Itchy-Scratchy Street Clinics
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The government does not provide a mechanism to treat the thousands of starving and sick
street animals that roam the city. Nor does it have a program to provide veterinary care to the
pets of the poor. While the problem is daunting and appears to be so large as to be impossible
to handle for an organization of modest means such as HSTJ, we nevertheless adopted the
philosophy of approaching the problem one animal at a time and as our resources permitted.
Since HSTJ cannot afford to run a private shelter to accommodate these vast numbers of
animals it had to find an alternative to the traditional rescue where an animal is brought to a
shelter, treated and placed for adoption.
HSTJ has re-defined street rescues. While our volunteers still do one-on-one street rescues,
we also have devised another type of rescue, the Street Clinic. It occurred to us that a large
number of the abandoned street animals could be saved if only they could be made fit enough
to be accepted by neighborhoods and/or individuals who would care for them and get them
sterilized.
In January 2007, HSTJ initiated street clinics and encouraged the people in the poorest of
neighborhoods to bring their pets for basic treatments e.g. de-worming, mange treatment, tick
and flea treatment. We encouraged them to bring the street animals too. It worked. After
being treated and no longer suffering from diarrhea, mange, ticks and eye infections, they
were either adopted by individuals or by a group of people on the block where they were
roaming. Once free of disease, these animals were given a place to sleep, given food and clean
water and even brought to our monthly free spay and neuter clinics. They no longer had to live
out a miserable existence on the streets, sick, starving, frightened and in pain. WE CONSIDER
THESE TO BE SUCCESSFUL RESCUES and it was done without having a shelter and a lot of
resources. Since its inception, the HSTJ Street Clinic has treated thousands of animals and
hundreds of street animals are now much better off having a safer and healthier place to live.
Equally important, they have been sterilized and will not be compounding the problem.
Since our inception in 2006, we have spayed and neutered over 2,300 animals at our free and
low cost spay and neuter clinics, and over 6,600 animals at the Street Clinics and those
numbers are growing each month! We would like to help many more, but we need your help.
Please help support HSTJ's clinics by making a donation or becoming a monthly sponsor by
joining our RESCUE 400 CLUB today. Your contribution will help us feed and care for animals
looking for loving homes, rescue animals in
need, and provide humane education to enrich the lives of individuals and animals alike.
Thank you for supporting the Humane Society de Tijuana. Your support means so much to us,
every day!
Please click on an image below for a larger picture.
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