Ana Yira Ramírez Velásquez has had a very special bond with animals since she was very young, but she did not imagine that she was so strong until she was 15, when she fell prey to defending a battered horse.
It was in 1985 in front of his job in Mare Vella Sud, Sant Cristòfol. A carter forced a horse to climb a hill with a heavy load of blocks. It hit him to move forward.
“The horse couldn’t get up and he kept hitting him. When the horse couldn’t take it anymore he fell to his knees in the trough and it hurt me a lot. Because it gave me something in my heart. I got out of the office, because I worked making receipts, selling pieces of tools, I came out of the office blind, I took off my sweater and hit him on the neck, on the face, everywhere.When the road turned and he saw that it was me he tried to attack me, but the boys who took turns in the workshop grabbed him, took the stirrups off his horse and the cart came out from below, without the horse. 30 blocks. I had to pay the blocks and the bail too. He still sees me and greets me. “
She spent most of the day imprisoned, until her boyfriend paid the bail. Yira keeps pictures of her tiny little girl 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, 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. In the small backyard alone, in the Puerto Rico sector of the city of San Cristóbal, it feeds and cares for about 40 dogs and dozens of cats. The other dogs have them in other places, “kept.”
“There are more on the street that don’t fit here but she still brings them food every day, vaccinates them and sterilizes them little by little, because sterilization is very expensive,” says her daughter Ana Lucía.
The young woman and her two brothers inherited from their mother the zeal for animal protection. They are also responsible for bathing, feeding and caring for dogs.
Ana Lucía shares with Listín Diari how animals have gradually ‘absorbed’ their lives.
In 2015 they legally created the Board for the Preservation and Care of Animals (Diakimyi Foundation) because they were told that the government only helped if they were formally organized, but help is yet to come.
“A lot of neighbors have complained about the noise. We know they’re on the right track, but we don’t want to leave that task.”
Yira’S DREAM
It is difficult to care for all the animals in such a small space and that is why they have separated the animals, hoping to one day be able to have a shelter or a more suitable place.
“We’re dreaming about that,” says Yira. “Maybe it’s a utopia, as a lot of people tell me, that if they don’t take care of the children here, they’re going to take care of the dogs a lot less. to his father and mother, to Conani and to the Dominican government ‘”.
He understands that a lot of people with sensitivity are willing to work for animals. His dream, he continues with a broken voice, is this:
“We have a small plot of land, which doesn’t come for much, but it’s our dream to have something here that is worth taking care of the animals, a public hospital to take care of the animals, so that people with limited resources can because there have been people who say to me: Yira, I want to save my dog but with what, with what if I go to the pharmacy with 400 pesos and healthy my son from the flu and I give him medicine for to fever, but a vet asks me for two thousand and three thousand pesos to cure my dog, I have to bounce 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 hospital for dogs. Even if it’s a utopia I’m clear, I think animals deserve to be cared for; for me they are animals have that value. I have to see it done before I die. This is my only dream, and for the Government to help me with the vets, because I know there will be those who will help me with the medicines. “
A GREAT HOSTEL
The construction of a shelter is also the dream of many animal protectors in San Cristóbal, including the social worker, former deputy and president of the Movement of Working Women (MMT), Llum Eneida Mejía; the veterinarian Miguel Martínez and Gianna Santiago, from the Mare Vella Sud neighborhood board.
“We need a space where animals can be and people can adopt them. A place to cure them, vaccinate them and put them up for adoption. A place of reception that involves professionals, volunteers – there are a lot of people who have a passion for animals – and for the authorities to take care of them. A suitable place where the animal is and there are people who take care of it “, points out Llum Eneida.
The community social work consultant prefers to talk about a host place instead of a hospital because people associate the word hospital as a place for the sick.
“It’s better to have a pet shelter where people can take them if they can’t take care of them, or they can go and get them if they want one; a kind of daycare.”
And that they have access to castrate.
For now, both the foundation and the animal activists are only receiving promises from the authorities. They say they are called to meetings where they are promised solutions that never come, as well as operational to neuter dogs that are never performed.
