The Stories of Kevin and Cindy - two Uruguay strays + one woman = Family

First, it is important to know that in my country, Uruguay, only recently did we pass a new animal protection law. In Latin America society at large are still a bit backwards socially when it comes to animal care-taking. For example people leave the dogs in the street because there are no advertising campaigns promoted by the State to educate people and only just now has there been a law passed to penalize people for animal abuse.

This is the story about two stray dogs from Uruguay, my country, Kevin and Cindy. They were my best friends and especially my best teachers of many important lessons.

I begin with Kevin who was the first to enter into my life. In 1994 my older brother returned home one special day and told my mother news that he had seen a dog on the street that seemed to be a crossbreed and was part Doberman apparently abandoned. I just returned from Spain where I was been living and studying. He spotted the dog far from our house in a very distant neighborhood so we three, my brother, mom and I traveled by car go see if we could find him. When we arrived we did not know if it would be that day we might find him because he being on the street would walk to various places or might have even traveled to another town.

But that was my lucky day. The dog crossbred with Doberman appeared about 50 yards away from us, walking distracted and did not see us. When I saw him I realized it was large, and would have been several months of age or even one year’s age. Finally he noticed and watched from a distance until eventually he ran to my mother who was sitting and he laid his head right on her lap. My mother stroked him. We all looked at each other and we knew that we would take him home with us. That same day we took him with us we stopped at a vet clinic for care. There we learned that he was about 8-9 months by his teeth.
We took him with us to our house as I still lived with my mother but he was mine, I adopted him personally. That day I said: “Now this is my dog ​​and he will be called ....? (I did not know what name to choose at first I confess) my mother and brother suggested names. My mother watched an Argentine soap opera so she suggested for him to be named Catrier after the lead male character but  finally I picked the name Kevin after Kevin Costner from seeing the movie the "The bodyguard".

I am journalist, but at that time I embarked on a spiritual path and began healing people with use of techniques such as Reiki. People often came to my house given that I often held self-help meetings and courses there and when Kevin met people who had a complicated day or some sort of problem, he would bark in a strange manner, all the while giving them strange looks as well. It was evident he could detect when something was wrong and soon enough, people would call to ask "can I go to your house so that Kevin can meet my husband?"

Along with Kevin I moved of home, I went to live at 35 km from the capital in a beach area called Solymar. There I was building my house. I lived with Kevin very happy and had many special experiences.

Kevin was a little aggressive with other dogs, and I suppose that this behavior is due to trauma he had in his childhood. Kevin never fought with anyone yet he always had to be alone in the garden of the house and if he was with me in the street he had to go on leash.

So when he was five years old I decided to pay a dog psychologist to see Kevin. Many people until this day still laugh at that. Dr. Veterinario Etcheverry was the only dog psychologist around the country and was also a Reiki master. Dr. Etcheverry would visit once a week at my house and Kevin would sit in the middle of the room filled with of all people that who had known Kevin since I had adopted him. Each person was instructed to have something to talk about Kevin as he sat in the middle of that meeting while Dr. Etcheverry wrote his diagnosis, lol! The therapy did not yield very good results I should confess. :)

So then I decided to train him. Twice a week as we were moving from Solymar to the capital Montevideo to a most beautiful neighborhood called El Prado, Kevin was trained to learn to obey. Being the only dog that not purebred in this area he attracted attention from the other dogs. Kevin barked at every dog but he would ignore the small breeds who ironically barked at him.

When Kevin was 10 near our house on Sunday’s was a fair and a friend of mine worked there. So Sunday’s I went to visit my friend and she told me that in an area outside the fairgrounds there was construction going on for building a house and there was a dog who befriended her young daughter.

My friend told me that the dog was small and had something wrong with its right hind leg. One Sunday the mother of the small dog was no longer and never returned. The caretaker of the house under construction drank heavily and visited my friend in her booth at the fair with this small dog in his arms and in the other hand he has a radio with blaring a loud cheesy song popularly called "Lucero" while he declared soon the construction would be complete and the dog would tossed into the streets with the trash.

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After my friend told me that story I decided to "hijack" the small dog. It was a kidnapping and fun. While two of my friends waited in the car I entered the field and I heard snoring drunk man sleeping soundly and in his shirt was small dog lying and looking at me with astonishment. I took it in my arms and I ran, jumped in the car and we were very nervous as when we were kids and cometíamos mischief. We took her to see the vet Dr Monica.

Monica vaccinated her and afterwards I carried the small dog to my house. I’ll never forget her eyes as she watched me throughout the entire journey. Her name was influenced by my Italian grandmother Querubina who used to tell me the the fairy tale of Cinderella. So I decided to do a mix of Cinderella and Cindy Lauper and named this small female dog Cindy.

Now Kevin was no longer alone and in 2000 he had a sister. Cindy was five months old and she had a hip fracture was badly repaired. We could not perform a surgery because of many risks she could have faced but her quality of life improved greatly with good treatment. Despite all the problems that Cindy had in her life, she was an example for me, she always happy, she jumped, played and lived all her life being very childish.

Cindy was always naughty and broke things from age five months to 10 years old in which she lived. Cindy and Kevin formed a perfect duo. Together they were dynamite. Cindy taught Kevin to socialize. And they were together all day. Cindy seemed the shadow of Kevin, she pursued him everywhere.

Although they were not kindred, they were physically very similar, and many people thought that Kevin was the father of Cindy.

They taught me many things, especially unconditional love, joy despite the problems, the unconditional friendship. They participated in all meetings with my friends, people at work, and parties. And, we went everywhere together. We went and lived in Brazil from 2005 to 2007.

Another funny story of Cindy as she had many: one day I went to have coffee with a friend in the morning at a Restaurant in Florianopolis, Brazil. Kevin and Cindy were waiting in my car, which by the way my car was always parked in a place where they could see me. I saw people walking down the street when passing near my car looked to inside and they laughed. At one point I went to the car to see if everything was ok.

Then I noticed that the driver side seat was broken, completely shattered in its back-support. That was made by Cindy. It was her way of protesting. You see she was very naughty, even then at five years of age just like when she was a puppy.

We returned to Uruguay in 2007. We went to live in another town resort called El Pinar, near Sol y Mar. I had sold my house. Then we moved to Montevideo, the capital, because I needed to be close by my work. We rarely separated. Only by my work when I was traveling for my job would Kevin and Cindy be in the care of my mother or some friend of mine that was installed in my house to accompany them.

In 2010 I traveled once a month to work in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Returning from one of those trips I came to my house to stay with Kevin and Cindy and a friend of mine who was watching them for me. But when I arrived, there was a note stuck on my bedroom door caused as my friend laughed.

That paper said: "Please close the doors because Cindy breaks everything!" Kevin and Cindy truly were my true friends and my family. For me they were not just dogs, they were like my children.

On April 3, 2011 Cindy died. A month later, on May 6 at the same time, 3.21 minutes Kevin also died. They left a great void in my life when they left. But they filled it with beautiful memories.

They also taught me how to care for others and learn to understand why we behave the way do, what motivates behavior in each of us. How we can be the same and still be unique. There is an embassy of them forever in my soul.  - Sonia Daiany, Uruguay