Animals embody a sense of innocence, and while I do not think it is in human’s nature to neglect living creatures, many dogs are homeless. So what can we do about it? What can I do?

While staying in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala I had to hike up a mountain to get home. On the path I would see around 20 dogs barely surviving in awful conditions. Having my own dog and passing through was hard, not only because I could not let my dog have contact with them, but also because it felt wrong. Athena had a fancy raincoat on, these dogs looked like they had not eaten for days. I rushed to the store the next day and bought food. To get to the store I had to take a boat and a tuk tuk, it took around 3 hours but I committed to doing it almost every three days. I had to carry the food up the mountain and I could only carry so much. Everyday the pack of dogs outside the house would get bigger. They would fight, a lot, but if you were to place each one of them separate in their own bed, with their own water bowl they would be as good as any pet. I am not making any assumptions, I saw it. I saw each dog as each of them would pass by and stay alone for a couple of hours, just hoping to get extra food alone, and they would.

Two dogs in particular caught my heart. It crossed my mind that if I did not help I would live life with grief.

When writing this I struggled to find a catchy name for this article.

Hot-take: I think it should be a rite passage for every tourist that visits Lake Atitlan to sponsor a dog…at least feed them.