12/20/04
On a beautiful morning in Costa Rica, seventy degrees and the sun shining, I went for my walk. Lost in thought I walked through the Central Plaza where mothers’ with their babies and older people like to sit and just ‘be’ in the park.
Along with people hanging about, the usual pack of nomadic mutts (the name for mutt in Costa Rica is “Zaguate”) were hanging about the park. They roam freely in the streets and eat street garbage and occasional scraps put out by store owners. They aren’t threatening to people but can be a little territorial with other dogs.
After passing through the plaza I walked down a busy street towards a nearby town. Glancing down I saw a dead puppy in the gutter. “How sad, why did I have to see that?” I wondered.
As I walked down a side street I saw the butt of a little black pup with its head inside of a bag of trash. I looked at it and thought of the dead homeless puppy that I had just passed by. I wondered if this pup would be met with the same fate; uncared for, hungry, and eventually dead.
The pup noticed me standing close as I thought and it looked up at me from the trash. She had innocent eyes, trusting eyes that seemed to look at me with hope. She put her head down in submission, but slowly walked towards me with her tail wagging. My heart came pouring out to this little pup. She seemed to trust and have faith in me even though I could only imagine that others had shooed her away.
I sat on the sidewalk and pondered the situation.
“Should I adopt her?” I asked myself.
It seemed a little complicated because I was living in Costa Rica temporarily and wasn’t sure how I would bring her back to the United States. She sat near me and looked up at me almost pleading. I couldn’t walk away and leave her there. Her faith was contagious. I decided to adopt her.
I found an empty box down the street, put her in, and carried her home. The vet gave her medicine to get rid of the worms and a special shampoo to cure her skin problems. In a few weeks her belly went from being bloated to the size of a normal puppy belly. Much of her hair fell out due to the toxicity of the shampoo that we used to kill all of the things that were growing on her skin, but a clean, healthy pelt grew in its place. She got well and turned out to be the most loyal and loving pet imaginable. When I walked her down the street in Costa Rica, and now in the USA, everyone says how cute she is and wants to know what breed she is. No one would suspect that she was originally a homeless “Zaguate” that ate trash in the street to stay alive.
PS
It was pretty easy to bring her back to the US. All I had to do was make sure she had all her proper vaccinations. There was no quarantine. Adopting Salchi was the best decision I ever made, and I highly recommend adopting a street pup.
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