As a dog owner and lover, living on the Pueblo of Zuni, New Mexico, I have a hard time seeing the treatment and mistreatment of dogs on my reservation. All around, I watch while dogs are killed in the street because they are off leashes or aren’t kept in yards. Dogs run around and have puppies left and right because owners don’t fix (spay or neuter) their animals. We used to have a vet clinic come do no-cost spays and neuters, now there are zero animal services for forty miles. Overall, as I see it, problems originate because people abuse the dog limits per owners, people refuse to or neglect to fix their animals, and Zuni lacks a veterinarian clinic.

In a time of extreme companion animal overpopulation, breeding dogs is always irresponsible and cruel. Mrs. Trujillo who is a teacher and animal rescue advocate stated “A lot of people who have pets can't afford Gallup vets, when the vets came down many people took advantage of it”. In my opinion I think that the Zuni community should open a veterinary clinic because there are many people who have pets and if anything were to happen to the pet, you would have to travel out of Zuni to get their pets seen.

In May 2021 my auntie got a female dog and named her Princess, when my auntie got Princess she decided she wanted to let her have 1 batch of puppies then get her fixed. The Gallup Humane Society, was not open to the public for a long time during COVID and often doesn’t take animals for turn in or adoption due to the lack of volunteers and space.

A few months after Princess had her puppies my auntie called the vet in Gallup and scheduled an appointment. When the appointment time came around my auntie did not have transportation so the appointment had to be rescheduled. My auntie never followed through with taking Princess to get spayed now she has had three litters of puppies. From the three litters of puppies princess had, my auntie has kept one puppy from each batch so now she has 4 dogs which I think is too much for one household. This is a COMMON experience with dog owners, in Zuni like… REALLY COMMON.

Mrs.Trujillo also stated “a lot of people including myself do not obey the law unless someone complains about the animals”' which I think is fine as long as you’re a responsible pet owner. Dogs are to be kept fenced and cannot roam loose. In the Zuni community people do not regularly have yards or fences, so trying to keep a dog inside all the time is nearly impossible. Since houses and yard boundaries are often overlapping, most people, if they care, just chain their dog in the yard. I think that if people did not let their dogs roam loose and got their female dogs fixed there wouldn't be so many dogs. For my family we've never gotten female dogs because we cannot afford to get the female dog fixed.

From my experience it is difficult to see your pet suffer and not be able to do anything about it. I hope that by writing this I could persuade at least one of my fellow community members to go into veterinary schooling and come back to help our pets as they mean so much to us. I also hope that within this year something actually happens with the vet clinic that was being built.