Street Dogs Find Homes in Venerable Cuban Institutions

Street Dogs Find Homes in Venerable Cuban Institutions
HAVANA — Mar 19, 2015, 12:34 AM ET
By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN Associated Press

Old Havana's Museum of Metalwork is home to soaring colonial archways,
floors of gleaming artworks and five of the world's luckiest street dogs.

In the heat of the day, Vladimir, Canela, Aparicio, Leon and Carinoso
sprawl in the grand entrance of the centuries-old stone building. At
night, the animals patrol the streets with local police or sleep under
the museum's grand stairway. Each wears a collar with a tattered card
bearing its name, photo and the words "I live in the Museum of Metalwork."

More than a dozen state institutions ranging from Cuba's Central Bank to
a public toilet have taken street dogs under their wings in recent
years, assigning them official IDs and housing and granting them
year-round medical care and protection from the city dogcatcher, animal
protection officials say.

"I don't like dogs but I've really developed a soft spot in my heart for
them," said Yarisbel Perez, a guard at a historic building overlooking
Old Havana's Plaza Vieja, where two sets of guards share custody of P9
and Nina, the former named after a city bus line.

Despite the trappings of state protection, the roughly two dozen former
street dogs enjoy, at most, a quasi-official status, conveyed by the
frequently thin pretext that they are working security. Cuban law
banning animals from workplaces contains an exemption for guard dogs and
this legal cover for the ex-strays was bolstered when a dog at a
government office in eastern Havana awakened a guard one night by
barking when she heard trying to remove air conditioners from the
windows, said Nora Garcia, president of the Cuban Association for the
Protection of Plants and Animals.

"There was a public ceremony in which the dog received an award for
saving the air conditioners," Garcia told The Associated Press.

The adoption of street dogs by some of Havana's most illustrious
institutions is driven mostly, however, by the guards' love of animals
and their desire for company on long shifts in a city with little crime.

Dogs in Old Havana benefit from the presence of dozens of state
restaurants that donate leftovers to the animals, some of which have
grown nearly obese. The dogs with Perez enjoyed an enormous dinner of
half-eaten pork chops and leftover chicken and rice served on
grease-soaked paper plates from a nearby restaurant.

"They don't eat bones," said Victoria Pacheco, a guard in the metalwork
museum. "They eat cold cuts, mincemeat, hotdogs and liver."

The animal protection society maintains a list of 21 dogs living in
state institutions, including a Communist Party gas station, offices of
the Cuban Journalists' Union and a mechanical workshop of the Ministry
of Public Health.

"They stay here and nothing happens to them," said Dalia Garcia, the
caretaker of a public bathroom in Havana's Vedado neighborhood that's
home to two former street dogs. "Everyone takes care of them, no one
hits them. They don't bark and they don't bite anyone."

Other dogs haven't been so lucky, including a group snatched by the
dogcatcher from Havana's University of Arts while their student
protectors were home on vacation, Garcia said.

"They're official for us but the state doesn't always look so kindly on
them," she said. "When they come and say there can't be any dogs here,
they have to go."

Similarly sad fates await street dogs who aren't chosen for special
treatment by state workers, including some of the dogs who wander,
matted and skinny, through groups of quasi-official dogs on the streets
of Old Havana.

"Sometimes we feel bad and we give them something to eat," Perez said.
"But if we start taking care of all of them, it would get to be a zoo
around here."

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Michael Weissenstein on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mweissenstein

Source: Street Dogs Find Homes in Venerable Cuban Institutions - ABC
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http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/street-dogs-find-homes-venerable-cuban-institutions-29743934