There is a tremendous pet overpopulation problem in Caye Caulker and the rest of the country. Every year hundreds of dogs are put out on the street to die, unwanted and sickly. Not only does spaying and neutering prevent more litters of homeless pets but it also helps to keep the adult dogs healthy and to live a longer and healthier life.

No, we have made the decision not to keep animal n cages. 

We are fortunate enough that we live on a small island and are able (in the most part) to get around and find animals in trouble and treat them in situ.  Often dogs here are owned but not very well looked after in terms of their health and taking them away would not serve a purpose as they would likely be replaced with another dog. 

So, we try to get to the areas or ask the owners to bring to the free weekly clinic.  This means that we can use all our resources to treat sick animals, spay and neuter, instead of feeding animals in a cage. 

Usually dogs are reasonably well fed here and this is not often a medical problem.  With our TNR programs we are returning the cats t the wild after surgery in the hopes that this will reduce the cat population enough to be stable and not create problems as we have seen in the past few years.

This will depend on where you want to take the dog.  Unfortunately for Belize we are on the CDC list of At Risk Countries and no dogs from here can get to the USA as the only dogs they are allowing, without a special permit, are ones that originated in the USA, vaccinated in the USA, and chipped with a USA address. More info here:

https://www.cdc.gov/importation/bringing-an-animal-into-the-united-states/high-risk.html

As of September 28, 2022, the Canadian Government added this ban as well. MORE INFO…

If you are in Belize contact us!  We would like to meet you, check your home for appropriate fencing etc. and make sure you and the dog get on well.  We don’t always have dogs for adoption but we often need fosters and often these may turn into adoptions.

Firstly – contact us and send us a picture and the location of the animal on the FB messenger.  We very often get calls about the same animals and have often started treatment or otherwise know about it. 

We suggest you do not take them home or move them.  99% of the animals on the street on Caye Caulker are owned dogs or are known strays that are looked after in situ by our volunteers, e.g., two dogs at the Sports Bar beach – Sweet Pea and Princess both belong to that part of the beach and we feed and care for them there. 

If you take the dog to your hotel or house, then they may not find their ways back to their homes where they may be fed at the end of each day.  Also your hotel may not appreciate that.

Obvious injury site – take a pic – keep the dog calm and quiet.

Bleeding? From where and how much blood? Pouring, dripping, pooling etc.

If nothing obvious we will ask you to check the following:

When did he last pee or poop – does the poop look normal?

When did he last eat and drink?

When did you first notice something not right?

Is he lethargic and gone off his food?

How old is the dog?

Is he breathing OK? Panting or shallow breathing or normal?

Are the whites of his eyes white or kind of yellow?

Pull up the lips by the teeth and touch the gums – is it kind of sticky?

Look at the color, are they pale and yellowish? Normal is the same as ours, but they can get really really dark red – that is not good.

Does the dog feel overly hot, ears or between legs feel super hot?

Does he have any discharge out of his eyes or nose?

Many people assume that if their pet is dropping hair then it is mange.  There are two types of mange and usually loss of hair in an adult dogs wont be either of these.  There is a catchy mange (sarcoptic) that we see very seldom and a non-catchy mange (demodectic) that usually arises in dirty or unhealthy puppies.  It usually manifests itself on the head or neck and feet first.  If you dog is losing hair along his flanks (sides) then it is more likely that your dog has a flea allergy and he is scratching the hair off either side of his body where he can reach.

Either way this is easily managed if you bring the dog to the clinic at the weekend.

Tick Fever – also known as erlichea or anaplasmosis

Tick born blood disease.  Can kill in months if untreated. Cheaply treated if diagnosed in time. Easy to avoided through regular tick and flea treatments.  Most Caye dogs will suffer at some point. It is like malaria in that it can return. Treatments work well.

HeartWorm Disease

Left untreated this will kill your dog over a number of years.  Treatment is not possible here once it has caused damage to the heart.  Easily avoided with regular monthly prevention that is not expensive.

Parvovirus and Distemper

Currently we are having problems controlling these two dog diseases.  Neither has a cure and both are preventable by properly vaccinating your dogs.  Puppies will often die and adult dogs will have about 50% chance.  The vaccinations that we do around the island include for both these deadly diseases.

Rabies

There has not been a case of rabies on the island but we vaccinate as many dogs as we can for this deadly zoonotic disease that can jump to the human population.  Obviously we need to be careful of bringing dogs from other parts of the country to here and not vaccinating.