Read Bianca's story here:
In the summer of 2010 I decided to go to Tijuana and to be a volunteer with an animal protection group. The president of this group was an old man who seemed like a very good person and I started attending his meetings, at this point I did not visit the shelter yet, I had only a few hours to volunteer because I lived in San Diego, so I only went to the group meetings once a week, but at a certain point I wanted to visit the “shelter” as well as other volunteers and we were very suspicious when the president of this group was giving us all kinds of excuses to be able to avoid our visit to the shelter, then we decided to force the situation and we went to his home and pressured him to take us there.
There are no words to describe the situation of the furry angels in this place, it was the most horrible place I had ever seen in my life, all of us were shocked, confused, angry and sickened.
The place was divided in different areas, the front area was designated for the newcomers, and the second area was designated for the doggies who were there for a longer period of time, and so on…I was not brave enough to get to the last area of the property, I was very upset but I was also about to pass out due to the smell and suffering in that horrible place, but the other brave volunteers went all the way, and could not believe the conditions of the furry angels in the last cages.
The horrible man who proclaimed himself to be an animal protector was an evil man, who enjoyed torturing and killing animals in a horrible way, and all the donations and monetary help was used for his personal benefit.
We suddenly realized that we were in front of a criminal and we did not have the legal right to help these furry angels and get them out of there.
The man was extremely upset because we were questioning him, and we were going nowhere fighting him so we decided to pretend that everything was all right and that we believed all his lies. That day we stayed in this horrible place until dark trying to comfort, feed and give them a little help.
After knowing the shocking truth we decided to keep attending his meetings telling him that we were willing to help him and to get him donations, it was very hard to be in front of this criminal pretending that everything was well.
Thank God we asked for help to Friends of Humane Society de Tijuana and they helped us to organize the rescue plan, we convinced the sick man that we needed to go back to the “shelter” because we were going to make a list of the needs of the shelter as well as verify the number of doggies that needed to be spay/neutered. We had many sleepless nights and nightmares, just knowing that as many as 80 something animals were trap in hell, this was making us so sick, we were calling each other crying, sharing our emotions and frustration, but we knew we were making a plan to rescue them, this was the only way we could have some peace in those dark days.
Bianca was one of the doggies in this horrible situation, she had mange all over her body, she was completely under nourished and only God knows for how long she was suffering the abuse, we promised Bianca and all these angels we were coming back for them, I remember many of them looking at us and making a connection of love and hope, in those sad days we could not think of anything else but them.
After many attempts we got the green light to get into this horrible place again, but this time we had the support of Friends of HSTJ and we had with us a reporter from the most important newspaper of Tijuana, the reporter was pretending that he was another volunteer, we also had a very small camera to record the place.
We made a deal with the man to get a few doggies out of there because we explain to him that we were going to provide care for them, he believed that we were going to bring donations and his ambition helped us that day October 31, 2010.
We arrived early in the morning and the man let us alone for a while but he left 2 men and a woman keeping an eye on us, we started running inside of the place and we kept bringing doggies out of there without his permission, we could only get the ones that were placed in the first three sections of the property, in total 23 little ones were rescued that day, it was the saddest thing of our lives to leave behind many of them, but thank God we had the reporter with us and the video, right next day the whole story was in the news and the newspaper, many people were upset and they were pressuring the government to close down this place, and finally the place was closed and another group took more than 20 doggies and the rest unfortunately were euthanized, their condition was so severe that nothing could be done for them.
When the man saw the news and he realized that he was lied to, the crazy man was even crazier and he started to attack back, we had no idea that he was very well connected to government officials, bad and corrupt people just like him, he had all their support and at this point they knew our names our telephone numbers and our location, so the war with them started and we had to hide our little ones in the middle of nowhere, the little angels were as afraid as we were, but looking at their eyes gave us the strength to continue the difficult road ahead.
After many months of hard work, tears and frustration, many headaches and lessons our little ones started magically changing, most of them started smiling and showing their real personalities and wonderful hearts, it was awesome to witness this miracle.
There is no way we had made it this far without the help of Friends of Humane Society de Tijuana, this wonderful group is a true blessing for all of us, they support in every way little groups like ours, it is so wonderful to work hand by hand with them and see the miracles we witness so often, like Friends of HSTJ says “Animals have no nationality” and Mexicans and Americans are working together to make the difference in the lives of these innocent and wonderful creatures.
To support HSTJ's programs of rescue, education and sterilization, and to help dogs just like Bianca, please pledge just $5 a month by joining our Rescue 400 Club
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