Forgotten Dogs of San Felipe, Baja, Mexico

Hi, My name is Jill LaRoche. I have been a hairstylist for 30 years and Animal Rescuer my entire life. I have ALWAYS had a passion for helping animals of all kinds, big and small. But, dogs have always been my greatest love. Back in Maine where I'm from in 2000, I created The Doggie Cottage LLC. It was Maine's first Pet Resort, Grooming & Doggie Daycare. A few years later we opened the second location. From both those Pet resorts we were able to adopt out many dogs and work with local shelters. Since then I have sold the business to my x-husband. 23 years later the business its still going strong! My current husband Keith and I have traveled most of the world, and it would always bother me to see animals that lived on the street, hurt or hungry. This year we decided to move to the beautiful town of San Felipe Baja California, Mexico. Here it will become my new life of helping dogs & cats in need. It's a small quiet town with an average of only 20,000 permanent residents and about 10,000 from the US, Canada & Europe in the winter months. There are more and more ex-pats becoming permanent residents, as have we. With that, I'm hoping that this will bring more education to the locals when it come to spaying, neutering and everyday care of these dogs. Many of them roaming the streets are pretty happy even though, as an American, it isn't easy to see them out on their own. Mexicans often think of dogs as the protector and cats as the varmin getter. Often they have names, and they are loved, yet they run from house to house in search of food during the day and return to the yard at night. Then, there are the forgotten ones. The ones that get shooed away or abused for being a nuance. They could be injured from getting hit by a car or severely malnourished, mostly from tick fever. My goal is to help the sick, injured & homeless, feed the malnourished and educate the owners that don't understand proper pet care. Spay & neuter and vaccinating is the most important, we have started our own clinics helping neighborhood by neighborhood that have the largest amount of uncared for dogs and cats. We have the best veterinarians from Mexicali and have already steralized over 150 dogs with just a handful of volunteers. To continue this process, it takes money. Money to get more Veterinarians & helpers so more dogs & cats can be spayed or neutered. We even tattoo the female dog & cats so its known they are already spayed and prevent a second surgery. Since November of 2022 we have managed to get over 120 dogs & cats adopted. My Chihuahua Carlito is from Cancun, and since moving to San Felipe, we have rescued Yoda from the campground we were in. He is the best dog & has made our life complete.