Cecilio + Andie

love and trash cans

It took a long time for Andie to fall for me. I like to think I’m a bit more magnetic, especially with pockets that smell of sausages.

Like the locals in this small pueblo, dogs can be ambivalent. I was a person of interest at first but no one ever really wanted to invest time to get to know if I was friend or foe. Gringos don’t stay here long (on purpose).

There was a brief month or so where questions were asked, gossip was told, I was ignored, then mean things were done to the dogs and I went INSANE on a few nasty fat girls who threw rocks at sleeping dogs inside the gate. After that people stopped messing around. I found the girls working in a kitchen at a yellow motel down the road. I took the rocks into the dining room and yelled at them in front of their manager, customers, whomever. You keep throwing rocks at these dogs and they’ll never forget you. One dark night we’ll meet again.

To look at me, I’m a just a basic white lady of undetermined 50s age. Wouldn’t imagine me pulling a shiv on someone, but I feel rage when people are cruel to animals or bullying. If nothing else, I’ll shame you. But I carry a hunting blade just in case.

Now we regard each other like chairs the townsfolk and I. Maybe a buen dia. It’s friendly enough. I was bending over backwards at first to have them like me and to let everyone know that I knew and appreciated their culture and that I had many coworkers and friends from Mexico and don’t you like me?

Nope.

But I’m saving all the dogs!

Don’t care. In fact, we hate dogs.

I’m in Sonora. Saying I have “Mexican” friends is as goofy as saying I have American friends and trying to say that the Cajuns are just like the New Yorkers. Border states are different than those cherry picked Oaxacan fantasy culinary tours I used to do. Places that don’t have tourism kind of don’t care if you live or die.

I never wanted to stay, I figured I’d get my car repaired or replaced and move on. When I was told that wasn’t happening from insurance, I took the replacement cost of a 20 year old minivan and sat on a porch with dozens of sad dogs and cried. I cried in front of a ton of strangers too about how cruel it was to abuse animals and why is there no vet here (because no one gives a shit) and why there’s no fresh fruit or butter and why is it so hard to get out of here? Crying in public made everyone very uncomfortable.

If you know anything about Latino culture (and I’m gonna paint with a wide brush here, buckle up) mental health and navel gazing therapy chat isn’t a thing. Getting in your feels also not a thing. Maybe in big cities but I’m in the equivalent of a small corn hole in Arkansas. No one is crying in public, unless it’s 4am and they’re drunk.

I found Cecilio, an old guy with a limp, eating out of a trash can and looking for beer cans a few years ago. He wails at night sometimes. He dances sometimes too and all the dogs come out of the shadows and spin around with him like a remake of Singing in the Rain, trash can edition. Technically he’s homeless, but he has a house here, I’ve been told.

Andie, a pretty Aussie collie mix is always by his side. He shares what he finds in the bin and usually shows up at the church across the road after parties where little kids are known to throw away half of everything they’re served. Andie walks around with blue frosting on her ears. Cecilio used to sleep on my porch when I lived at the green house and he drank from the water bowl. I didn’t chase him away and Andie stopped running when I walked by. She started sleeping there too when Cecilio would disappear for weeks. No one really knows much about Cecilio except that he has a house here (allegedly) but prefers to sleep in the street. If he has 50 pesos he’s getting drunk. He mostly sleeps on the sidewalk. But he loves dogs, that alone is remarkable.

I started giving him food and leaving out fruit when I had extra oranges. He talks to me but has no teeth so it’s hard to know what he says. Little by little Andie came over and started making my porch her home away from home. I fed her and she repaid me by bringing over 40 males to my bedroom window while she was in heat. She seemed to invite her late night lovers, her heat lasted 2 obnoxious weeks. She dropped a big litter of pups and was an adoring mother. Rocky was one of those pups. He squeezed under an iron fence one day to get inside and got stuck and screamed like a parrot until I came to free him. He never left. A fat lazy stubborn boy who has grown up to be a fat lazy stubborn pony Rottweiler who can climb a mountain, swim, catch a motorcycle going 40 mph and not come when you call.

Andie still comes by on occasion to rest and eat and see her boy. She’ll wake me from a rare sleep to be let out if she sees Cecilio amble by. She can see his rocking gate, left, right, left, right and an occasional missing shoe and she runs to him. Emotional support and to make sure he doesn’t get run over or robbed or fall. She doesn’t need the food, she gets plenty here. When I see her on the street she does not acknowledge me. Her ears perk but she never leaves his side. Like a service dog without the harness. I say nothing.

Cecilio is a lot smaller than he looks walking around in giant pants held up with a rope and big denim shirts. His face looks like a little boy and I wonder how old he is. Nothing ages someone like missing teeth. Alcohol and sleeping in the gutter and the Sonoran desert isn’t helping his look either. I wonder why no one digs deeper into his story and I wonder if they’ll shrug their shoulders about me one day if I disappear or move to a greener pasture.

Everyone knows who Andie is though. Oh la perra de Cecilio, si si. I call her Andie, no one here names their dogs really. Blackie, Whitey, Bonita. I can’t imagine taking Andie if I do find greener pastures. She is rooted to this place but only has part time care, no shelter and rarely food but she’s a survivor. I had her spayed in 2022 and it would have been easier to sedate an elephant. She did not go down easily. I worry when she lays in the road and I watch her sleep through dune buggy races and I’m sure she’s dead, but likely partially deaf and getting older, she’ll sit up when she smells me and my sausage pockets. She is focused only on Cecilio and sometimes Rocky. I am a trusted ally, but still, no matter what I do, I will always be neutral.

more info on the rescue at linktr.ee/lolasdogrescue