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 Christened 'Cowboy' for his unrelenting appetite for chasing cows and horses on Anse de Sable beach, the sick little puppy that was found on a rubbish dump in Dennery grew up to become a strong, big-pawed, long-nosed male dog with a rough white fur spattered with small brown spots, and a long tail.
Today, there is nothing left of the flea and tick-ridden, worm-infested, starving creature but a few photographs. A good bath, some high-nutrition foodstuffs and a visit to Dr Scotland in Castries were all it took to rub the life back into him. Then, five  months later, an American family also in St Lucia on holiday took a real fancy to him, and the affection turned out to be mutual. Travel arrangements were made, vaccinations acquired, a cage built, and three hundred or so US dollars later, Cowboy travelled on BWIA to Washington to join his new family and their two other canines. A day or two of getting used to the different smells and sounds and the little Lucian Cowboy is reportedly chasing his newly-found American buddy Starbuck 'round and 'round the house in Jarretsville, Maryland.
Meanwhile, SLAPS has rescued  almost two dozen other abandoned puppies and other stray dogs in dire need of care. Just three days after Cowboy made it to the States, his place in Vieux Fort was taken over by an approximately three-month old female pup who more resembled a bat than a dog. Hairless, covered in scabs, scars and fleas, the totally emaciated dog was brought in, too exhausted to run or resist. A bath, a peaceful place to rest, some worm medicine and four nutritious meals a day have brought 'Picong' back to the world of the living. Give her another month or two, and she'll be as adorable as Cowboy was when Yvonne and Peter Majewski fell in love with him and decided to take him back home to the States with them. |
When an elderly German couple on holiday in St Lucia brought a cardboard box to a member of the St Lucia Animal Protection Society (SLAPS) in Vieux Fort, last January, with in it the sorry mess that passed for a four-week-old puppy, nobody could have foreseen that barely six months later, that same dog would fly on British West Indian Airlines from GFL Charles Airport to Bridgetown, Barbados, and from there on to Washington Dulles in the USA. 