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It was one of those times when everything flows together and you know it was meant to be. I had been looking for a dog at the San Diego Humane Society and the pound for several months. There were a few dogs my husband and I wanted to take home right away but the process was rigorous, there were already three people in line ahead of us for these pets. Much like thrift clothes shopping you had to go back over and over again until you made a score. Sometimes you got lucky right away. But most of the time it was a somewhat depressing experience to see certain dogs that were over-bred.

I suspended the search over the holidays and made a few trips, one notably to my brother Jerry’s home in Ft. Worth Texas. I had the good fortune to meet his dog Angel, who Jerry informed me was a Blue Heeler. I was amazed at how smart and sweet she was; this was the kind of dog I wanted. She was miraculously rescued from a Forth Worth Interstate with cars flying past at 80 miles an hour, hence the name Angel.

Enter the United Hope For Animals organization, which rescues, fosters and pursues adoption for dogs and a few cats from Baja, Mexico, right over the US-Mexican border.

After my return from Fort Worth, I received an email a day or two later from my dear friend Lynn O’Neill. She had sent me a link to United Hope and told me that she and her husband, Kevin, were adopting a dog from their rescue group. She advised me to check it out, as she knew I was on “the dog search”. I went to their website and liked what I saw. I admired the O’Neill’s choice in dogs (he was on the website under the adoptable section), an adorable but mischievous mixed breed now named Dusty.

Little did I know I would soon be introduced to the most amazing warrior women, who spend much of their lives rescuing dogs from Mexico. First was Kerry Oldridge, an original founding member of United Hope. She called me five minutes after I sent an email to them. We were chatting about what kind of dog I wanted and what kind of mission and passion drove those committed to the rescue of dogs in Mexico. She hadn’t heard of a Blue Heeler either and I told her what Angel looked like. After a few minutes she said, “Could you hold on please? I have a call coming in.” She came back a few moments later and told me, “I think my partner Laura just rescued the kind of dog you want.” And although I have yet to meet her, I know Laura Sandoval from her actions, her intelligence, her love for animals and her commitment to this cause. Sandoval called me in minutes and talked about the little cattle dog who would become my beloved GiGi.

I am so grateful for the rescue work of these two women that I felt compelled to share their story and the story of those involved with United Hope. These amazing people are dedicated to being part of the solution of the overpopulation of companion pets in Mexico. I asked Oldridge how United Hope started:

KO: At a large veterinarian hospital Laura had a notice asking for help to rescue dogs and she got a few animal technicians to go down to Mexico with her. I joined them on a couple of trips to give the ill and suffering animals a gentle passing and take a few dogs back to the states for rescue. Laura had used her own money and started a neuter program in Mexico and I wanted to help.

I went to the "Ranch" and some other places to help, but I realized I was only prolonging the suffering by driving the food down. There needed to be an organized effort. The suffering you see is everywhere. It's on the streets, behind buildings; it's under cars, everywhere.

We incorporated in March 2004 and we are a 501C3 non-profit organization. We've rescued well over 200 animals. We rescue, help foster and put animals into our adoption program. We're usually full because we don't have enough foster homes to take in the dogs that are ready for adoption.

VM: We talked about the deplorable conditions in Mexico and I remember you've described it as an Auschwitz for dogs. Could you tell our readers why?

KO: Because that is exactly what it feels like. I can't say that I know what Auschwitz felt like, but I've seen footage of it and when I sit in the middle of the "Motel"—a known area to dump companion pets in Tijuana—and the “Ranch” (before we cleaned it up) it feels exactly like what I imagine Auschwitz must have felt like. It feels like a death camp!

The people of Tijuana have nominal options and resources. If you are living in Tijuana and you don’t have the money to spay and neuter your pet and they keep having litters what can you do? There is nowhere to drop a companion animal. There are no shelters. And if the people can’t feed or care for them, then they dump them.

And I have thought, standing amongst these animals that this is what Auschwitz felt like. In the dumping areas the broken, the abandoned, and the suffering live and die. There were hideous displays of suffering—puppies eating their littermates, a dog's leg completely broken off and dragging by its skin. When you are there it feels like it is a war against these animals. And there is no one there to help and no one is coming.

