Tuesday, 19th of February
Of note today: Saw the vicious cycle of the life of the stray today.
As I was standing on corner waiting for a bus this morning, I watched a dog get hit by a car. I was talking to an elderly woman (in very brief halting Spainglish) as we were waiting, and a stray dog walked up to us. He sat there for a second before trotting out into the street, looking back at us over his right shoulder. A white VW Beetle slammed on its brakes, stopping just before hitting it, but it made little noise and the dog kept slowly walking forward. It finally looked to its left, seeing the car stopped just next to it, and it yelped; it ran forward into the next lane, instead of backwards, and this time a large truck found it in its path. The truck slammed on its brakes too, making a squeal as it leaned forward with momentum, and I saw the dog's rear left left get trapped under its front wheel. I watched it bend for a second before snapping in at least two places, I heard the sickening noise of bone cracking muted by the thin muscle covering it, and I watched it wrench it from under the rubber. The dog, now in excruciating pain, ran off down the street from whence it came, howling, crying the most painful and sadly terrifying sounds... There was nothing we could do, even if we had gotten it subdued; it wasn't friendly enough to come near us when we were standing peaceably, let alone when it had just been violently and painfully attacked. We heard it screaming in pain as it hobbled away on three legs, its fourth leg swinging, dangling, not able to make contact with the pavement. The noise of the bone snapping, in conjunction with the sight of it, broken underneath the skin and flapping helplessly, caused a nausea that I have never felt before. I can still hear it and see it, and the images are horrifyingly hard to forget...
I have no doubt that the dog is dead now, killed by others in its weakened state. In this city, where food for strays is rare, I can't imagine it being passed over by another animal. The dogs here seem to be more plentiful than cats, as I'm sure are most likely food as well. The feral animal population here is astounding, and painful to see, but there is nothing we can do... We should count ourselves lucky that we aren't in Mexico City (Mexico Districto Federale) where the population of stray dogs is apparently well over two million. It's heart-wrenching, but there is simply nothing (short of mass murder) that can be done. No one wants to feed them, the costs of neutering and spaying that many animals is far greater than the cost of extermination, and neither has anyone willing to fund it. It's... A travesty of monumental proportions, but when there are people starving in the streets, little is going to be done for the animals who own the dark alleys.