Our Story

Dogs and Cats of the Dominican Republic animal rescue (DCDR) was founded in 2013 when a number of friends decided to coordinate their efforts to help the animals on the north coast of the Dominican Republic.  Many of the founders had years and years of experience working with animals on their own and had seen some improvement in the overall well-being of the dogs and cats they were treating, but wanted to do more. So DCDR was created to be able to help even more animals by everyone working together, gathering support from friends and family, and bringing greater awareness of the extreme need the Coconut Hounds and Coconut Cats have throughout the island.

An unbridled love of animals has ignited our tremendous growth and is the central theme to all we do and all we have accomplished as a group.  We have found that the Dominican and Haitian people love their dogs and cats as much as anyone else.  However, due to the extreme poverty of the country, most people cannot afford to care for their pets in a manner that they would like to. Thus, from our founding, we have concentrated on our Community Outreach Program whereby DCDR volunteers head out into poor areas and provide preventive flea, tick and parasite medicines as well as provide other preventive treatments and a lot of love.  We have seen amazing improvement in the animals under our care and we are working to expand this program with more volunteers.

After establishing our Community Outreach Program our next goal was to develop a program to deal with the extreme overpopulation of animals in the area.  Fate brought a used airport shuttle bus to our attention and within 6 months we had stripped the interior and installed 2 surgery tables, a prep table, and outfitted the bus to be functional anywhere under any conditions.  Our beloved Rescue Rover traveled into our Community Outreach areas and with the help of volunteer vets from the United States, Canada, the Dominican Republic, and Europe we were able to perform free spay/neuter clinics for thousands of needy animals. Sadly, we had to retire the Rescue Rover due to mechanical issues, but we continue to provide clinics in locations throughout the island.

Our efforts then turned to finding homes for as many of the homeless as we could.  Through volunteers fostering animals in their homes (many with numbers in the double digits) we have been able to take in the neediest and rehabilitate those who have been severely injured.  We then work to find homes for these animals here in the Dominican Republic as well as in Canada and the United States.  The need is so large here that we often aren't able to take in new animals and so our next wish was to develop an animal sanctuary.

​​Fate once again brought us an amazing opportunity with a generous donor who was willing to donate 15 acres of land to us to be used as a sanctuary.  The property, near the town of Luperon, came with a couple of small buildings as well as solar power.  We started a massive fundraiser to build a first of its kind animal shelter on the island that we call Coconut Hound Haven (CHH). Since our first location in Luperon we have added additional Coconut Hound Havens in Punta Cana and Las Terrenas. With a very unique “family style” design to house animals we now have a few places to take our neediest animals for rehabilitation before we adopt them out.  Check out the the Our Sanctuaries tab above for the latest progress on our Coconut Hound Havens and our future plans for growing them to help even more animals.

What's next?  We've accomplished some amazing things with the love and support of our volunteers and donors and supporters.  Our hope is that we can expand our current programs across the island with your help as well as to develop our sanctuaries to their fullest potential.  Another large goal of Dogs and Cats of the Dominican Republic is to start working with the government to stop animal poisonings, uphold the animal cruelty laws that are on the books, and to work to combat dog fighting that happens on the island.

We've been blessed with a great story so far and with your help we look forward to many more chapters being written in the Dogs and Cats story of helping animals in the Dominican Republic.