When Ileana Bonnard’s husband got a job with an international organisation she gave up her career and followed him. But what she thought at the time was a disappointment, awakened a dormant passion in her which she thrives on today; she cannot see a hungry animal on the streets without jumping out of her vehicle armed with food.
“This is the first thing you see in an animal rescuer’s car,” she said removing a tin of animal food from the front seat.
It has been nine years since she has been living out of her home country Ecuador and the same amount of years that she has not been a part of any formal work force. But in those years, she has given 16 cats and eight dogs a permanent home, fostered many more and later found them homes and importantly has also seen hundreds neutered and spayed.
The passion, which may have been stifled by her mother who never liked animals and would get rid of the strays she and her sister took home, was rekindled by her daughter and while the work began in her home country, it was really brought to the front burner when she moved to another country where she could not work.
And so, it was first in Colombia that she started to assist all the animals she found in the streets. When she moved to Guyana two years ago, she came with six dogs and seven cats and it was no different.
Today she is part of a circle of mostly women who look out for all animals in crisis but mostly dogs and cats. Her circle includes a fisherman she befriended on the seawall and whom she taught to take care of his dogs and have them spayed and neutered. That fisherman took the animals of his relatives and neighbours to her and from time to time turns up at her house with animals whose owners no longer want them.
Bonnard would like to see more persons having animals as pets because they help with depression. She noted that Guyana has been battling a high suicide rate and studies have shown that cats, dogs and horses help persons with depression.
“I say here you have all the raw material: cats, dogs and horses… and you know what shocked me when I came here? It’s the first time I saw so many persons on the streets and I say we can help many of these people by having a place where they can go and get therapy with the animals,” she said. She said animals also help children with autism and cerebral palsy.
Bonnard said when she came to Guyana it was hard to see the many animals on the streets and she likened the situation to what obtains in her country. Here, she lives close to the seawall where she walks her dogs and the many kittens she saw on her walks broke her heart and she took most of them home. Her maid also takes many of them to her and initially it was difficult to find them homes after she would have taken them to the vet and fostered them.
Even the doctors would tell her ‘good luck with the cat’ and she would try to explain to persons that cats make very good pets and they are easy to handle. She was not daunted but would keep encouraging persons to adopt cats.
“When a person adopts a cat, immediately they fall in love with the cat and then they would say to a friend ‘oh I adopted a cat and it is very nice’ and it is like a [chain reaction] and then they may come and say they want another cat…,” Bonnard told the Sunday Stabroek in a sit down.
She has since seen some 30 cats adopted in the two years she has been in this country and those persons who adopt also assist in getting others rescued.
Bonnard believes that the animals do not need to be rescued because they are “amazing and loyal” but rather it is the humans who need rescuing and when one adopts an animal, they then can change the mindset of their friends, children and other relatives. In so doing, hundreds of animals can be saved. Bonnard believes, “we need to work with people not animals.”
She met Mr Khan, the fisherman, and his two female dogs and encouraged him to get them spayed and this interaction has seen him also becoming an advocate in his own right. He speaks to his neighbours and relatives and even takes their animals to Bonnard and he is also concerned about the dogs abandoned on the seawall and would feed them.
“The other day he brought me four pups and I collected the pups, but I said, you know, Mr Khan you have to bring me the females so that they could be spayed or every six months you will have to bring me tons of puppies… and he brought me four females which I spayed in the shelter and give him back,” she shared.
“You know it is a good thing, you can teach people and these people would teach others… that is how you get change,” she said adding that there are more people who understand what is spayed and what is neutered.
She also believes that the Public Health Ministry should be involved in the spaying and neutering of animals as happens in other countries since it is seen as a public health issue to have numerous animals roaming the streets.
Her daughter’s fault
Bonnard puts the blame (if you can call it that) of her work with animals squarely at the feet of her eldest daughter who at the age nine said she wanted to be a vegetarian because she loves animals and at the age of 14, she took her mother to a shelter in their home country. It was at that shelter that Bonnard said the passion of her love for animals was rekindled as she saw their suffering and how much they just needed a loving home. She bought a dog after she realised that the shelter is forced to put down animals who are not bought.
She started the work there, but it really got to be her main drive when she moved to Colombia and could no longer work. As she puts it, “you always find crazy people like me and when I went to Colombia and I found people and when I came here, I found people like Syeada [Manbodh] and others… every day you find another person who has 20 cats, 15 cats, 10 dogs.”
Both her children love animals and though her husband has an issue, he puts up with her and the many animals. One of the main problems is the fact that they have to move every 5 years and while she came with 7 cats, she now has 16 and another dog to be added to the 8 she came with.
“Yes, I brought 13 animals, never ask me how much I paid to do that, it is complicated…,” she said. She is already thinking 3 years down the line as she is not sure if she would be able to move with all the animals, especially if her husband is placed outside of the Caribbean, Latin America or South America. She is already thinking about sending them to Ecuador to her sister who is also a lover of animals.
“People would say how you could do that? For a rescue person, for somebody like me it is like family. I can’t think to leave behind my daughter or my husband the same I can’t leave behind my cats or my dogs,” she explained.
She wakes up at 5.30 in the morning to feed the animals because apart from hers she would foster from time to time. The dogs are in the yard, but the cats are in the house and the ones she brought with her even sleep in her bed and can be found in her bedroom. “Oh my God, it is complicated,” she said as she pointed out that it is not her husband’s cup of tea, but he puts up with it.
“I would tell him you have amazing daughters, they never give a problem, everything in our lives is going well. You have a good job. I am healthy… so this is the price you have to pay,” she said laughing, but later added that it is “complicated and hard.”
She recalled that her mom never understood why she and her sister loved animals. “We would bring a cat to the house and suddenly it would disappear… That is why I would say if your kids really like animals don’t do that because then they would get some problems with their moms… we never forgive our mom for doing something like that.”
Prior to being fully occupied with animals, Bonnard worked in sales and had a very good career but since her husband became employed with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) (Robert Natiello is the Chief of Mission of the Guyana IOM office) that is in her past. When they moved to Colombia becoming a “housewife was difficult” because as she said, “you start to lose your identity and when you move, and you are part of the diplomatic circle you are the wife of the Chief of Mission of IOM.
“So, I think this rescue thing is helping me to have my own identity… and I think it is important,” she noted. Bonnard has a degree in economics but wants to complete her Master’s in psychology, as she believes she can do more to assist persons.