“We’ve relaxed, as the saying goes, because one gets out of here, leaves the animals alone for four or five hours and in the end they’re left with nothing. They’re promises. They tell us to ‘collect the bills, look for a lawyer let him do this’ and one strives, looks for the lawyer, the lawyer organizes, we legalize the foundation, we have the RNC and all in vain, because in the end we have not gotten any help “, complains Ana Lucía.
WHAT DO THEY NEED?
Especially a veterinarian who helps them with the animals, who takes care of their medical care. To catch animals that are wiping out livestock and poultry in many communities, Yira points out that they need a veterinarian who sleeps the animals for them to catch.
“We should give them some food with a sedative so we can pick them up and cage them and then castrate them; give them something because they are calm because the animal is aggressive because of the amount of pheromones the body produces when they are without castration, both females and males “.
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”.
“In the Dominican Republic there are no resources or places to house dogs, so I think a feasible and even much cheaper solution would be to create sterilization campaigns for animals that are already on the streets, because in the neighborhoods there are people who don’t abuse them, who are there and already, until they get them out of food, then those who are strong, those who are big, stay on the streets, are sterilized so that they no longer reproduce and the population does not continue to increase. ” .
If any institution wishes to hold a day of sterilization in the community, Ana Lucía says that they can get the premises, water for the volunteers and labor to work or catch the dogs.
“It would be difficult, but we know where the animals are. We have received complaints. If we have to look for them at night it is the least, we have some experience and we are not afraid of them. We even let ourselves be bitten to catch them. My brother says: ‘For him he bites me you take it’ “.
THEY BELIEVE THAT THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT GIVE IT IMPORTANCE
If so far public policies on animal protection have not worked, Ana Lucía believes that it is because the Government does not know that this is important.
“They have not analyzed the importance of animals in education. They don’t know that a child who abuses an animal in the future can be a criminal. These are studies that have been done, but here they are not given importance. Children are not educated about love for animals, or about love for the environment. “
Her mother thinks that animal life has always been the same and that abuse is what increases.
“When there is less awareness, there is more abuse. Before people were afraid of God. Before it was said from grandfather to grandson, from father to daughter, that whoever kicked a dog the Lord the punish; that if you hurt a dog, if you drown him, so you will die; that as you kill him so you die “.
Advocates for country animals thought the situation would improve after the passage of Law 248-12 on Animal Protection and Responsible Keeping.
“I honestly think that even if it’s not the change one was expecting, people are becoming more aware. And the fact that the number of dogs on the street has increased means that people are afraid to attack animals. People are thinking, because even after the cases that there have been people who have managed to get in jail and get bail with social work, people are afraid, ”says Yira.
“At least now this is news, before it wasn’t even news,” adds Ana Lucía.
TERROR IN COMMUNITIES
The overpopulation of stray dogs in the southwest of the province of San Cristóbal, along the Sánchez road, no longer only represents a public health problem, but also an economic one.
In recent months, farmers and producers have denounced the slaughter of livestock and poultry.
Mrs. Rita Montás Domínguez, in Najayo Above, dogs were recently killed by 22 peacocks, 23 geese and 7 pregnant sheep.
His neighbor, according to Daily List, was killed by 9 pregnant goats and another was killed by all the ducks and eaten by four goose eggs.
Dogs eat eggs and only kill animals, says Mrs. Rita.
The attack of animals occurs largely in about 8 kilometers in the communities of Nayajo Above, Santa Lucia de Camba, El 7, Doña Anna, La javilla, La serra and Els tamarius.
The problem was exacerbated by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. This stretch of road is usually one of the most used for the abandonment of dogs and cats. The animals hide during the day and go out hunting at night.
Community members fear that dogs will start attacking people.
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For help. If you want to cooperate with the Diakimyi foundation, search on social media or call them at (809) 528-3989 and (829) 343-9472. They also receive donations to the account 1880 342 0018 of the bank BHD in the name of Ana Yira Ramírez.