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Although its official name is Territorio de Zaguates (the Land of Stray Dogs), the four-legged residents of this no-kill shelter in Costa Rica probably think of it more as El Cielo des Perros (Dog Heaven) — or at least the next best thing to a forever home.

About 800 dogs rescued from the streets live on the ranch in Alajuela until they are adopted. The nonprofit shelter was founded in 2008 by the husband-and-wife team of Alvaro Saumet and Lya Battle to promote animal welfare and respect. It is funded by donations and run by volunteers.

Many of the dogs are allowed to roam freely on the property for part of the day in an effort to improve their health and adoptability. There’s also an indoor area with beds and bathing facilities.

Years before an Arizona shelter started dropping breed labels to make dogs more adoptable, Territorio found another solution. It came up with a unique breed name for every mixed-breed dog as unique as the dog itself: Alaskan Collie Fluffyterrier and Fire-tailed Border Cocker, for example. In 2013, these names helped boost adoption rates a whopping 1,400 percent.

Visitors are welcome to take a hike with the dogs and, hopefully, find a perfect match.

“If you wish to adopt, you can schedule a walking hike on their property, and if any of them choose you, you will be allowed to adopt them,” wrote Andrew George in a Facebook post in March 2016 about Territorio de Zaguates that got a lot of media attention.

 

A Place for Dogs That No One Wanted

Both Saumet and Battle are longtime animal lovers. Saumet grew up with dogs, while Battle was more attracted to “unloved pets,” she said in an email. “I loved snakes, spiders, lizards, frogs – you name it!”

Battle said she grew up assuming that everyone loved dogs, and believed the many dogs she saw on the street were on their way to or from their homes. But as she got older, reality set in — and broke her heart.

After she and Saumet married and moved into a house with a yard, they adopted a couple of puppies from one of the only animal shelters in Costa Rica at the time. “A horrible, high-kill shelter that still stands,” Battle said. “Leaving that place that day, with our little pups in our arms, knowing that the ones we hadn’t chosen would probably die soon, killed me.”

Battle started taking in dogs that seemed to need help, nursing them back to health and having them spayed or neutered. “It was not a very common practice at the time,” she said. “I decided there had to be a place other than the street for those wonderful dogs that for some reason no one wanted.”

Oso, the dog who inspired Territorio, was the fourth or fifth stray Battle took in. “He was oddly beautiful,” she said. “Yellow with a white mask like a Husky, curled tail and little ears.” She noticed his tear ducts protruded, so she took him to a veterinarian, who performed a simple operation to fix them.

As Oso recovered, Battle posted flyers of the lost dog and took him out for walks, hoping he’d find his way home, but no such luck. He was adopted – and returned — seven times.

“Alvaro and I decided to stop trying to find him a home and just keep him,” Battle said. “And that is when I realized that Oso had been lucky. He was a lovely dog but had no market value. Did this mean that he or any of the ‘unpopular’ dogs deserve to be out on the street? Or even euthanized only because society could not see their redeeming qualities?”

That’s when the couple decided to start Territorio de Zaguates, “a place they could call home even if they should never find their own,” as Battle described it.

Since then, “Many dogs have left their paw prints in our hearts,” Battle said. “Old ones who made recoveries and hung around long after everyone had lost hope. Vicious ones that became teddy bears. Or dogs with social needs who proved undefeatable.”

 

Running the Shelter Isn’t Easy, But Always Worth It

While Territorio is paradise for dogs, running it has not been easy for Battle and Saumet.

“We have struggled daily against naysayers, haters, near-sighted government officials and ministries, terrible shortages and daily challenges of our own,” Battle said, adding that it has always been worth it.

“If a couple of ordinary people like us were able to do this for so long with no help from the authorities, without anything but their own jobs, their dwindling assets and a lot of stubborn determination and love, then big government budgets in other countries could do the same,” she said. “But shelters are not the solution — they are the reflection of our crumbling society. If we want to solve the problem, we have to stop buying from backyard breeders and demand our governments assign a portion of taxes to spaying and neutering all dogs and cats.”