VM: So what can we in the U.S. do to help this situation?

KO: First thing you can do is spay and neuter your pet; overpopulation exists here as well. However regarding the pets of Tijuana, even the dogs that are sitting in kennels and pounds (in the USA) about to be euthanized have it a 1000 times better than the majority of the dogs in Tijuana.

One of the areas we are working on is introducing euthanol to the pounds as a means of offering a gentle passing. They currently use electrocution for this purpose, killing approximately 1,700 a month. They use this method not out of choice but rather out of a lack of resources. We have developed a relationship with the director of the pound and he is more than willing to implement a spay and neuter policy and to use euthanol instead of electrocution, but this takes money. We need regular funding to keep up with the endless flow of homeless dogs. If you would like to help United Hope help these dogs we need funding, fostering and good homes for the many adoptable and healthy dogs and cats that we rescue on a regular basis. We currently have 50 pets waiting for homes.

VM: What can people do to support United Hope?

KO: Mostly providing funding, as well as fostering, will successfully aid the animals. And [there is] always volunteer work, driving to pick up donations or helping at a work party. One of the main things we need terribly is a large storage unit near the Otay Mesa border on the American side so that we can store the food and get a system of volunteers taking food over (the border). Then the burden of bringing the food over to the dogs in the shelters doesn't weigh solely on such a small group. There are only Craig and myself, and Laura and Reyna Cruz who do this. And we have a new and wonderful foster person named Peggy who fosters different animals. She is incredibly in tune with these dogs and they thrive with her and her husband. But we desperately need many more foster homes.

VM: Laura seems like such an amazing woman. Could you tell us more about her?

KO: I think what drives Laura is that Laura was born with a compassion for animals. From the moment she can remember, she saw the animals around her as sentient beings and had great compassion for them. But throughout Mexico companion animal overpopulation and animal abuse and neglect are common and Laura grew angry with the way animals were treated in her country. She now lives in the United States and is a trained animal control officer and a veterinarian technician. She has seen the inside of pounds and shelters and she knows how they function and she understands that we must take responsibility for the lives of these companion animals and follow it all the way through. If we can't find a home for that animal we have to let it go. They are not wild beings we can put back into nature and have it work. We domesticate them and we are responsible for them.

Laura Sandoval makes a difference. So does Kerry Oldridge, Reyna, Peggy, and Pam and Craig Nielson. Each one is committed to helping and rescuing as many animals as possible from Mexico. Please do what you can to help United Hope for Animals. They are a band of warriors fighting for the lives of these animals. They are working to better our world and to minimize the horrible suffering that exists just over the border. Please help them. I know I will.

Please call 909/801-0012 or visit their website www.hope4animlas.org United Hope needs your tax-deductible donations now. Please apply to foster a dog or cat until they can be adopted.

Dusty
by Lynn O’Neill

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Dusty is our new dog. He’s the one-man demolition crew in our backyard. He’s sneaky, stubborn, and willful. He eats snails, ballpoint pens and digs in the dirt. He will chew anything, except for his chew toys. In short, he’s the tail-wagging embodiment of what it took to survive in the hostile environment of Tecate, Mexico the first six months of his life. We wouldn’t expect him to be any different, even though sometimes we would like him to be.

We always wanted to adopt a dog from Baja. The need is greater there and the dogs are known to be smaller and muttier. My husband and I have co-histories of getting “recycled” pets. We’ve made choices not to support puppy mills or purebred breeders. We wanted to take our chances, like parents who create human children everyday, where the genes get shuffled whichever way they are going to. We had made the rounds to many of the local shelters and the Baja websites starting a year ago. We were ready. We are dog people. We pet sit for our friends regularly. We once fostered a Baja dog. I’ve rescued a few dogs over the years and I am the “pet police” to everyone I know, an equal opportunity agitator and meddler. I used to volunteer at the no-kill shelter in San Clemente and I had kept leather gloves and dog food in my car when I lived in Ocean Beach so I could feed my homeless friends’ dogs, uncertain if a few wanted to bite me (man or dog). My husband’s family had taken in a feral Keeshond who became a beloved pet and they have raised and hibernated each year (for 40 years in their laundry room!) a desert tortoise. We thought we had enough practice and plenty of the required eccentricities for bringing a new dog into our home. Along came Dusty to humble us.

