Dennys and his dog Rocky. Ecuador, 2022.
In March 2022, I joined Soul Dog Rescue on a spay/neuter trip to Ecuador. The clinics were held in a remote village called Guamote, and a tiny hamlet named Pull Chico, where 95% at least of the population is indigenous, and most adults only speak Quichua. This was the first time a sterilization clinic was ever held in Pull Chico.
A loud siren pierced through the misty air, and a flock of children, all dressed in bright red sweaters, swarmed the muddy courtyard. Intrigued, they quickly gathered by the windows of the community building, where a spay and neuter clinic was in full swing.
In the wave of red, one boy stood out. He was a little taller than the rest, wearing a yellow puffer jacket, his hair thick and expertly parted on his forehead. Our eyes met.
“What are you guys doing?” the boy asked.
In a very broken Spanish, I told him we were here for a spay/neuter clinic for local pets. I asked for his name, and whether he had a pet.
“My name is Dennys, and I have a dog named Rocky”, he answered.
I wondered if he might want to have Rocky neutered. To my surprise, and with no convincing necessary, Dennys replied, a serious look on his face: “Yes. But he is old, 10 years old. Do you think he can still be neutered?” The vet said yes. Dennys wasn’t sure he could be home and back with Rocky in time before the end of the clinic. I asked where he lived and how far.
“I can be home in 30 minutes if I walk fast. One hour if I walk a normal pace.”
My heart swelled as I imagined having to walk that far every day, back and forth, through fields and muddy paths, often under a cold, rainy weather, just to attend school.
No one in this community owned a car, or a bicycle.
We offered to drive Dennys home and pick his dog up. He ceremoniously agreed, and off we went.
Back at home, Dennys’ mother was finishing hanging some laundry up. I saw a lot of laundry hung around each house during my stay, and I wondered if and how the clothes could ever dry. It was so rainy, so damp.
The pickup happened fast, and I didn’t want to intrude on the family. I did snap a couple of pictures as Dennys wrapped a piece of electric wire around Rocky’s neck, a makeshift leash he’d found on the ground. You could tell neither the dog, nor the boy were used to this clumsy dance. When Dennys started walking with Rocky, the wire loosened up and fell off from Rocky’s neck. Dennys adjusted the leash. A couple of kittens observed the scene, wildly intrigued.
“Do you want the kittens to be sterilized as well?” I asked.
“No, no” said Dennys. They wanted the cats to have babies, because cats take care of mice.
As we walked back to the car, the kittens hurried behind us. They were clearly following Dennys with enthusiasm. We ended up having to put them back near the house, and run to the car. As we drove off, I noticed the kittens had followed us again. On the back of the truck, Dennys had climbed with Rocky, who wasn’t particularly thrilled with his first ever car ride.
The whole drive, Rocky clung to Dennys, his paws wrapped around the boy tightly, whining. It was going to be quite an emotional day for Rocky after all.
Rocky’s first car ride ever.
We arrived at the clinic, and Rocky became nervous again. He turned to Dennys, and attempted at giving the boy a kiss. I could tell the bond between them was quite special. But Dennys pushed Rocky away, wiped his chin, visibly embarrassed that the world had witness the intimate act, and that I had potentially captured it all on camera.
Most people in the community didn’t appear to be overtly affectionate with their dogs, especially boys, even when they were clearly bonded with the animals. At some point that afternoon, I asked a boy if he could carry his sedated dog back to his seat. The boy hesitated then complied. The men in the room burst out in laughter, jokingly asking the boy if he wanted a scarf to wrap the dog around his back like women do with their babies. The blushing boy sat quietly on his chair and placed the dog next to him, on the floor.
Once registered and processed, Dennys and Rocky started the long wait.
Later, in recovery, Rocky emerged from anesthesia to find Dennys lovingly comforting him.
From the moment we picked Dennys and Rocky up in their house, to the moment they were driven away, three long hours had elapsed. Another outstanding evidence of the commitment of these children to their community, and their family.
As we said goodbye, I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to the dog and the boy. Would Rocky recover from his surgery without any incident? Would the cone get him in trouble? After all, dogs roam free in this area and are often unsupervised. Would Dennys think this had been a great experience, and be proud of having been a part of it? Or would he regret his decision to have Rocky neutered, somehow?
Above all else, Dennys left me with a powerful feeling that I had just met someone really special. Dennys knew what he wanted. When I asked him why he decided to have Rocky sterilized, Dennys told me that it was so that Rocky wouldn’t roam as much, and stay home where he was safe. Out of all the people I photographed that week, Dennys is the only one who asked me to re-take his portrait, because he was unhappy with how his hair looked like. There was something about this boy, calm and stoic beyond his years, that really stayed with me. I couldn’t really put my finger on the feeling. Like I had met a future leader, someone destined for great things. But as I left the hamlet of Pull Chico for the last time, the mud and the cold and the endless green hills, I wondered: would great things find Dennys, all the way here?
Dennys and Rocky, 2022.