Beach Dog Rescue: A Sanctuary In Mexico

It's Maria's MutS and Stuff.

What a great idea on iHeartRadio.

Welcome to Maria's Mutts and Stuff. And with me is Heather Johnson and she has beach Dog Rescue but it's in Mexico.

Very cool. So Heather, Hi, it's nice to officially meet you.

Hi. You too, Thanks for having me. I'm so excited.

Oh me too. Okay, So let's talk about this.

So you originally are from New Jersey and then you moved to Mexico twenty sixteen, is that correct?

We did. We were on vy like I don't know, one hundred years ago in Cancun.

Uh huh.

I thought like, we live in Mexico one day, that'd be so cool, and so we started planning and now we are here.

Wow. Okay.

So when you first got to Mexico, as this is going to be our residence, did you have the plan of doing a rescue or that just came about from living there?

It just happened. When I was in New Jersey, I was volunteering with the rescue in New York City, so I had some rescue experience and always been in my heart and I have loved them. And when we got to Mexico. On one of our trips to visit the house that we were building on this remote stretch of beach,

So, yeah, he inspired you, that started it. Yeah yeah, and you tried, so I mean, unfortunately he died, but I'm sure he lived a little bit longer because of you finding him and trying to help him. So just you know remember that.

Yeah, I know there's a lot of those along the way, but yeah, sure, it's just like for him. So every day I'm kind of like thinking of that little dog, And it was just so interesting because like it struck me he was nobody's dog.

Huh.

You didn't have anyone. He was just like this little lost soul, right.

That was powerful, of course, of course.

So now okay, so once that got started, so how I'm sure it was much more difficult to start a rescue because it was a different country, right, other than being used to living in the States.

So walk us through it, like, how did you start? Like what did you do?

Because to me, just the thought of it is like like overwhelming.

But where do you start?

We just started just bringing dogs into our house. We lived on this little like remote area of beach. It was just kind of us and like a lot of fishermen and you know, there were just a lot of dogs on the beach. So we just started bringing them into our house. Like we weren't set up as a few, We didn't have any infrastructure, like you know, we had dogs in quarantine, like in our bathroom and on our like balcony upstairs.

You know.

It was like every time I left the house, there'd be like this skinny starting dog. So I just kept kind of you know, piling them. And it's much easier to bring the dogs in than it is to get them out. So my next plan was like, Okay, we need to get these dogs adopted. So that was you know, over time, it has just grown and figured stuff out along the way.

But so now is is it still in your house?

We actually moved from the beach because time I think we had like thirty dogs in our living room.

Oh goodness, yeah, it's not funny, but it is funny.

Oh it's terrible and funny. So yes, there was this dog that we had and she came in and she was really pregnant, and she started like breathing really hard. I was like, what's wrong with this dog? Like, I don't know. So then she started having her puppies. I didn't know anything about like puppies, so she would have them. She's like sitting on my lap, like having puppies. She

Of course, it looks like a murder scene. But it's a dog having puppies, right.

Yeah, but she like runs upstairs. I'm looking for like dental floss and scissors to fix this situation.

Oh my god, Oh my god.

I give you so much credit because it's probably like it was a huge learning experience too.

Yeah, I had no idea what I was doing. I just thought I was going to, you know, bring a few dogs at the beach, and I was saving the whole world, right. Well, a couple of years ago we left the beach to buy a farm in Yucatan State that we have like a proper we have an actual sanctuary set up outside of our house with you know this great like dog park area so it's more structured so we don't have to have thirty dogs in our living room. There's only like dogs living in here.

Now I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you cut out. There are only how many? How many are in your living room?

There's only twenty one? Now?

Oh okay, all right, this is still look good. It's still an amazing number, like pretty large, but okay, all right, others are gonna say they're only two because then you cut out and I was like, oh what twenty one Okay, there's only.

Twenty, not like a whole bunch more outside, but yeah.

Right, right, right, okay, And I assume beside you and your husband, because it sounds like it's a lot of work, you have volunteers, local volunteers helping you out.

We actually don't because we live super far society.

Wow.

So we're off the grid. We're in like a three hundred and fifty year old excacienda and it's just literally in the middle of nowhere, which is by design. We had neighbors, they would murder.

Us, right because of the barking and everything else. I get it. No, I get I get it.

