I was so happy to see the group of ViDAS vets again this pass August. ViDAS is a volunteer group of vets and veterinarian students based out of Colorado, whom travel to the state Quintana Roo, Mexico where they set up week long clinics offering Free Spaying and Neutering of Cats and Dogs in the poorer areas some as far south as Bacalar near the Belize border. To date they have sterilized 4629 dogs and cats in an effort to flight the overpopulation making a real impact that affects not only the animals, but the people and community as a whole.

         The Playa del Carmen/Puerto Morelos Clinic Group lead by Ruth Parkin stays at our Secret Beach Villas each summer. It's like having a group of friends come each year to the villas. This last Clinic they fixed 595 cats and dogs, not to mention the number of animals they removed ticks and fleas from. The one of the youngest vets put all her attention on this poor tiny puppy, that someone had played with it like a toy, cutting it's whiskers off and part of its tail, then they just forgot to feed it. She came back to the villas with the puppy in her arms and IV bag pinned to her tee shirt, I don't think she ever left that poor puppy's side the whole week, it was real touch and go, and at the end of the week the puppy got a plane trip back to the states to find a good home.

         Theses vets really put in a lot of effort; it's so very hot and humid in August when they are here, it's not like they are spending all day in the pool or have the breeze off the ocean, they work a long day, usually in a local school without A/C, when they get back to the villas they are beat, a margarita or two, some food, a dip in the pool and they do it all over the next day. It's a lot of hard draining work; they are exceptional people to give such a gift to this community.

The Cats of Playa del Secreto

          The Playa del Carmen ViDAS group helps me out with my own efforts to get the JUNGLE CATS of Playa del Secreto sterilized. I am not sure exactly how I inherited this job, when I first moved here we had a matriarch of Playa del Secreto named Pat Link. Pat was feisty lady, a great cook, and an animal lover whom lived here by herself and her four Jack Russell terriers. She always fed the jungle cats and had a vet come to her villa to have them sprayed and neutered, she had maybe five Jungle Cats she looked after. It wasn't till a few years after she moved back to Canada did I notice that we had a WHOLE LOT of Jungle Cats. The ball definitely got dropped! Being the 1st person to admit that I'm a cat person, I have four of my own house cats, I took this Jungle Cat situation over.

          Mind you these Jungle Cats are feral; they hang out all day in the jungle across the road from the beach side villas and only come in to eat when I feed them in the evening. Having a FEW sterilized Jungle Cats does have its advantage they keep the iguanas at bay. For the 1st time in years I actually see some flowers on my plants, before the iguanas stripped them completely. Once I had bought twenty-five new Hibiscus plants and before we could get them out of the plastic pots and planted there was nothing left but twigs, it was an "All You Can Eat Buffet" for the iguanas.

        So far over the last 3 years the ViDAS group has sterilized 19 of the Jungle Cats here in Playa del Secreto, when I can catch them and get them fixed when they are still kittens they usually become somewhat tame yard cats. I'm still on the hunt for the 2 or 3 that have eluded my many tricks and treats to get them into the cages. 

Ruth and the gals ... see you next July!!! Keep warm up there in Colorado!!