Amigos de los Animales

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The Amigos de los Animales has had a turbulent ten plus year history, during which time we have changed our mission statement several times. As of this writing (Jul 2009),

Here is what we do

• Our primary mission is to act as a refuge for unwanted animals.
• We will accept any dog or cat brought to us during working hours.
• We will make our best effort to adopt the animals we receive into an appropriate home
• We will treat (unowned) sick and injured animals if we feel their prognosis is good, and it is deemed not too expensive.
• We have in place a catch and release program for feral cats.
• We will humanely euthanize an animal deemed unadoptable and dispose of the remains in a proper manner.

Here is what we do not do

• We do not pick up animals from the street, they must be brought to us.
• We do not treat animals that are owned by someone.
• We do not spay or neuter animals that are owned by someone.
• We do not guarantee that you will receive an animal if you come to adopt one.
• We do not guarantee the health or fitness of adopted animals.

In truth, we would love to do the things we don't do, but our resources are very finite, and we have to make choices. We used to pick up animals, but we ran our van into the ground and can't afford to replace it. We used to have a veterinarian on the premises, but have found it more cost effective to subcontract the services we need to local vets. Some of the other things we do are related to education. As part of this effort we held a pancake breakfast with Santa during Christmas time, where each child participating could enter a contest to win a bicycle by writing the best essay about how to treat animals. We also send volunteers to various local schools,distributing coloring books that try to teach the little ones how to be kind to animals.

One of our goals is to be as transparent as possible. To encourage this we have put our documents, thoughts, announcements, and board meeting minutes online at the Amigos de los Animales wiki. We don't update it as often as we would like, but it is there for public perusal. Feel free to make additions or corrections to it.

The Amigos de los Animales shelter is located on Libramiento Playas #3, just next door to the OXXO store. Our phone number there is 986-4235. Please don't be upset if we don't answer the phone right away, chances are the guys at the shelter are busy.
Continue with A pancake breakfast with Santa