Caring for the Least of These

How we came to run an animal refuge in El Salvador

Hola, amigos 😄

¿Como están ustedes?

How are you all?

Things are busy this week, getting some things ready for the annual Adopting Bitcoin Conference. I’m taking part in the farmers market there, sewing and baking, hoping to fundraise a bit for our ongoing animal project…

Life is a fair bit of crazy around here, with 3 kids and 9 pets 🤪🤣

BUT, we absolutely love our life up in the mountains! And all the cats and dogs who’ve come to rely on us and now see us as their family.

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.”

—Anatole France

Looking after stray animals has sort of become our mission here. We love each of our pets and their uniqueness. As most of you know, we have been helping cats since we arrived in El Salvador 2 years ago. It all started within the first month of moving here. It’s a funny story, how we ended up with a jungle cat who was flown in from Costa Rica! A Swiss lady (also a Bitcoiner) had cared for him in CR, and then had to return to Switzerland. First we fostered and then later adopted sweet Gatito (“little cat”) who is a giant…and has taken on the role of guard kitty to keep the dogs outside.

When we moved to the beach in early 2023, we adopted a cute little kitten from Tom’s surf instructor whom the girls affectionately named Cheetah. More on her later…

We soon found ourselves feeding way more than the 2 cats we called our own. El Salvador, like much of the developing world, has a huge population of stray animals.

It seemed that our beachside neighbourhood was bursting with hungry cats. They were starving and desperate and often had parasites. And so, we soon found ourselves feeding (and helping) 11…or more. Some months it was as many as 14—so we were basically running a cat refuge on the beach!

One day, 3 sweet kittens followed the girls home from the community pool. And we couldn’t turn them away. They were outside only kittens for a few days.

But they were just so cute and cuddly, and the girls always wanted to snuggle them inside  And so, just like that, we realized we had 5 cats. The girls love our kitties—each with its own unique personality. And so do Tom and I.

We continued to feed and help the stray cats on the beach, and we ended up fixing 15 besides our own. It wasn’t an easy mission, capturing and fixing the feral cats, but it felt like a necessary one, especially when the mammas could barely feed themselves!

Since moving up to the mountains, we were adopted by 4 dogs in just 2 months. At first we tried to get some of them to go away. Especially Ruthie (the black female) since she was bullying sweet Canela (“cinnamon”) for food and likely for territory too. But after a few scoldings, she realized they could both stay, so she chilled out

The dogs are friendly and each have their own quirks, so they’ve grown on us. They run with Tom and me to the river each morning, and often even go on longer (5-10km) runs with Tom. They all stay outside, sleeping on our deck, and are a motley little canine family.

Unfortunately, we started with 2 girls and a boy, and Canela (the one on the left) was in heat when we first moved up here, so she ended up pregnant—before we even thought about fixing her! Then, a couple weeks ago, Ruthie (the black female) was also in heat. I said to Tom,

“We’re going to have 10 puppies around here pretty soon, if we don’t do something now!”

On October 31st, Tom took Ruthie to the vet. At first they weren’t sure she was a good candidate for getting spayed. The vet told Tom she’s about 8 years old…but dogs are fertile their entire lives. After running some blood tests, they said she’d do just fine with the surgery. And she did. On Friday afternoon we picked up our sassy but sweet girl. She came home wearing a lovely turquoise bodysuit all tied up on top. And with instructions to put cream on her stitches, give her 3 different antibiotics, and also eye drops for her optical ulcers.

It was almost torturous for Ruthie to not go running with us for the next few days. I had to put a leash on her and hold her back when Tom would go out. I resorted to walking. But she decided if she couldn’t go with Tom, she would just stand still in protest. And so, I had to pick her up and carry her (all 50 pounds of her!) home from the park 2 days in a row. Fun times 😅

A cute little furry dog less than half the size of Ruthie showed up at our cabin while she was in heat. He’d obviously smelled her, and hasn’t left us since. We gave him a haircut, mostly to get rid of all his matted fur, and we named him Gili. He’s a friendly little pup, runs with us most mornings, and loves to be petted. But he sneaks inside every chance he gets, so we have to close the deck doors more often so he won’t go inside and steal the cat food. He’s barely bigger than Gatito.

October 27th was quite the day around here. It started out like most Sundays. Tom and I got up around 6–we’d let ourselves sleep in a bit. I fed the cats their wet food, but noticed something odd—Cheetah was missing. Normally I give her a scoop of wet food in our room (with the door closed), so she has time to eat it without the others stealing it from her. Since she wasn’t around, I put her plate of wet food in the fridge for later.

