Mac the Shiba Inu 柴犬 I am a classy Shiba that enjoy long walk on the beach… IS THAT CHEESE?

Potcakes at Turks & Caicos

Earlier this month CZ and I visited Providenciales of Turks & Caicos, an island in the Caribbean. We were there for 6 days for a much needed vacation (been busy trying to expand my web design business, have you noticed the lack of updates? =b ). While researching the island I learned that there is an abundance of stray dogs and there are two major rescue efforts on the island that trap, spay/neuter, and adopt them to travelers from other countries. The two rescues are The Potcake Place and TCSPCA.

The strays at Turks & Caicos are called Potcakes because locals would feed them leftover that are stuck to the cooking pot, so the name Potcake stuck. Potcakes in general are alert, intelligent and sweet, they all excel in obedient classes due to their nature - afterall, they do have to possess street smart in order to survive on their own. There seems to be three main types of Potcakes - Brown ones, black & tan ones, and white ones. All Potcakes we have seen are pretty much carbon copies of each other with those colorations.

During the trip we made it a point to visit either The Potcake Place or TCSPCA, we ended up spending a few hours at TCSPCA on the second day of our trip. TCSPCA felt like a vet office and it is located right off of Leeward Highway, the main road of the island. As we got there we saw Susan, one of the organizers for TCSPCA giving very sound advice to a local dog owner looking for heart worm treatments for his pack of dogs. Once free, Susan and we chatted for a bit and we expressed our interest in learning more about the Potcakes and possibility of meeting some of them. To that, Susan immediately said that there is a female puppy that is ready for adoption just 5 minutes from the facility, so off we went to the foster’s to meet this female pup!

This sweet little girl is Madonna, being fostered by Donna a local dog groomer/trainer. For the next half an hour we just sat around playing with Madonna and learning a bit more about the Potcakes of Turks & Caicos. There is an effort to trap and neuter / spay the wild dog population but puppies are still coming in quickly. Organizations like TCSPCA and Potc

ake Place are making an effort pairing adoptable dogs with visiting tourists and raising awareness. The adoption process is surprisingly simple – once you decided to adopt, the organization will have a vet clear the puppy for flight the very next day with all the necessary paper, and then everything is good to go. After meeting Madonna, I must admit I was very tempted to bring home a little sister for Mac! But I forced the idea out of my mind because of my current life schedule. One may also argue why not help the dogs at shelter back home? Well, helping a dog regardless of location is helping a dog right? Either way, I am not quite ready to add another dog to my life so we chatted a little more on what else people could do to help.

Besides adoption, they are also constantly in need of couriers to bring the adopted dogs to different parts of the world. Turns out they needed somebody to bring another Potcake back to the DC area and the original courier was not responsive, so I offered to be the backup. Eventually everything worked out and Dingo the Potcake should be at his new NYC home right now!

On the last day of our trip we visited The Potcake Place in Sand Mills Plaza. This plaza is right by Grace Bay beach and is nested in a popular shopping center. They have adorable puppies visible right from the windows and they even allow visitors to adopt a Potcake for the afternoon to get a better sense of the dog! This seems to serve three purposes: 1) Potential adopter would get a better sense of the dog’s personality 2) The dog gets exercise and exposure to the outside world 3) Walking advertisements for the rescue effort when chatting with fellow curious tourists. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to adopt a Potcake for the afternoon, but if you are planning on visiting Turks & Caicos do consider taking them out for a stroll along the beach!

While I was on vacation, Mac once again stayed with his sister Suki's family. I was updated on Facebook and knew Mac was having a nice vacation of his own (pic on the left was by Suki's mom!). It was not until I was picking Mac up that I learned that they had to take Mac to Dr. Smith during the week because he started closing his left eye, Suki’s parents did not want to worry us while we were on vacation so they just took care of everything! Thankfully everything was OK but Mac did need to up his daily eye drop from once to twice and his eye pressure has been holding steady during his follow-up visit. Thank you to Suki’s parents once again for taking care of Mac so well, we couldn’t ask for a better home away from home for Mac!