Ana Yira Ramírez Velásquez had a very special connection with animals from an early age, but she did not imagine that she was so strong until the age of 15, when she fell prey to the defense of an ill-treated horse.
It was in 1985 in front of his workplace in Madre Vieja Sur, San Cristóbal. A chariot driver forced a horse to climb a hill with a large load of blocks. I beat him to advance.
“The horse could not get up and continued to hit him. When the horse could no longer bear it, he fell to his knees on the trough and it hurt a lot. It’s like he gave me something in my heart. I left the office, because I was working on making receipts, selling tool parts; I came out of the office like a blind man, took off my sweater and hit him on the neck, face, everywhere. When the carter turned and saw that it was me, he tried to attack me, but the boys making the lathes in the workshop grabbed him, took the horse’s stirrups off the horse and the cart got off, without a horse. They broke like 20 or 30 blocks. I also had to pay for the blocks and the warehouse. He still sees me and greets me. “
She spent most of the day in prison, until her boyfriend paid bail. Yira keeps very small photos of her surrounded by pigeons, ducks, horses, dogs and other animals in the backyard.
“My father wanted to kill me because he filled his house with animals and dogs. There were no bathrooms in my house, I kept them in a latrine outside “.
His devotion to animals is well known throughout the community.
Protects about 70 dogs. Alone in the small yard of his house in the Puerto Rico area of San Cristóbal, he feeds and cares for about 40 dogs and dozens of cats. The other dogs are in other places, “saved.”
“There are many on the street that don’t fit here, but she still brings them food every day, vaccinates them and sterilizes them slowly, because sterilization is very expensive,” says her daughter Ana Lucía.
The young woman and her two brothers inherited from their mother a zeal for the protection of animals. They also bathe, feed and care for the dogs.
Ana Lucía shares with Listín Diario how the animals “absorbed” their lives little by little.
In 2015, they legally created the Patronage for Animal Conservation and Care (Diakimyi Foundation) because they were told that the government only helped if they were officially organized, but the help has not yet arrived.
“Many neighbors have complained about the noise, we know they are correct, but we do not want to leave this job.”
YIRE’S DREAM
It is difficult to take care of all the animals in such a small space and that is why they separated the animals, hoping that one day they will be able to have a shelter or a more suitable place.
“We dream about it,” says Yira. Maybe it’s a utopia, as many people tell me, that if they don’t even take care of the children here, many fewer will take care of the dogs. And I tell them, “Well, the children depend on their father and mother, Conani, and the Dominican government.”
Understand that a large number of sensitive people are willing to work for animals. His dream, still in a broken voice, is this:
“We have a small piece of land, which is not enough for much, but it is our dream to have something worthwhile to take care of animals there, a public hospital to take care of animals, so that poor people can take the dogs. Because there were people who said to me: Yira, I want to save my dog, but with what, with what, if I go to the pharmacy with 400 pesos and cure my son of the flu and give him fever medication, But a vet asks me for two thousand three thousand pesos to treat my dog, I have to kick him out because I don’t want to see him die like that.
“So when people talk to me like that, what can I do? Dreaming of a public dog hospital. Although it is a utopia, I am clear, I think animals deserve to be cared for; animals have this value to me. I have to see it done before she dies. This is my only dream and for the Government to help me with the veterinarians, because I know that there will be those who will help me with the medicines.
A GREAT POSTCARD
Building a shelter is also the dream of many animal protectors in San Cristóbal, including social worker, former deputy and president of the Working Women’s Movement (MMT), Luz Eneida Mejía; veterinarian Miguel Martínez and Gianna Santiago, from the Madre Vieja Sur neighborhood council.
“You need a space where animals can be and people can adopt them. A place to cure, vaccinate and adopt them. A welcoming place, involving professionals, volunteers – there are many people who have a passion for animals – and which the authorities run. A suitable place where the animal is and there are people to take care of it “, says Luz Eneida.
The community welfare consultant prefers to talk about a protected place rather than a hospital, because people associate the word hospital as a place for the sick.
“It is better to have an animal shelter where people can take them if they cannot take care of them, or they can go and look for them if they want one; a kind of nursery ”.