And not everybody loves animals unfortunately, right, yeah, yeah.

I get that.

So wow, wow, like this is it's not I shouldn't say it's not completely different, but it's very different.

I can't imagine how the two of you do all this, that's all. That's a lot to do.

It's a lot to do. We have a farm manager. Her name is Carla. She lives on the property in a little studio apartment. So she helps with the dogs and the sheep, and we had some rescue pigs and we had a really mean rooster. We just got him adopted though Coolio street. Hell, it was like terrible?

Why was okay?

I know I don't know a lot about roosters, but why what made him mean?

Was he just like, no, no, I think roosters are just mean.

Oh wait, you cut out again. I'm sorry.

He just wanted to do it all the time, he said, I'm sorry murder. Oh I see like other smaller fowls or something, or.

He just he was just mean me people everyone, Oh my goodness.

Okay, but he but he got adopted. So obviously somebody is a fan of mean.

Roosters, so that's good.

Yeah, yeah, So how do you get the word out to people? Like do people who are and I and I'm trying to kind of picture it, like people are aware who are neighbors, but if you have neighbors who are far away that they're aware of the sanctuary and so they if they are thinking of adopting an animal, Like how okay, So you said you had pigs and cheap and you have dogs.

Do you have like is that it? Do you have more?

I mean that's a lot, but we have some cats too, but mostly the rescue, mostly the dogs.

Mostly we.

Have rescue partners in New York and like Toronto, a lot of my adoptions, most of my adoptions are international. It's just easier that way when we can with local homes. But it's a bit tricky finding homes here.

Yeah, no, I get it.

The people that really love the animals, they already have a ton so.

Right right, right, right right, And I guess.

So you, I guess go through your area where you are, and you find strays and take them in.

Is that how that works too?

They're just kind of everywhere. I mean, we have a limited number of so I try to keep it to the animals that are like really at risk. A lot of times it's just so different here, Like a lot of times a dog will get hit by a car or like we have a dog now, who is someone cut his paw off with a machete And there's no there's no govern meant to call it. In the US, you know it happen if you see a job somewhere, so we get it hit, you know, you call, someone

I'm sure it sounds like it. I mean, we're kind of spoiled right now.

We are anyway, We're pretty spoiled in the States with how things are with you know, animal rights and who to call and who to get help from.

Which yeah, yeah, it's different, yeah.

Right, I mean, I know you guys struggle the same way, right.

But it's but I mean, but you know, from living here, it's just different. You're right, Like if if you found a dog with its paul, you know, Michelle Off, not only would you know, it would be on every single local news because it would be it's such an outrageous thing.

Right, and someone's going to probably go to jail over.

It and get fine.

But here, yeah, here, it's not. I mean, it's terrible, and you know, local people get really mad. But the government is not looking into this. You know, they're not putting police resources on this right, just the thing that happened, and it's up to like individual rescuers like me to fix it right right?

And are there other rescuers like you like around that you.

Are? M yeah, you know the Yucatan Peninsula, it's a huge area, you know, Mereda, Cancun, Piazzo, Carmen Halloom, all these places. You know, there's probably a rescue or two or three in each place. But the amount of animal, you know, it's more than we can ever possibly keep up with.

Sure, No, of course, I'm sure because it's not like the dogs and the cats are being spade and neutered so right right, which brings me to you however, exactly that's something that you guys do.

And I just what was the number? I just saw?

It was like over is it eight thousand so far? Eight thousand and forty as of right now? Over eight thousand.

Correct, eight fifty one fifty one.

Wow, that that actually went up in like a few like a day, which is amazing. So eight thousand fifty one spay and neuters. Congratulations, that's pretty spectacular.

I remember when we did our first campaign, we did eleven in our in our dining room, dining room table, and I thought, like we just solved the world problem of homeless tests.

But well, yeah, but you know, and I always know that there's because over the years, and we've all seen it over the years, it's like if you don't you know, if you don't spay one female, that female can have and there's always these like crazy numbers, and I never you know, and then you forget about it. But I know on the press release I have on you on your organization, the Humane Society estimates that one unspayed female dog in her offspring can produce.

Eleven and sixty seven puppies per year. Like that's insanity, it's mind boggling, it is. It has to change. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. People.

