Success Stories
Morita's Story
BEFORE
 AFTER

Morita is featured on our website and is our "poster rescue" because she embodies all the
aspects of a hard core street rescue and then some. Morita was seen darting between
buildings and cars in one of Tijuana's more upscale neighborhoods. She was desperately
trying to avoid human contact because, as is often the custom in Mexico, she was being
shooed away by people throwing stones or water to keep her away from their homes. She
was completely covered with mange, had open draining sores, starved, frightened and to
make matters worse, looked like she had recently given birth. We followed her to a hole in a
dirty vacant lot where she was hiding. We left food, water, a cardboard box with bedding and
observed her from a distance. As soon as we were sure she was able to eat without problems,
we started stuffing food with de-worming and anti-mange medicines and
gradually adding antibiotics. We didn't see any pups in spite of a search of the surrounding
areas. After a week she let us come to her and touch her. We did not want to capture her at
this time since we had no place to put her. All of our rescuers, as usual, already had full
compliments of animals in their homes and Morita needed to be quarantined too.
So, as is our practice and with little money, no shelter but lots of will power, we cared for her
daily at the vacant lot hoping that she would improve enough so that someone would allow
her to sleep on their patio until we could find a person to adopt her. After a week we saw
some improvement and were continuing with the routine when Alejandro, the HSTJ rescuer,
was confronted by a local resident, a wealthy Mexican plastic surgeon. He demanded that
Alejandro stop doing rescues claiming that HSTJ's work was annoying him by attracting strays
that were damaging his home. We tried to explain our work and the specific plan for Morita.
That didn’t work. The surgeon called the police who detained Alejandro. What he and the
police didn’t know was that Alejandro holds a law degree, is certified in Mexican law and is
HSTJ's volunteer legal consultant. He had the upper hand quoting animal welfare regulations
and legal procedures. The police were befuddled and decided not to follow through with the
arrest. The problem was solved for the moment but we knew we had to get Morita out of there
as soon as possible to avoid her being beaten, stoned or poisoned. We didn’t want to involve
the city pound as that would mean certain death. While the painful electrocutions at the
pound have been suspended so long as we or our associates furnish humane drugs, even this
more humane euthanasia was not what we wanted. We had to move quickly. Fortunately, a
woman who was already caring for two rescues, offered to foster her even though
the woman lives in an extremely modest home and barely has enough resources for her own
family.Three days later, I went to visit Morita to do a follow up visit. She greeted me with a lot
of emotion. It brought tears to my eyes. That skinny, bald, wrinkled little sweetie came up to
me with a squeaky toy in her mouth and then gave me a lick on the hand. Two months
after her rescue, she was almost back to normal and was adopted by the sister of the woman
who fostered her.