The animals that everybody had in Belize were wildly different than the ones we had in America. One family had an animal called a “squash”, which is a relative of a raccoon and they had it chained up to a tree as if it were a normal pet like a dog! For me, this was something that surprised me. I had been expecting to see dogs and cats, which I did see many of but I was surprised by the wide variety of animals that people had that I had either never heard of or would never imagine keeping as a pet. One child I met had found a baby squirrel in a tree one day and took out of the tree and had kept it as his pet for years. There were goats, lizards, and squashes, oh my!
It was also different for me to see almost every single animal in Belize to not be neutered or spayed. In the United States, it seems to be that everyone gets their dogs or cats “fixed”, but in Belize, this is not the case. The only reason I see this to be a potentially bad thing is just the general overpopulation of animals that cannot be taken care of. It makes sense though considering that procedure would cost money that many families would not be able to afford.
Addison's Medical Service Trip 