After drubbing El Salvador’s gangs during a more than three-year state of emergency, President Nayib Bukele turned this month to another persistent, but softer, problem: his country’s many, many stray cats and dogs.

He said on his X account last week they have the financial resources to push forward with a plan, but are looking for "expert partners to turn it into a model for Latin America.”

San Salvador’s streets don’t look dramatically different than those of other cities in the region when it comes to free-roaming cats and dogs.

Dogs can be spotted laying on the warm asphalt on road shoulders, skillfully crossing six lanes of traffic like it’s a walk through the park or picking through trash on the edges of a market.

But Bukele – a controversial leader fond of spectacles and with a well-oiled government communications machine – likes a problem that could lend itself to a grand solution.

And the millennial leader appears to have a soft spot for rescues. He adopted a dog, Cyan, while he was mayor of San Salvador.

El Salvador has long lacked public institutions to care for animals.

In March 2025, Bukele ordered the shutdown of the Institute for Animal Welfare and the police division responsible for animal protection, following reports of abuse at a shelter in San Salvador.

The task falls now to non-governmental organizations such as the Rescate Buena Fortuna cat shelter run by Rafaela Perez in the Salvadoran capital.

"It’s needed with extreme urgency because the number of abandoned animals seen every day and reported on social media is minimal compared to the actual number,” said Pérez.

Bukele’s government has taken steps to protect pets, such as the creation in 2020 of the Chivo Pets hospital, the first public veterinary hospital in the region, that provides services at a symbolic cost of 25 cents or its equivalent in Bitcoin.

Since 2021, a government controlled by his New Ideas party made animal abuse in El Salvador punishable by prison sentences ranging from two to four years, as well as fines.

In the house next door to the Rescate Buena Fortuna shelter, Aurora García rescues stray dogs using her own means.

"They abandon them, throw them out on the street, the poor things go hungry,” she said.

"It would be such a great help to stop all the animals from suffering.”