I had seen United Hope for Animals featured on Fox 6 News in January. It was love at first sight when we spotted Dusty on their website. His foster guardians, Dustin and Elle Fullington brought him to us ten days later.

We got our first dog, Jasmine four years ago from the central animal shelter. She’s been a joy, if you don’t count the broken leg, the benign tumor, the mysterious infection in her paw, the hives-like outbreak on her nose, the injuries from a dog fight, the eye infection, and other lesser afflictions for which she has received rounds of antibiotics, ointments, and tablets. This dog has done more to support the pharmaceutical industry than Rite Aid. But it’s been worth it. She’s intuitive, smart, sensitive, and patient with children. We couldn’t imagine our lives without her.

Dusty is another story. We have occasionally imagined our lives without him. We feel like alcoholics in recovery who have to take (him) a day at a time.

Yet amid the haze of failed expectations, we have developed a strong attachment to him as we work to be good teachers, instilling in him the right things: that he can’t be the alpha in our home; that he must heel on walks; that he’s not allowed in the kitchen. He is teaching us patience, that we are to be the alphas of his pack and that we are capable of unconditionally loving his wildness within the parameters of our discipline regimen. As Jon Katz of The Dogs of Bedlam Farm said in his book “If you want to have a better dog, you will just have to be a better goddamned human.” This is our new, tough credo.

As with everything, there are the upsides, from the abstract ones: that he’ll be easier than kids; he’ll never smoke cigarettes, he will not be the Unibomber or a president whose policies make us cringe. And the spiritual: that we as humans are also diurnal creatures who run in packs and our routines must change as the sun moves across the sky. There are only so many hours in the day I should be stuck, zombie-like to my computer, no matter how creative and necessary my output, until I must hunt and gather, play and commune. I too reach the “witching hour” like the dogs; when I must move and feed the body, nuzzle the spouse. Not coincidentally this is the time the coyotes in our canyon start their noisy feeding frenzies and our dogs perk their ears up in gratitude and fascination that they are still connected to their wild cousins for brief moments (if I may anthropomorphize).

There are also the tender realizations any “new mom” would have of the sweetness and uniqueness of her baby and the ability to appreciate the differences between the two “siblings.” This has made us fall in love with our older dog again, because Dusty’s idiosyncrasies are a good contrast to Jasmine’s angelic mien. While our older dog is muscle bound, gentle and direct, Dusty is small, combative, and furtive. I love his slight frame and the feel of his pronounced neck bones when I cuddle him. His golden fur seems like a too-large lion costume on a child. When Jasmine shakes her body, you hear a throw rug flapping on a clothesline. When Dusty shakes, it’s delicate like amplified butterfly wings. I laugh at the way he plops down on the floor when he doesn’t want to do something. He has found all the “neutral zones” in the house, where he can be safely away from his crate and he plants himself in those places like a sack of anvils. Yet once he’s in the crate he’s calm, knowing the den is good. He was house trained effortlessly because he could recognize this.

Jasmine, who was found wandering City Heights before they trucked her to the pound, seems to have been bred for protection and vigilance. She can fight if provoked but she is the walk-softly-and carry-a-big-stick-girl. Dusty is the quick trigger, the product (we think) of the chance coupling of a shepherd and coyote, bred for nothing special. His name even fits him and sometimes we find ourselves shortening it to “Dust” which makes sense as he is but a speck in the continuous wind storm of suffering and need that found its way to our home.

We know sometimes you have to work at true love. What seems to get us through the most trying of days with Dusty is the acknowledgement that we have been given so many gifts of comfort in this life isn’t raising this little orphan the least we can do? We have decided that we are committed to making these sacrifices for him, because we value his life too.

Lynn O’Neill is a San Diego writer. She can be reached at jasminatree@yahoo.com