- Ricardo manages the Tierra de Animales for nine years now and has taken in more than 500 animals (mostly stray) into his care.
- When Hurricane Delta came earlier this month, he knew the dog shelter was not hurricane proof.
- So he decided to migrate 300 dogs into his own home for safety.
Earlier this month, Hurricane Delta ran amok the shores of Cancun, Mexico, that got Ricardo Pimentel extremely worried with the animals in his the shelter.
For nine years, Ricardo has cared for more than 500 animals in Tierra de Animales which he runs on the outskirts of Cancun. He takes in stray dogs and cats, chickens, donkeys, horses, turkeys, sheep, swine, and cows.
He knew that the category 4 storm would not spare the dog shelters, so he did a very selfless act of sharing his own home to all of them.
“We have two bedrooms, one kitchen and one bathroom available for volunteers who want to come and stay here to help us with all the things that we have to do,” Ricardo told The Dodo. “We decided to put almost all the dogs inside the house, simply because we don’t fully trust in the shelters that we currently have because they aren’t hurricane-proof.”
But that was not just a small number of dogs — it was a total of 300 dogs! And it took him and his volunteers five hours to manage the dogs to get into the house before Delta made a landfall.
“We had to bring them in on leash two by two,” he said. “Some of them are afraid or don’t know how to walk on a leash, so we had to carry them to the house, but in the end, it was worth it because they are all safe.”
Naturally, they expected a big mess because it was only a small house for so many animals. But fortunately, everyone seemed to get along just fine.
“They were actually very well-behaved all night,” he said.
Good thing, the storm receded as category 2 the time it reached the shelter. Still, there were some damages in the property that needed to be repaired due to strong winds.
“The next morning when the hurricane finished, we had to do a lot of repairs and clean all [the animals’] areas from trees and branches,” Ricardo said. “So they stayed in the house the next day until 5 or 6 p.m.”
He noted the house did smell horribly after and a few things got broken but there was nothing he regrets. “I would do it again one million more times if necessary,” he said.
Moving forward, Ricardo plans on building shelters that are hurricane proof. He also hopes that more animals, especially the strays, would have a safe place to stay.
Source: The Dodo