“Life is difficult for humans, what can we expect for stray animals?”
14ymedio, Pablo Padilla Cruz, Matanzas, 15 June 2025 — Lobito was a mixed-breed dog, a sato, without a pedigree. Even so, his death last week, when a door fell and struck him, dismayed the workers on Narváez Avenue in the city of Matanzas, who were accustomed to feeding him and watching him frolic with bar patrons.
Lobito arrived on Narváez Avenue after passing through several homes. The Animal Welfare (BAC) staff in Matanzas had taken him in as a puppy, covered in sores. They treated him, bathed him, and tried to put him up for adoption, but Lobito never adapted. “What he liked most was running around the streets and playing with the bar patrons, who gave him food and sometimes held his paw. Little by little, along with other street dogs, he became part of the Matanzas boulevard scene,” says Yordani, a bartender at one of the street cafes.
“A worker at the Artys bar, where the accident happened, told me about it. When I started working here, he was already here. Every day, we brought him his lunch and his dinner along with ours. He was part of the team, not just at this bar but at most of the bars in the area,” explains the young man from Matanzas.
Lobito, he recalls, had “free access” to a few establishments, where he took refuge from the heat and entertained diners. “Surprisingly, he didn’t bother the customers; on the contrary, they were the ones who most often called him over and even asked to take pictures with him,” he says. Tourists also photographed him, or he was seen playing with some children, trying to steal a ball from them.
The stray dog wasn’t the only one with a reputation on the boulevard either. “There was Firulais, who went viral when a quinceañera took some studio photos with him, and the story was reported in a Spanish magazine. We also had El Rubio and his girlfriend, who we weren’t sure if they were dating or not, but they always lay down together to take a nap in some shaded area along the promenade,” says Yordani. Little by little, some due to illness and others due to accidents, Narváez’s community pets began to disappear.
The city’s animal rights activists never stopped caring for Lobito. According to Yordani, “they always kept him clean and took care of his health” despite the lack of resources and institutional support they’ve suffered since the association’s founding a few years ago.
BAC members, mostly young people, not only make their own resources and pockets available to stray or abandoned animals, but were also the ones who pushed – with a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Agriculture in Havana – for the creation of an Animal Welfare law that was finally approved in 2021. However, interviewed by 14ymedio , some of the young people are not satisfied with the law.
“It’s already outdated and no longer serves the purpose for which it was created,” says one BAC activist. “It’s as if it was created to silence the demands of animal lovers,” adds another.
The young people lament that the crisis the island is mired in, which leaves little room for anything but daily survival, has worsened the situation for domestic animals. “Life is difficult for humans, what can we expect for stray animals? Many of us activists take part of our wages to buy medicine, pay for surgeries, and transport not only our own but also these other animals in critical condition,” the animal rights activist explains. “An operation for a cat can cost over 20,000 pesos and is generally only performed in the capital.”
While acknowledging that many have become aware of the precarious conditions faced by stray animals, he also admits that Cuba is “in its infancy” compared to many countries around the world and on the continent. Lobito is proof of that.
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