Quite frequently I find myself being challenged as to why I help animals in Mexico. Aren’t there enough animals right here in the U.S. that need our help? How can you rescue animals south of the border when animals in shelters here in the United States are being euthanized every day?

Admittedly, this is a complex issue and, at first glance, the question seems to hold a lot of merit. As a shelter veterinarian in northern California, I see firsthand, on a daily basis, the very real and sad reality of homeless animals right here at home. Neglect, animal cruelty, overpopulation and the needless euthanasia of animals are issues this country is still wrestling with and struggling to resolve.

Animals here do need our help. And, I do work hard to help animals locally everyday. But, this doesn’t in any way stop me from also helping animals in Mexico.

The idea that someone can draw a impenetrable line around their compassion and only include concern for animals within that finite circle is a flawed one.  The notion that a suffering animal in my town has any less value than another in your town or anywhere else on the planet is inherently untrue.

Suffering is suffering and animals deserve compassion, respect, and humane treatment wherever they are born. Just as humans do. My commitment to helping animals south of the border doesn’t infringe upon my dedication to animals locally, it enriches it. It is not one or the other, it’s both.

Recently, a local resident was very upset recounting a news story that had been in the Petaluma paper about a dog found as a stray in very poor conditions. Starving. Severe skin disease. Clearly neglected and tragically ill. This dog’s story had hit the press and caused county-wide outrage about how someone could let the dog get to this point, everyone was rallying around the dog and working to rehabilitate it, there was a public outcry that the owner of the dog needed to be found and punished.

I appreciate the sentiment involved in this and always share in the outrage, frustration, and desire to help when I see an animal in this condition. But, I couldn’t help but think of the thousands of dogs that roam Mexican streets, just a stone’s throw from our border, in this same condition every day. They are literally everywhere. Should we be any less outraged about them? Any less driven to alleviate their suffering?

Or, I think of a recent conversation I had about why we weren’t rescuing more dogs from the Central Valley instead of Mexico.  I do work with shelters in the Central Valley, but that is beside the point. What I am left wondering is, why does that matter? What difference does it make if I pull a dog about to die from a shelter 200 miles south in Madera, California or if I pull a dog about to die from 200 miles more south in Juarez? Either way I am saving a life. What possible explanation can there be why one would have more value than another based on some arbitrary geographic discrepancy?

It is my belief that an act of compassion, be it here or in Mexico or anywhere, is good and worthy. Having to deflect criticism for such acts seems absurd.

My compassion is not defined by nationality or location and neither is my drive to help animals however I can.

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