Pirate’s Story

We first wrote about Claudia Mamet a year ago, in the Nov. 2023 issue of The Eye. In addition to her job teaching at UMAR, Claudia operates the nonprofit Dogs of Puerto Angel and devotes her life to rescuing some of the worst cases of abused, abandoned, sick, or injured dogs in the Puerto Angel area. In this article, we’re featuring Pirate, a dog Claudia rescued in early September after she received a call from a local citizen. The good Samaritan had taken a video of a dog who had been buried alive, and when the brutal footage was later published, it was so graphic many people could not bear to watch it.

When Claudia rushed to the location near the town of San Pedro Pochutla, she found the dog barely alive, buried under heavy rocks and dirt with his paws and muzzle bound. When he was unearthed, the dog she named Pirate was so thin he was little more than a skeleton, covered in hundreds of dead and live ticks, the pads of his paws shredded, and with a large cancerous tumor on his penis. He was too weak to stand on his own.

Pirate did very well after his surgery until one week later, when he suddenly passed away from renal failure. “Pirate could’ve left this world on September 10 never knowing love or compassion,” Claudia wrote in a Facebook post. “But by some miracle, someone heard his whimpers and freed him, which gave him a chance to feel love for the first time in his life. That chance allowed all of us to be touched by Pirate’s story and spirit.”

Solutions Through Awareness, education, Law Enforcement, and Sterilization

What could have motivated a person to commit the act of cruelty that Pirate suffered? It’s easy to label it as an act of evil. But perhaps the person was in financial straits and ashamed to ask for help, or maybe dealing with mental health issues. Whatever the case, struggling members of society should feel they can reach out to others, including vets and animal rescuers, for support in caring for their pets. The community must get involved.

If that sounds too simplistic, it is. There are no easy answers or solutions to this overwhelming problem. A four-pronged approach is needed: awareness, education, enforcement of laws against animal cruelty, and sterilization. The best way to generate more community involvement is through education—of locals, their children, long-term residents, and tourists—to create a cultural/social shift wherein domestic animals are respected rather than treated as garbage when they’re no longer useful as guard dogs or mousers. With education, citizens can lobby politicians to enforce laws and make changes, they can protest against the lack of enforcement of current laws, and they can become involved in rescue work. Through education comes awareness, and vice versa.

The third prong involves the law. Oaxacan state and local governments are appallingly negligent when it comes to enforcing laws governing the inhumane treatment of domestic animals. Harsher laws must be created for crimes of animal abuse and cruelty; meanwhile, the enforcement of existing laws is critical. What is the use of having laws people can break every day with impunity? Surely elected officials could ask themselves this question.

The fourth prong is sterilization. Because of the work of some passionate rescue and sterilization groups, awareness is growing about the importance of spaying and neutering pets to prevent more unwanted animals from living wretched lives on the streets. The nonprofit organization Snipsisters, Puerto Escondido chapter, holds monthly sterilization campaigns in Puerto and surrounding coastal communities. They have sterilized over 8,000 cats and dogs in the region since 2019. In Huatulco, Palmas Unidas holds regular sterilization campaigns, having sterilized 7,242 animals in nine years, and Dogs of Puerto Angel sterilizes about 1,000 dogs and cats annually in five to six massive sterilization campaigns. Fundraising is vitally important. All money raised goes to covering the costs of veterinarians and high-quality medications and materials.

Sadly, just because the Oaxacan Coast is a popular tourist destination does not mean this crisis is less severe here than elsewhere in Mexico. According to Mexico’s Institute of National Statistics and Geography, Mexico ranks third in the world in animal abuse, and first in Latin America³. Hiding this ugly stain or trying to eradicate it by illegally poisoning and killing dogs isn’t going to make it disappear. But many people who live here long-term—citizens, residents, and foreigners—are aware of the extent of the problem and are working tirelessly to make changes. Each of the following nonprofit organizations is striving not only to help hundreds of animals in their care, but to facilitate school programs on animal welfare—because the long-term social and cultural changes that are needed begin, as always, with educating children.