Visiting Filandia, Colombia - Part 2

More from my trip to Filandia...

(to see the introductory post, please click here

One of the things that I was incredibly impressed about with regards to the people of Filandia, is their love for animals, and in particular street dogs.

Where I live (in Bocas del Toro, Panama), you’ll see lots of starving and sick dogs that keep multiplying, because there is no consistent system to spay strays in Panama. Due to lack of education in the most modest areas of Bocas, people don’t care much about dogs and their well being, and they end up chased away, beaten, or run over by cars if they don’t die of diseases first. Things are starting to change slowly, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

I expected it to be about the same in rural areas in Colombia, but to my great surprise, all the street dogs in Filandia were particularly well nourished, not to say straight out fat!

Make no mistake, they don’t have a particular owner, but rather a pool of owners. Everyone knows the dogs and is friendly to them. They are not viewed as a nuisance, and are not kicked out of businesses when they walk in. They’re accepted as part of the decor.

You see, in Filandia, business owners get together to buy dog food for the strays, and there is always some food available in this food dispenser specifically purchased for the street dogs (see picture below).

Occasionally, dogs that have owners will also stop to snack...

Call me sentimental but I found this absolutely amazing! Donations are also used to spay these animals, so that there is no vicious circle in stray production.

Street cats are also present, and business owners do feed them as well. Here’s a picture of some stray cats cuddling to stay warm.

If you like this system of helpings strays, please give it an upvote and share this post.

My husband @el-cr and I already talked about implementing this at our Spanish school in Panama, and I’m sure that lots of business owners with a heart for animals will be happy to participate.

Stay tuned with more about Filandia soon...