And that they have access to castrate them.
At the moment, both the foundation and the animal activists receive only promises from the authorities. They ensure that they are called to meetings where they are promised solutions that never arrive, as well as operations on neutral dogs that are never carried out.
“We became relaxed, as they say, because one leaves here, leaves the animals alone for four or five hours and, in the end, there is nothing left. There are promises. They tell us “collect the bills, find a lawyer who will do it” and someone makes an effort, looks for the lawyer, the lawyer organizes, we legalize the foundation, we have RNC and everything in vain, because in the end we did not receive any help “, he said.
WHAT DO YOU NEED?
Especially a veterinarian who helps them with the animals, who takes care of their medical care. To catch animals that kill animals and poultry in many communities, Yira points out that they need a veterinarian to put the animals to sleep to catch them.
“We should offer them something to eat with a sedative, so that we can pick them up and put them in a cage and then castrate them; give them something to calm them down, because the animal is aggressive due to the amount of pheromones that the body produces when it is uncastrated, both female and male ”.
Ana Lucía adds that, as a foundation, they have many ideas that have worked in other countries “but we do not have the resources to materialize these ideas”.
“There are no resources or a place to house dogs in the Dominican Republic, so I think a feasible and even cheaper solution would be to create sterilization campaigns for animals that are already on the streets, because there are people in the neighborhoods who don’t abuse, they are there and now, they are even throwing food on them, so that the strong, the big ones, stay on the streets, so that they do not reproduce and the population does not continue to grow “.
If any institution wants to carry out a day of sterilization in the community, Ana Lucía says so they can get space, water for volunteers and work to work or catch dogs.
“It would be difficult, but we know where the animals are. I received complaints. If you have to look for them at night, it is the least, we have some experience and we are not afraid of them. We even got bitten to grab them. My brother says, ‘Where he bites me, you grab him.’ “
I THINK THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT GIVE IT IMPORTANCE
If so far public policies on animal protection have not worked, Ana Lucía believes that this is due to the fact that the Government does not know that this is important.
“They did not analyze the importance of animals in education. I don’t know that a child who abuses an animal in the future can be a murderer. There are studies that have been done, but they are not given importance here. Children are not educated about love for animals or about love for the environment.
His mother believes that animal life has always been the same and that abuse is what grows.
“When there is less awareness, there is more abuse. Before, people feared God. Before, it was commented from grandfather to grandson, from father to daughter, that the Lord who strikes a dog punishes him; that if you hurt a dog, if you drown him, then you will die; that how you kill him, so that you die ”.
Animal protectors in the country believed that the situation would improve after the approval of Law 248-12 on animal protection and responsible ownership.
“I sincerely believe that, although change is not expected, people become aware. And the fact that the number of dogs on the street has increased means that people are afraid to attack animals. People think about it, because even after cases where there were people who managed to put them in jail and bail them with social assistance, people are afraid, ”says Yira.
“At least now this is news, before there was not even news”, adds Ana Lucía.
TERROR IN COMMUNITIES
Overcrowding of stray dogs in the southwestern province of San Cristóbal, along the Sánchez highway, is no longer just a public health problem, but also an economic one.
In recent months, farmers and producers have denounced the slaughter of animals and birds.
Mrs. Rita Montás Domínguez, from Najayo Arriba, was recently killed by 22 peacocks, 23 geese and 7 pregnant sheep.
His neighbor, says Listín Diario, was killed by 9 pregnant goats, and another was killed by all the ducks and four goose eggs were eaten.
Dogs eat eggs and only kill animals, says Dona Rita.
The animal attack takes place to a large extent in about 8 kilometers in the communities of Nayajo Arriba, Santa Lucía de Camba, El 7, Doña Ana, La javilla, La sierra and Los tamarindos.
The problem worsened with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. This section of road is usually one of the most used for abandoning dogs and cats. The animals hide during the day and hunt at night.
Community members fear that the dogs will start attacking people.
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For help. If you want to collaborate with Diakimyi Foundation, search for them on social media or call them at (809) 528-3989 and (829) 343-9472. I also receive donations to the account 1880 342 0018 of the bank BHD in the name of Ana Yira Ramírez.