I moved to the Mexican Caribbean in January 2010. I thought I was going to be a 2-year period of working on this area, but I was wrong. In 2013 I met this girl. She was skinny. She had an owner but obviously the owner didn't feed her. Sounds familiar? Well, I felt guilty, so I used to purchase pork sandwiches for breakfast and shared with her. She gained some weight a few weeks later.

I named her "TallDachshund" because... well, she looks like a tall dachshund.

One day, the owner moved to another house and she disappeared from my life. I am always looking for her every time I roam the streets. High hopes that I will find her someday.

In 2014 I purchased a used car which I have to park on the street because I have no home. I pay for a small room that pretty much is good enough for me, but no room for a parking spot, no room available for plants nor pets. I did install a security camera as some kind of protection for the car, but I knew that it won't stop thieves. One night, I did notice this guy sleeping on the sidewalk next to the car. "I could pay him to keep my car safe", I thought, So I started to share some food with him. He was also timid and never trusted me. He always gave me the side look if I stay next to him after sharing some food.

After a few days, he started to wait for me on the sidewalk, so after work I came "home" and shared some food with him. There were some times that other dogs were stealing his food. I didn't like that, but it's nobody's fault. Other dogs were hungry too. One day, he was taken for "sterilization" and never came back. The butcher AKA "vet" said that the dog "didn't survive the procedure." He was a good boy. I never knew it's name, I never gave him a name. 

A few days later, one night, I saw three dogs desperately looking for food, they teared apart garbage bags and found nothing, then started to eat plants and dry leaves, that was "horrible and a shocking reality" as I recall it. I immediately went to get the bag of food that I had available and located the three dogs to share some food. I gave some water too. This was the turning point that changed my life forever.

It was obvious that the dogs had an owner, perhaps they escaped to look for food. At that moment I decided that as long I have money, I will feed the hungry dogs in town. I want to believe that it will compensate for all those nights when I didn't feed my own dogs.

I tried to have bags of dog food in my car, sharing some food every time I saw a hungry dog. It became some sort of "ritual", but it started to take a toll in my schedule. There were days that I wasn't able to find any dog, other days was not enough food for everybody. It also was dangerous because some dogs are too territorial and fights were always a possibility. There was one time that I was attacked. Nothing serious, but even when taking precautions, it will happen. So, most of the times there were no videos, no photos.

One night, I got a weird SMS. Someone was trying to steal my identity. Hackers were creating social media accounts using my phone number. I did counter attack and took ownership of the accounts.

That's how "JP The Stray Dog" became a reality, but that story will be for another day.

Jose Pino.