrifice, one of the most unjust
and unfair of all religious practices, has been upheld in the US. The way I look at it, the animals should have
their own Bill of Rights.

Les Inglis

El Almendrón y Perros Vagos

Cuba is beginning to change as various reforms are made by
the government. But some parts of Cuba
seem immutable, frozen in time. I'm
thinking of the old American cars and the dogs in the streets. No visitor goes home from Cuba without
pictures of both of these especially Cuban sights branded into his or her
brain.

The cars make you feel you're in a time machine—going back
to your youth or perhaps your father's youth.
The mental images are particularly vivid because they were already there
in our heads. Yes, these aren't new
sights, but instead they awaken memories of our own lives many years ago. Fifty some years ago a revolution occurred in
Cuba—not just in the government, but also in the cars on the street.

As Fulgencio Batista's grip on power slipped away, 71
percent of Cuban businesses were American owned. A huge share of foods, house wares,
furnishings, appliances, and, of course, automobiles were made in America. In Cuba, as in the US, Japanese and European
car brands were hardly known in North America.
So, if you think there are lots of old US cars in Cuba now, they were
nearly all American brands in 1959 as Cuba threw out its government.

But, as luck would have it, the two neighbors fell out, and
after a very few years and a nationalization of US businesses, an embargo shut
down all Cuba-bound trade with the US including American cars and their repair
parts. The message was clear, if you had
a car, you'd better take good care of it.
As a result, Cuba developed a huge corps of shade tree mechanics who
keep the fleet running decade after decade.
If you're lucky and rich and well connected, you can buy a Russian or
French or South Korean car in Cuba today, but most people think if they have a
car it's the only one they'll ever have.

Those bulbous, chrome decorated behemoths of the 1950's have
attracted their own name in Spanish. The
guajiros call them "almendrones", which means big
almonds. The "ón" part is a suffix that means "big" in Spanish,
and almonds have a simple, almost streamlined shape like the cars of the
'50's. In fact, can you picture a more
almond-like shape then the upside-down bathtub design of the 1950's Nash?
That's the best example, but they're all of a type—bloated,
maybe even a little silly looking.

So these iconic cars move and rest all over the city of
Havana. As they wear out, they spend
more time in front of the house on the side of the street, up on jack stands,
with the hood off, one guy on his back underneath and one leaning over half
swallowed in the hood cavity.

Now, as to the dogs of Havana's streets: You can't be sure when you see a stray dog on
the streets if he is homeless or not. As
most Cubans here have no yards, they let their dogs out to relieve
themselves. The best way to guess is by whether
or not his ribs show, suggesting he isn't well fed. But other signs can be found. A dog that has been on the streets long will
likely develop mange, which is easy to recognize. Collars and leashes are nearly unknown as are
ID tags. An owned dog will return to his
master's doorstep—that is, if he doesn't get grabbed by the dogcatcher. So does that dog have an owner or not? You can't be certain, but there are clues.

And why did I compare the old US cars with street dogs? Here are my ideas:

·
Stray dogs and old cars are both slow beasts
whether due either to the
Cuban heat or to a tired old engine.
·
Stray dogs are always hungry and the 10 mpg almendrón always needs a tank of gas.
·
Mange, scratches, and lesions on their fur
attest to the hard life of a stray, while rust, bent fenders, and cracked
windows form a parallel for old cars.
·
We can't help loving the old cars, and the same
emotion stirs when we see a dog we think may not have a home.

Cuba and the US can never really become enemies as the
streets there are filled with icons most of us love.

Les Inglis