I grabbed my running shoes, and was ready to set out for my usual 2.5 km run to the river. But just then, I heard some distressed “meowing.” Immediately, I knew it was Cheetah, but I couldn’t see her, so I went and got Tom.

“It’s Cheetah—I can hear her. She sounds like she’s in trouble, but I can’t see her.”

We walked around, looking down the steep hill, still hearing her cries, and calling to her. Then I lifted my gaze—there she was way up high in a tree just down the hill from our cabin, between the two cabañas. And she was about 30 feet up, on a branch about as wide as her. Now it made sense—we’d heard a dog barking around 3 am.

This photo is blurry, but you get the idea—that dark circular blob in the tree is Cheetah..and that’s the top of a 20-foot ladder.

We realized fairly quickly that we wouldn’t be going running anytime soon. Tom grabbed the ladder from the cabin next door. We were grateful that there were no renters because we needed to access the tree from that cabin. We had to walk across its deck in order to get to the tree she was in, and then climb down the hill in front of it. These sister cabins are on a near-cliff, so you have to watch your footing!

It wouldn’t have been so bad for Cheetah, but that morning was a particularly windy one up here, and the branch she was on moved back and forth with every gust.

Tom leaned the ladder against the tree and climbed up, but it was impossible to get all the way up to our poor kitty. There were only a couple branches between the top of the ladder and the long way up to her. Using a long rope, we decided to make a pulley. Tom took the rope and made a bundle on one end to act as a weight. Then he threw it over the branch that Cheetah was on. We took the ladder and made a plush runway out of it by tightly taping yoga mats and a small mattress to it, end to end. We attached one end of the rope hanging from the tree to the top of the makeshift “runway” and then Tom pulled on the other end. Pretty soon we had a kitty ramp hanging from a tree. We grabbed the bottom of the ladder, and with a lot of maneuvering, got it resting on the neighbouring cabin’s deck railing. It looked great.

Now Cheetah could come home. We grabbed a can of her favourite wet food and a spoon, and tried to lure her in. But she just meowed in fear. We even convinced a few of her sibling kitties to go halfway out to meet her. We spent hours cheering her on, clinking that can, hoping that she’d just come home. It would be so easy—just jump 18 inches down, and then walk the plush plank.

But instead Cheetah would just wander further down the branch she was resting precariously on, and meow as if there was no solution. When she’d come back up, closer to the fancy runway contraption, we’d get excited, but the little drop down was too much for her. A few times she was obviously contemplating the jump. But no, she just couldn’t do it.

I thought about how I’ve done this in my own life. Made things harder for myself than necessary because I was scared, had become almost comfortable in my predicament, and wouldn’t take the little step of faith needed to solve my problem—for fear of what the unknown could mean.

At around 4 pm, we reluctantly took down the plank. Cheetah was still stuck. Suddenly, realizing what we’d done, she was frantic, meowing something like,

“Wait—I was just about to jump! Put it back! I changed my mind—I’m coming!!!”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy to put things back up once they were down. We sadly said goodnight to her later that evening, and as I was about to go to bed, I shone the light from my phone her way, only able to see her two eyes, shining like two bright lights in the dark. I felt so sad for her.

The next morning, we got up at 5:15, and Tom and I greeted Cheetah, still in her perch waaay up there in that tree. Then we left for our run around 5:40. When I came home at 6:25, I went straight over to greet her from our deck, but she was gone. In disbelief mixed with hope, I went inside. There, sitting on the stairs, was Cheetah, having her morning bath, preening herself like nothing had happened. I quickly gave her a double portion of wet food, and she ravishingly devoured every bit of it.

We gave her extra scratches and snuggles all day, feeling so thankful she was back. Since we moved up here, she’s been a lot more relaxed and less feisty, and we all love our sweet, fluffy girl 💖

What a ride she’d given us, staying up there for about 27 hours! Looking after these animals is anything but easy sometimes. Taking strays to get fixed can be a daunting task. But I’m convinced it’s worth it. Sometimes people ask me if what we’re doing makes much of a difference. Helping the few that are near is often all any of us can do. That’s what we’ve decided to do. That is our mission—to help the few. To help as few or as many of God’s creatures as we can. Today 🧡

Gracias por leer, amigos 😊

¡Nos vemos pronto!