Meet Huesitos.
Huesitos (Little Bones- "Way-seetos") showed up at our land in July of this year. She was extremely emaciated, with bacterial skin infections, and full of ticks and parasites. We did not know if she would survive. After several rounds of veterinary treatment, and a few months of care and love, Huesitos has completely recovered and is running free and happy around The Republic of Corn.
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Malix Peek' Dog Rescue is a project we are launching in
response to the suffering (and often death) we see of dogs in our
village, El Naranjal, Quintana Roo. Malix Peek'
("Malish-peck") means "street dog" in Maya, the
local language. Our goal is to raise funds to sterilize and
vaccinate as many dogs as possible in the village, and provide
emergency medical care to the dogs in critical condition. A portion
of funds will go to providing dog food to households who cannot
afford it.
- Many local families struggle to get by themselves, and usually do not have the resources they need to sterilize or vaccinate their dogs. This leads to an overpopulation of malnourished puppies, who often spread easily preventable diseases amongst themselves. Oftentimes dog and puppies end up starving to death, like Huesitos almost did.
- The sickness, suffering, and death of the village dogs is preventable! The village is small enough that if we are able to provide sterilizations and vaccines for the majority of the local dogs (or all of them), we will greatly decrease the likelihood of other dogs and puppies reaching the extremes Huesitos did.
- Most "street dogs" actually have owners, but more often than not their owners are overwhelmed by the amount of puppies their dogs are having every few months, without the economic resources to sterilize or care for them. Through sterilizations, the puppy population will be put in check. Providing vaccines and dog food will help stabilize the health of the dog and puppy population of the village, and prevent the spread of lethal diseases.
- Help us make a lasting difference in the lives of the dogs and puppies of El Naranjal! Our village is small enough (800 people) that we are confident that with adequate time and resources, we can rehabilitate the sickest dogs in need, and stop the cycle of unnecessary death and starvation of dogs and puppies through sterilization, vaccination, and food provision.
This fundraiser is our first public effort to invite the world to help us with this issue we see in our village every single day. Now that Huesitos is healthy and strong, her story motivates us to help the other puppies and dogs like her, but we cannot do it alone. This fundraiser will run to the end of the year. If it is successful, we will continue Malix Pek Dog Rescue into 2025 and keep creating solutions to end the unnecessary suffering of these animals.
Every dollar, cent, and peso goes to providing care, food, and medicine to dogs and puppies of the village. No donation is too small to make a difference.
Please spread the word and follow us on instagram @malixpek.dogresuce to stay updated with the dogs we are helping now.
We thank you for your attention & support!
Love,
Lexie, Victor, & Huesitos
Highlights
See all activity3FAQ
What will my donation go to?
All donations to Malix Pek Dog Rescue will be channeled to help with four major needs we see in the village.
1. The top priority is providing emergency, life-saving care to puppies and dogs in critical condition, like Huesitos was. This means, veterinary treatment, vaccinations, and medication to treat illness and parasites. We cannot predict the exact prices of these, as each dog in critical conditions has different circumstances and needs.
2. The second priority is to sterilize as many dogs in the village as we can. Not all the dogs are in as bad of shape as Huesitos, but if they don't stop having puppies, it increases the chances that more puppies will suffer like Huesitos did. The sterilizations are a preventive measure to fix the issues we see with the dogs and puppies in the village. Once the dogs are sterilized, and less puppies are being born, households will be able to maintain better care of their dogs as they are alleviated from the constant influx of newborn puppies every few months. Sterilizations can vary in price between $25-$60 USD. Sometimes there are campaigns happening that do widespread dog sterilizations for $25 each. When those aren't happening, it depends on the rates of each veterinarian.
3. The third priority is vaccinating as many dogs in the village as we can. As we work with households of the town, and explain to them our project, we plan to include vaccinations in the same veterinary visit as the sterilizations. This will help prevent the spread of diseases amongst the dogs and puppies of the village, like distemper and other lethal illnesses. We have been told many times by neighbors after their dog had puppies, half or more of the puppies died "just randomly". This usually means they had sickness, or the mother dog had a sickness that passed to her pups, that kills the puppies shortly after their birth. Vaccinations and sterilizations will begin to tackle this issue, little by little. Basic vaccines range in cost from $5-$15 depending on the type of vaccine purchased, if it is a pill or a shot, and how many doses it yields.
4. The fourth priority is providing dog food to households in the village who cannot afford it. We don't want to help the dogs get better and then put them back in a situation where they will suffer again. Because of how many dogs there are, many families cannot afford to feed all their dogs anything more than tortillas, corn dough, or kitchen scraps. We hope that as the puppy population becomes more under control, people will be able to better care for the fewer dogs they have. However, we still want to be able to provide dog food support for families who need it. A 50lb. bag of dog food here runs between $45-$70 USD, while the average salary for a worker is $13-15 dollars a day.