I mean, I know people who don't neuter their dog because they think and it's usually a guy. Oh, I can't newt my dog because I wouldn't want to be neutered. We're not talking about you, we're talking about your dog.

Yes, always the guy.

I know.

I started doing this. I was like driving up and down the beach, like begging fishermen to let me like neuter their dogs. And maybe it was my ad Spanish at the time, but they were just like, oh my.

God, yeah, like horrified that you yeah exist.

I'm not trying to neuter you exactly, maybe we can, but right right, but little like people are really starting to wrap their brains around this. And when we do like campaigns, you know, they're selling up, like the registration there's waiting list, and it's like it's so cool to see that people are starting to understand how good this is.

Yeah, no, for sure, like it's catching on. So do you have local vets who come and help you with that?

We do. We have a couple of different bets. We do big campaigns. There's a group from Mexico City that flies in and we work with them and they come in. We're actually doing a campaign next month with the goal is eight hundred sterilizations. These big campaigns and what we do is we fund you know, fifty or seventy five percent of it so that we can keep the cost really low but still let people contribute so you know, they can take some press in their pets things like that.

Sure, I feel like that we need to see like a dog, Like we need to have a TV show follow you around, Gil, right that your husband, Heather and Gill. We need like a TV show to come down and because you know, like animal Blandet, this would be like a perfect thing, you know, Beach Dog Rescue with Heather and Gill and follow you around and people could see like, oh my goodness, it's so different down here, but wow, it's Yeah, like.

The last time we were in this village doing this little campaign, there was this female dog and she was in heat and there was like two male dogs chasing her and she was kind of running away, and then another dog in and you know, she was kind of running around the block with a small village and like by the you know, ten minutes later, there was like

Yeah, what I mean, do what wound up happening with that? Did you finally get her? Did she get away?

He got away?

Oh? Good, okay, poor girl, Oh my goodness.

I know, I know. It's just like I've seen things here that are just my bottling.

Yeah, you can, Unsea, I'm sure. I'm sure.

Do you and Gil ever sleep? Because it sounds like I don't know how you can or do you? I mean, do you ever get some sleep?

Yeah?

So when I built this, when we moved in here, I built, you know, the sanctuary, like fifty feet from our bedroom. With hindsight, it should have been a little further, okay.

Because you hear it.

Yeah, okay, all right, it kind of could be like, yeah, like a lullaby maybe, but yeah, okay, so we tried to sleep.

Doesn't always happen right right right now.

But I just feel like you're probably you probably by the time you like feed all of them and then you get them ready for bed and then you know it's morning. I just feel like it's probably like a day in your life is probably NonStop.

It sounds like it's amazing.

Me cleaning up poop and cursing.

I feel it poop and cursing.

That could be the name of the television show I love it, Poop and Cursing with Heather.

Well, okay, it looks cute like I'm hosting cute videos and dogs, but it's mostly just me freaking out, like what's going on here and right? But it's a lot of it's a lot of cleaning and cooking and seating and medicating. Right now, we have this little pit bull named Annie. She was I founder in a little village and she was paralyzed like her two. We aren't working, so we're doing therapy and I bring her in the pool every day and we swim and she's you know, she's starting to move again.

Oh my god, that's amazing. That's so cool. I mean that makes me so.

I think when you do sleep, you sleep well at night, because that has to make you feel really good.

It does. Yeah, I love it I'm doing. I hate that I have to do it, but I'm glad that I get to be her doing this.

Right. Well, did you ever think now you moved twenty sixteen, so that's nine nine years ago, did you ever think this is what you would be doing nine years from when you decided let's just go down to Mexico permanently.

Did you think this is what you would be doing?

No?

I thought I was going to read books and sit a hammock and do like lacking right, right, But this.

Is probably relaxing in its way, because it's that old Dewey you love and love what you do, and obviously you love this and you're doing and you're doing a lot of good deeds in the world, you know, a lot of good karmam coming out.

Oh God, yes, absolutely.

This morning. I got a picture this morning. One of the dogs I just sent to Canada a couple of weeks ago, was a foster fail. And I got a picture of the dog and the couch and a note saying like, we can't possibly live our lives without this dog. It's the best thing that ever happened to us. And you know, I found the dog chained up to a cinder block, you know, as a puppy like in bones, and it's you know, a lot goes on between, like the rescue and the adoption, but people, it's just so beautiful.

