Collares Rojos

When I moved to Bayahibe in April, I started walking Rosalinda every morning with a lady named Yanela who has six dogs. I learned more and more about a local foundation called “Collares Rojos” or Red Collars, of which Yanela is the director. It is a non-profit organization working to help abused and abandoned dogs and street dogs. Their main mission is to fix all the street dogs so that the dogs are less aggressive and, of course, cannot reproduce. However, they also look after street dogs that have been in an accident (get hit by a car, etc.), and try to get dogs adopted. Here there are not very many laws against dog abuse, and Dominicans, in general, have a bad attitude against dogs. For example: when I adopted Rosalinda, she would bark at children because the kids in the neighborhood where she was born would throw rocks at her.

When I lived in Mano Juan, the community always complained about how the dogs were a huge problem because they always bothered the tourists. In an effort to help, in May I worked with Collares Rojos to get three veterinarians to go out to Mano Juan and fix the street dogs there. There were four dogs already pregnant, so they planned to go out a couple of months later to finish the job.

A couple of weeks ago the new volunteer in Mano Juan, who had just gotten back from a trip, called me and said that she could not her dog, Mandy, and was worried about her. Later that day, I was walking down the street and ran into my friend that works with a tourist company that goes to Mano Juan. He said that that day when they went, a community member had met him on the beach and told him that they had taken care of the dog problem for the tourist companies. They had killed eight dogs the day before. My friend and all of the other workers were furious; they had not wanted this to happen.
I called the volunteer in Mano Juan back to confirm her worries; Mandy was dead.

The order to kill the dogs had come through a community member who had just become the local governmental official. However, there is a law against killing dogs in such a way so Collares Rojos and the tourist companies that go to Mano Juan were very upset and the whole town of Bayahibe was talking about the incident for several days.

Now the community members of Mano Juan understand what they did was wrong but the incident still has a lasting effect. One of the dogs they killed had eight puppies. Four of the puppies have died, one the volunteer at Mano Juan adopted, and three are awaiting adoption at Collares Rojos.

Since this incident, I started volunteering at the Collares Rojos’ new pound where they have abused and abandoned puppies and dogs awaiting adoption. There are always going to be bad stories like this but they don’t have to end there because there will also always be individuals that strive to make a difference. If anyone would still like to donate to one of my projects, please donate to this one! The foundation is always looking for money for dog-food and medicine. You can donate at collaresrojos.org; be sure to say that you know me!

Collares Rojos' pound:




Puppies at pound:


***When I was on vacation in June, Rosalinda got out of the yard and was hit by a car. A friend of Yanela’s saw Rosa and called Yanela. When Yanela recognized that it was my dog, she took her straight to the vet in La Romana. Rosalinda had a broken rib, bruised jaw, and a dislocated shoulder. Now she will always have a limp, but she is alive. A special thank you to Yanela and Santiago for taking such good care of her!