Los Chuchos de El Salvador

Let me just start off with this: If anyone is or knows a veterinarian, please come to El Salvador and fix and/or rescue the poor, mangy mutts here. My heart aches for these suffering animals. Here are some pictures of a FEW of the stray dogs, called chuchos, that I have seen in the past few weeks. Some have mange. Some are blind. Some are so malnourished that you can count every bone in their body. All are swarming with fleas. None are spayed or neutered, meaning that I have also seen a couple of litters of puppies. These pups are so scrawny and sick that I doubt they'll reach adulthood; in fact, some, I think, may well become food for other dogs. The chuchos are well-behaved. They never bother people, according to some of the locals I talked to. They just limp around towns looking for a puddle of water, a scrap of tortilla, anything to stave off death by starvation. Well, most of the dogs can get around. I have seen a few whose hind legs are too crippled to walk, and so they hobble or drag themselves through the streets. I have only seen one dogfight so far, when some males started brawling over a spilled bowl of rice and beans in a yard. I have heard that sometimes the government will round up a bunch of stray dogs and just shoot them. I have seen little kids, maybe 5 years old, run after a chucho in a school yard, kicking its bony hindquarters and legs. The poor dog was so wasted away and sick that it couldn't even run away from the boys. For the most part, though, people more or less ignore the dogs, except in some cruel cases, as I've mentioned. 

I've seen people here, too, like those in Las Trincheras, who live their lives much like these chuchos: they're sick, crippled, and have to beg for food. Dogs are not the only sufferers here, but then again, neither are the people. While it's great that there are aid groups that come here and offer free healthcare to the poor, it'd be beneficial for everyone if the animals could also get help. If the animals were fixed, there wouldn't be so many starving, fleabitten animals spreading their diseases and insects everywhere (they also might be quieter if they're not going in heat all the time). I don't know what course of action is appropriate or necessary; I don't claim to ever have been any great animal care advocate or anything, but it just breaks my heart to see these poor li'l guys suffering in the heat here.