It is beautiful, but people are just awful, like who would do that?

You know?

I I that's I always have a problem wrapping my head around who would leave? You know, Like I remember when the hurricanes down south and somebody left, and I mean it went viral.

Somebody left a dog tied to the to a fence.

Like, oh, yeah, because he'll be able to survive, Like why would you do that?

Like what is wrong with people?

I just and I'm sure you see it ten times what I'm seeing or think, and I just don't get it.

I know some people, like I used to get mad because I'm from New Jersey, so my like my go to emotion is yeah.

Get angry. Yeah of course, yeah exactly, New Jersey, New York is all the same. Yeah, I get it.

Yeah, uh huh huh. But now like I understand more. It's it's a different culture, it's generations, it's education. It's a lot of poverty here. Like I feel like some people don't know. Some people are terrible, and you know, there's monsters everywhere.

Right, but mostly it's ignorance probably.

I think it is like I know when we do like community outreach and we go into a town and you know, start working with them and they and you know, I go into these little towns and I hand out tea wormer and frontline, Like, people bring their dogs to me they want help. Sure, they just didn't you know.

Right of course. No, you're right.

It's ignorance and you know, and not their fault. They just don't know any better.

But some people are terrible, yes, right, there is.

There is definitely a portion of the popularity, and those people are just terrible. Yes, And all the terrible things that they do to animals need to happen back on them, just because karma has to come around at some point or another, I think.

Yeah.

So okay, So, if someone who's listening right now is really interested because this is very interesting and they want to adopt a pet from you, is it best to go to your Facebook page Instagram? Like, what's the best way for them?

They can go to my website okay dot org okay, or they can email me. It's Beach Drug Rescue dot org. There's a contact button. Most of my adoptions are through other rescues. Just logistically, it's hard to adopt directly. Sure, I mean, I'm totally open to it, but the person would have to fly here, and that's kind of a lot for some people.

Of course, No, that makes sense.

So probably more important, uh than adopting one of your animals. The most important thing, and it's what you survive on, is donations, correct.

Right, Financial support is huge, huge, right.

I mean you're you're five oh one c three So you're a nonprofit are Yeah? So you survive by I don't know, by donations from people, correct.

One hundred percent. It's just so different here, Like I can't have an Amazon wish list because we live, you know, in the middle of the woods, and we have no mailing address.

Oh boy, that's so that's so, that's so wrong.

I'm Amazon, of all people should be able to figure that out.

I know. There's no sign we have like this unnamed road we're on solar in the middle of the jungle. Yes, it's kind of cool except for the scorpions and spiders, but other than that, Okay, I love.

It all right, excuse me, Okay, the scorpions and the spiders. Okay, we're going to add that to that script. But Okay, that's not the main part, and not are there many scorpions are just.

Once in a while it happens more than it should. Okay, I try to understand that I'm on it's their terms. I'm in the jungle. But right, no, of course, So yeah, financial support is what we desperately need to keep running the outreach and the Spain Uter campaigns. And a couple of years ago, like I I was driving and I saw these kids throwing rocks at this jog and of course I stop. You know, I'm trying to negotiate the

Sure, yeah, negotiating with an eight year old who's being a jerk, but okay, it makes sense.

No, but at least at least you got your way and you got the dog rescued.

Yeah, and now she lives in Canada and she's so happy.

Ah, that's wonderful.

And you made that happen. So that's really cool. Yeah, it's really cool, so I guess. And the best I also would be through your website to make a donation Beach Dog Rescue dot org.

Is that correct?

Ye? Yes, all right, well this I'm fascinated by your story. I'm fascinated by you. I really think we need cameras to make a TV show. You never know, right, somebody could be listening and say, well that this would.

Be really cool. But you know that would be funny. I would love that. That would be really cool. You never know. You just never know who's listening. I know, be great.

But Heather Johnson and Gil Johnson and Beach Dog Rescue in Mexico keep doing what you do because I know Will Mexico needs you.

We need you.

People who love animals need you to keep doing this. And for those who have some money they'd like to make a donation. It's a five oh one C three And as you could hear, you know what Heather's been talking about. It's going to go to help the animals on the sanctuary. It's going to help them feed the animals, clean up the animals, get more animals, and ultimately hopefully get animals adopted as well as neutered and spade two

Thanks Marie, I appreciate it.

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