HAVANA (AP) – Lourdes Ortega spent nine years castrating cattle and ridding pigs of parasites until a chronic nerve disease forced her out of veterinary medicine, leaving her struggling for two decades to raise three sons as a single mother on disability.
Then opportunity appeared in the form of a year-old Chihuahua named Macorina.
A university professor who worked nights hired Ortega to feed, walk and groom Macorina in 2013 for $28 a month, more than the average state salary. The little dog became the first client of a flourishing small business once unimaginable in Cuba. Today Ortega’s three-room Havana home is a sea of squirming, yipping beagles, Chihuahuas and dachshunds, bringing in enough income to keep Ortega’s family fed and to build new rooms to house more dogs.
Cuba’s growing upper-middle class has a thing for fancy dogs, and is spending relatively big sums to pamper them. Dozens of dog salons, boutiques and purebred puppy sellers have cropped up across Havana in recent years, creating hundreds of jobs and a series of small reminders of the widening income gap in a society that strived for decades to be a land of absolute equality.
“There are a lot of people who’ve traveled overseas, who’ve opened business and who have had better economic opportunities,” Ortega said. “This is really a service for people with means, one that most Cubans don’t have access to.”