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Blog: Kid Lit Reviews (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Children's Books, tolerance, relationships, pets, picture books, cats, dogs, kittens, Favorites, portraits, classic, children's book, families, rescue, kitties, Flashlight Press, mom and dad, adapting, I love cats, award-winning book, strays, David Parkins, Thad Krasnesky, vet care, 5stars, Library Donated Books, 25th Annual Read-Aloud Day 1st grade Read-Aloud Choice, animals pets, animals rescues, Bank Street Best Books for Children, bull dogs, calico, Cat Writers' Association Muse Medallion, cats vs. dogs, Delaware Diamond Award, dog rescues, I hate caats, I love dogs, injured cat, Monarch Reader's Choice Award, Nebraska Golden Sower Award, NSW Premier Reading Challenge Book (Australia), NY State Charlotte Award, pet rescues, Smithsonian Notable Books for Children, Society of School Librarians International Honor, Storytelling World Award, Wanda Gág Best Read Aloud Book Award, World's Best Litter-ary Award, Add a tag
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Blog: La Bloga (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Puerto Rico, puppies, Selena Gomez, satos, sato, luquillo, strays, Add a tag
The other day I was pleased to come across a news piece about tween-star Selena Gomez and her work with stray dogs, satos, while filming in Puerto Rico. Besides being impressed that such a young star was being photographed feeding stray dogs rather than shopping in her Uggs with a diamond-collared, pocket-sized, purebred pooch in her arms, I was also grateful to her because this is a cause that has become dear to my family’s heart, particularly after our most recent trip to La Isla Bonita.
Since I was a small child I was aware of the stray dog situation in Puerto Rico, it’s hard not to be. Each store parking lot has at least a half dozen, mangy-furred, weary-eyed critters begging for food and lying under cars to avoid the blazing midday sun. But for me it was also because opinions about the creatures varied so greatly in the Davila branch of my family. My mother was brought up to believe that dogs were livestock to be kept outside and employed as security. But her stepmother, my beloved Mamita Nivea and my grandfather’s second wife, collected stray dogs like most people collect knickknacks. There were always at least a dozen mutts ranging about the house, smalls ones barking at you from under the rattan furniture, large ones loping around the exterior of the house, their fur caked with the tar from my grandfather’s trucks. Nivea would sit on the porch in her rocking chair with at least three or four of them draped across her body, their eyes closed with pleasure as she scratched behind their one remaining ear. But my grandfather hated them. I remember sitting on the porch one day as he shuffled out in his pajamas yelling towards the back yard, shaking his cane and waving a gun. I screamed as he shot at a stray that was scurrying by the pool. “They’re only blanks!” he yelled at me as if I should have known, my ears ringing from the blast. The dog took off into the bushes, its stringy tail between its legs. “If I don’t scare them away that woman would take them all in until there was no room for us!” he muttered as he shuffled back to his bedroom, cane in one hand, and gun in the other.
But he is looking down from heaven in dismay as my beloved Tía Georgina has taken after Mamita Nivea rather than him. From the day she moved out of my grandfather’s house and on her own she has grown and nurtured her own brood of disheveled but well-loved hounds, her real estate choices dictated by the now thirteen dogs that live with her. The back of her SUV always contains two large bags of dog food and a container of water. Over the years while traveling with her around the island we’ve stopped by the road on the way to El Yunque to feed the strays that wander by the road, on a side street in Humacao, and every trip to the supermarket includes a meal and fresh water for the parking lot’s canine residents. I always smiled and accepted this as an integral part of this woman I loved, but an
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Needless to say, we went back the next day. And the next. By the end of the two weeks, the boldest one would stand near as we poured the food, his brother and sisters a few feet away. As
![](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_HjL_xSL_IFA/Sc75z6B8OzI/AAAAAAAAARQ/rc7_YmMx9i0/s400/sato.jpg)
Wonderful post! And such cute dogs!!!!!
This was a terrific post! Loved the story and the photos!
Makes me want to coo in "puppyese" to these babies.
Wow, I have a Dávila side of the family, with a tío named Esteban, whom had a condo in Luquillo. Great post! Qué lindos son los satos!!!