Uriel puts his ears back and maintains a friendly gaze. He comes out of his space with difficulties to stay on his four legs and with visible remains of his old life: reddish skin from scabies and a necklace embedded in his neck, which has left a scar after receiving the relevant cures. . The pit bull is one of the 107 dogs that, for a few weeks, the Environmental and Land Management Attorney (PAOT) has tried to rescue and relocate from a property located in San Miguel Topilejo, south of Mexico City. The owner of the place had welcomed the animals (“with good will”, says one of the neighbors), but there they lived in poor conditions: outdoors, with diseases, some tied to chains and others visibly malnourished.
In the streets of the small town of the Tlalpan delegation, the dogs walk calmly, accompanying the people and impassively watching the passing of the cars. On the outskirts of a conglomerate of small houses and establishments, the neighbors denounced the situation of the property, in which more than a hundred animals lived.
The PAOT attorney, Mariana Boy, says that the agency’s protocol to initiate investigations comes in two ways: “The cases come to us from a citizen complaint or we begin an ex officio investigation, trying to collect information from our team.” . When the work begins, the PAOT team makes a recognition of what happened in the place. “The staff go to the address where the case of abuse occurs, we contact the owners of the pets in question to request authorization and carry out a comprehensive assessment: both physical and mental”, points.
One of the PAOT officials speaks with the “guardian” of the animals on the Topilejo property: “The same as last time.” Since the end of October, the staff of the Attorney General’s Office have approached the place on several occasions and, little by little, they have been evicting the dogs from the place. Four carriers come out of the gates of the property, from which the snouts of the animals peek out. One by one they are loaded into the vehicle, which the “tutor” later gets into to say goodbye: “Goodbye”, “don’t separate the two of them, they are brothers”, she regrets the farewell. Of the 107 that were originally there, 17 remain.
The four dogs, like the others that have left there in recent days, will be transferred to other places to be cleaned up and prepared to find a new home for them. 25 kilometers away, in the Benito Juárez Mayor’s Office, the National Animal Protection Agency keeps two “little ones” under review (the affectionate adjective with which Kennedy Sánchez, director of the place, calls the dogs). They are Uriel and Brownie. Sánchez calls the conditions in which the dogs lived on the Topilejo land “abuse”. On the farm, 80% of the animals had mange, says Boy.
Brownie has a bandage around his neck, with some frayed strands of the bandage. He is a young dog and has the energy and mischief to try to get rid of the bandage. A more complicated case is that of Uriel, who arrived with a large lump hanging from his neck, a tumor that was removed on the protector’s operating table, located just a few meters from the small room where he is. “In this place we have 26 dogs for adoption, 650 if we count the shelter in Cuautla [una ciudad del Estado de Morelos]”, assures Sanchez.
The complaint about the Topilejo property is one of the 5,536 reports that the PAOT received during 2021. So far this year, the Mexico City agency has received 3,285. Complaints related to animals represent 53.3% of the total since 2019, that is, more than half.
Outside the property, PAOT personnel tie their high boots and put on their masks. Inside, the authority says that the feces had accumulated and that the smell was that of the decomposition of food. The dogs were accompanied by small rodents that, given the situation, take advantage of any leftover food. Sandy was one of those 107 dogs. Now, after going through the medical check-ups of the protector, he lives in a temporary home with Andrea Barajas, a 27-year-old girl who seeks to help by temporarily caring for some of the animals that pass through the hands of Kennedy Sánchez’s team.
Sandy arrives at the shelter in a cart. She cannot walk freely and the marked bones on her back are proof that just a few weeks ago she was severely malnourished, a situation that is now changing. Barajas says that Sandy has begun to get up and even lie down. In the first days, she assures that the small He only rested maintaining the upright position, but with the back of his body accommodated on the ground.
Lina Nuño also arrives at the protector, a volunteer who convinced her son to join in the work of walking the dogs that seek to be adopted on the premises. “Look how hard I work, walking dogs. I love it”, says Nuño happily, waiting to go for a walk with one of those little ones. As she goes upstairs, the dogs begin to bark excitedly.
Uriel and Brownie are in the “hospital” area of the Protector. They are two of the 107 animals that, like a trickle, have been transferred little by little to four different shelters and shelters in order to find a new beginning. “Are they the ones [los perros] They help you, not you them”, concludes Barajas, who looks at Sandy, sitting in her cart, with a smile.
If you want to offer a temporary home to any of the animals of the National Protector or you want to access adoption through your establishment, you can call +52 55 9131 9394
If you want to adopt an animal through the AdoptaCDMX Platform, you can access the procedures clicking here.
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