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Description
Non profit Dog Rescue with 25 years of experience doing rescue in the area of Isla Mujeres and Cancun. Our main goal is to rescue, rehabilitate and rehome. We also run spay and neuter campaigns and do a lot of outreach with stray and community dogs.
in 2023 we started building a new shelter in the jungle on the edge of Cancun. Our small team lives on site with the animals and we do all of the rescue work and most of the construction work. When we moved here we knew we were going to want to have volunteers and we built an apartment with a shared kitchen, bathroom, hot water, and space for anyone wanting to experience rescue life in Mexico!
If you like dogs and other animals, you will love it here! If you like to do something meaningful that can change lives, this may be the place for you!
Types of help and learning opportunities
Charity Work
Art Projects
Language practice
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Animal Care
General Maintenance
Help with Computers/ Internet
Interests
Pets
Charity work
DIY & crafts
Art & design
Photography
Plant care
Books
History
Writing
Drawing & painting
Languages
Gardening
Animals
Architecture
Nature
Camping
Beach
Hiking
Cultural exchange and learning opportunities
Our team is international and we speak several languages, happy to help you practice!
We also have years of experience in animal care and non profit management and we love sharing what we have learnt.
We've built this shelter ourselves, we live here and run it, and we can share what we know regarding anything that happens here on the daily! Building, medication, gardening, social media management, animal welfare situations... we are always happy to share!
Help
🐶 What You’ll Be Doing
There’s no typical day here — but there’s always something to do. We really appreciate people with initiative, especially when it comes to cleaning (because there’s a lot of it). Some days are calm. Others are absolute chaos. Either way, we need people who show up, stay flexible, and help however they can.
Daily tasks might include:
Feeding dogs and puppies (warning: you’ll be swarmed)
Cleaning kennels and outdoor areas (yes, there’s poop)
Bathing, brushing, and nail trimming
Leash training and helping shy dogs gain confidence
Giving meds or assisting with basic care (we’ll show you how)
Organizing supplies, doing laundry, keeping the place running
Welcoming visitors and giving tours
Taking photos, making videos of the dogs, the shelter, and the work
If you're here during one of our spay/neuter campaigns, you might help with:
Trapping or transporting animals from nearby communities
Check-in and paperwork
Monitoring animals during recovery
Cleaning instruments and keeping the surgery room running
We also love when Workawayers bring their own skills — building, photography, writing, vet tech experience, or just being the calm presence a scared dog needs.
We are happy to teach you what we know and show you the real side of rescue life in Cancun. We are a team of 2 or 3 people at most, and we do everything here ourselves, so we'll guide you. You'll find a full volunteer guide (with the basics) on our website! (ask for the address)
Languages
Languages spoken
German: Fluent
English: Fluent
Spanish: Fluent
Italian: Fluent
French: IntermediateThis host offers a language exchange
We normally speak English and Spanish at the shelter, so knowing a bit of these languages will help with logistics. But we can also accomdoate French, Italian and German.
Accommodation
We offer free accommodation for long-term volunteers (we ask for minimum age of 25, but we will consider younger applicants if you're independent, resourceful, and used to traveling)
You’ll be staying on-site in our Volunteers' Apartment — a simple but cozy, shared space with the basics:
A private or shared bedroom (depending on timing)
Kitchen and fridge
Bathroom with hot water
Fans (no reliable AC but available in very hot seasons)
Free Wi-Fi, washing machines, and drinking water
This is a working shelter in the jungle — not a resort — but it’s safe, functional, and full of heart. You’ll be surrounded by nature, dogs, and a small team of humans who’ve chosen this life.
Normally, we don’t provide meals, but we can accomodate offering you breakfast and lunch and help arrange for supplies you can use to cook dinner in your own kitchen! Lunch is often sandwiches, pizza, pasta, salads. Breakfast will be coffee (loads) and bread, eggs (we have our own chickens!), peanut butter, jam. We'll be happy to discuss this case by case, depending on what works best for you!
What else ...
There is a lot to do on your time off, from going to thebeach, visiting a cenote, checking out restaurants and taco stands and visiting cities around this area. We use Uber to move around, as it's not possible to just walk to the store here. We do not have many house rules, but we do have a curfew for safety reasons and mostly cause walking into a full working dog shelter at 2am will just wake up the whole neighborhood. We are happy to discuss this case by case and more than happy to offer tools and info so you ca enjoy your time off!
A little more information
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
Can host digital nomads
We have reliable internet but we cannot control electricity outages, which are not common anyways. We can try to accomdate a quiet place for you to work, especially if there are no other volunteers. We just ask that you're available to work with the dogs on the peak hours of the day (8-11am and 5-7pm)
Can possibly accept pets
We are a dog shelter so of course we welcome dogs. We have areas with healthy dogs and areas where there are medical cases, so your dog should be ok, however, as a heads up, you'll need to adapt to the population on site (sometimes they are more welcome of new dogs sometimes not so much). We do not usually have dogs in the apartment, so there are spaces where your pet can rest without all the stress.
How many Workawayers can stay?
More than two
My animals / pets
Turtles
Ducks
Chickens
2 or 3
betwen 10 and 60
