Fundraiser: Help Julio Cesar and his 50 dogs

During my recent trip to Colombia, I was introduced to Julio Cesar, a homeless man who has been rescuing dogs. Even though he himself has very little, he gives it all to his 50 doggies, and works hard every day to provide for them. Julio has the support of a local rescue group called Arca Luminosa. Read more about their work below.

We discussed ways a fundraiser could help Julio and Arca, and have settled on the following ideas.

Please click this link to donate to my GoFundMe for Julio and his 50 dogs.

1-    A new motorized bike
(a 2nd hand bike is about $1,500 and a new one would cost $3,000)
Julio has a job, and he takes it seriously because this is how he feeds his dogs. He collects recyclables, for which he gets a little money. Whenever he goes on a recycling trip, some of his dogs follow him around town, navigating the traffic (it’s a bit of a frightening sight, but these doggies are street savvy!). They just want to be with Julio at all times. We would love to support Julio’s job by buying him a bigger, safer, motorized bike, so that he can do more recycling (including recycling construction materials).

Julio and some of his pack heading into traffic to go visit one of theirs at the vet’s.

2-    Parking for Julio’s bike
($20-50 per month – with $600 we can cover at least 1 year of parking)
Julio needs a safe place to park his bike year-around.

3-    Vetting / placement of some of the dogs and other projects
Additional funds raised will be transferred to Arca Luminosa, for a special Julio account. Arca has been vetting Julio's dogs (sterilization, and other needs).

A few weeks back, 2 men stabbed one of Julio’s dogs, Negro, through the fence at his compound. They used a homemade weapon they had brought with them (a knife attached to the end of a long stick). It was a very scary event, and Negro was injured on the neck but he made it. Arca covered all the vetting costs (over $300). Negro is fully recovered!

Negro at the vet after the attack. And now, fully recovered!

And because 50 dogs is way too many, Arca and Julio have agreed to re-homing as many as Julio's dogs as possible. Arca also built a little shelter on Julio's compound, and are looking into relocating Julio and his dogs to a safer area.

Julio at his compound.

Julio and some of his dogs. He carries gallons of water every day for his dogs.

Please, consider supporting their efforts and helping Julio and his 50 doggies!

Much love,
Sophie

BONUS: that’s me, being “savaged” by one of Julio’s dogs as I crawled under a fence to go visit his compound. You know… just another day in my life…

Arca Luminosa is an organization dedicated to helping Bogota's street dogs. They created a reflective dog collar, which they place on all street dogs they can, to make them visible in car traffic, saving many lives. If you would like to support Arca Luminosa's work directly, please head to their website: https://www.arcaluminosa.org/. Follow their Instagram  and Facebook  pages.