Battle and Saumet have achieved a lot since they started Territorio de Zaguates. They’ve been successful in creating awareness about the problem of dog overpopulation in Costa Rica. They have helped minimize the stigma attached to strays and educated people about the importance of spaying and neutering. “But most of all we have been able to offer whoever is interested a different option to the word ‘shelter,’” Battle said.

“In Territorio, every dog has a name, a second chance and everything we can manage to provide for them. The only thing we refuse to give them is an expiration date.”

For more information about this heaven on earth for stray dogs and how you can help, visit the Territorio de Zaguates website.

 

This story was originally published on Care2.com in April 2016.

Photos: Facebook

Around the country, more and more certified facility dogs, better known as “courthouse dogs,” are taking the witness stand along with children and victims of violent crimes. They provide comfort and a furry head to scratch during what are often very stressful proceedings.

These dogs can also help calm distressed jurors, as a yellow Lab named Turks did during the 2018 sexual assault trial of Bill Cosby in Pennsylvania. Turks has worked for the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office since 2014, providing comfort to crime victims and witnesses.

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Even @K9Turks was thanked for her contributions in the #BillCosby trial pic.twitter.com/Adv2D4rR4W

— Claudia Rosenbaum (@CJRosenbaum) April 26, 2018

More recently, last month a Goldendoodle named Izzy, who was rescued from a terrible hoarding situation, became a facility dog for the Macomb County Juvenile Court in Detroit.

“We deal with a lot of kids with mental health problems,” Nicole Faulds, juvenile division administrator, told the Detroit Free Press. “Court itself is kinda scary for those kids. She can be in on the office visit or a calming influence in the courtroom.”

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This is Izzy. She’s a Goldendoodle who was rescued from hoarding. She now provides comfort and stress relief for youths and their families as a therapy dog for Macomb County Juvenile Court. 14/10 Izzy is the best pic.twitter.com/tttXsbzvQQ

— Detroit Free Press (@freep) January 21, 2020

As of November 2019, 234 courthouse facility dogs like Turks and Izzy are working their magic in 40 U.S. states, according to the Courthouse Dog Foundation. Eleven states — Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Oklahoma and Virginia — have legislation allowing these dogs to accompany children and some adult crime victims on the witness stand.

In some states, judges can decide whether to allow the dogs on the witness stand, and many of them do. Other countries like Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, England, France and Italy are also using courthouse facility dogs.

While trained dogs providing comfort in the courtroom may seem like a great idea, there are those who oppose it — and not too surprisingly, they happen to be defense attorneys. Some of them believe the dogs could sway juries.

“This could interfere with a person’s right to a fair trial,” Randy Gioia, deputy chief counsel for Massachusett’s public defender agency, told the Boston Herald in regard to a 2018 bill (SD.2628) that would have legalized courthouse facility dogs in the state. “It introduces an unknown element. It could give the witness an aura of vulnerability and credibility, and that’s a problem for a person accused of a crime.”

Defense attorney Peter Elikann told the Boston Herald that a witness showing up in court with a dog “signals to the jury that they need it because something bad has happened. It allows them to presume that the person is being truthful and genuinely a victim.”

A dog in the courtroom “could send subtle messages to the jury that they should protect, support and empathize with the witness,” said Brad Bailey, a defense attorney and former prosecutor, told the newspaper. “I would be very concerned about this.”

In an effort to prevent any possibility of these dogs swaying juries, the Courthouse Dog Foundation has worked with courts to establish a procedure where the witness and dog enter the witness stand while the jurors are excused. During proceedings, the dogs lie very quietly in the witness box and are “virtually invisible to the jury,” Ellen O’Neill Stephens, a former prosecutor and the founder of the foundation, told NBC Los Angeles in 2015.

The role of facility dogs is not the same as that of service dogs. They don’t assist people with special needs, and each facility dog helps a variety of people rather than just one person. They are required to receive two years of training and must be graduates of a school that’s accredited by Assistance Dogs International. The dogs’ handlers, with whom they live, are usually employed in the criminal justice field.

Did having Turks in the courtroom influence Bill Cosby’s guilty verdict? No, according to one juror, who said his decision was based on Cosby’s own admission that he gave young women quaaludes in order to have sex with them.

Photo credit: David Walsen

Portions of this story were originally published on Care2.com.