Field Notes; Corissa Meadors 05.08

At school we were required to do a two-week independent research project, but the topic was totally up to us. A friend of mine went to teach English at a school, another stayed with an indigenous community, and one classmate studied tourists.

I remembered the first time I went to Nicaragua how affected I was by seeing all the street dogs, so I decided I wanted to research that. My adviser put me in contact with Karin in Costa Rica and Donna from Casa Lupita, and the rest is history!

Going into it, I didn't really know what was going to happen. I just knew they'd basically find something for me to do. I kinda thought maybe I'd watch the vets or feed dogs, clean kennels, something like that. But then I met Finn and what did happen was so much more involved. We ended up feeling like we really made a difference, even in such a short time. ~ Corissa

"Street Dogs - Field Project"

Casa Lupita was originally intended to be strictly a spay/neuter location. They were supposed to collect the street animals (or owned animals as well), bring them in and sterilize them, treat what problems they can such as mange and fleas/ticks and then re-release them. There are six kennels at the clinic, but these exist for the purpose of waking animals up from anesthesia, not as homes.

But as is wont to happen, the clinic grew into something a little different. It is still a spay/neuter location when the vet is in town, but more often than not the dogs they bring in off the street are in no condition to be sterilized. Weak, emaciated and diseased, they would never recover from the operation. So Casa Lupita has become a dual-purpose center: a place to sterilize and release the animals that can be fixed and released quickly, and also a rehabilitation clinic for the truly hard street dog cases. The hard cases are usually dogs who were not born to street life, but were domesticated and abandoned, and do not know how to survive without a home, making it very difficult to put them back out. At that time they began searching for good homes for these dogs to go to after being recuperated, as well.


I became very involved in the stories of three street dogs, all of which have something different to teach about the Nicaraguan dog situation. First there was One-Eye, the Masaya bus stop dog; then Preggers, the hugely pregnant market dog; then Papas, the lakeside dog. There were also, of course, the clinic residents, but these three stories have the most to teach.


Complete article here: Field Work Project – Street Dogs