Save a Sato

I had never heard of Satos (Sato means street dog in Puerto Rican slang) until August 1999, when my husband and I went to the Northeast Animal Shelter in Salem, Mass., in search of a small mixed-breed dog - something almost impossible to find in the Northeast. We were elated then to meet Rico, a 28-pound, reddish brown lowrider, who looked like a cross between a Chihuahua and a German Shepherd. He had enormous ears and soulful brown eyes. I didn’t know it then, but he was dog perfection: the dog against which every other dog would be measured from that day forward. Rico was housebroken from the get-go. He never fought, humped, snapped, growled, destroyed things, or dug. I only heard him bark once. He slept on my pillow and let me squeeze him in the middle of the night when I had nightmares. Born as a stray in a housing project in San Juan, he’d had a hard early life - with a jagged scar on his temple to prove it - and he was keenly aware that his time with us was a gift. We felt the same way about him.

Rico came to Massachusetts through the Save a Sato program. Founded in 1996, this amazing program has found homes for nearly 20,000 dogs. Hard-working volunteers rescue strays from the streets, beaches, and housing projects. In Puerto Rico, there are emaciated, sickly stray dogs everywhere you look, and almost all of them end up abused and killed. It’s a situation most often associated with the developing world, yet Puerto Rico is part of the United States. Save a Sato runs a small shelter in San Juan. Its rescued animals are given immediate medical care. They are fed and comforted and loved. And when they are ready to travel - having been thoroughly examined, inoculated, and documented by veterinarians - they are flown to a network of no-kill shelters in the continental United States. These shelters take in Satos whenever they don’t have enough dogs surrendered locally to meet the high demand for companion animals.

Save a Sato rehomes about 2,000 Satos a year. In addition, the group promotes sterilization of local animals, providing low-cost services for about 200 dogs and cats. Save a Sato is also very active in stopping animal abuse. One of the group’s directors serves on the newly created Puerto Rican Bar Association on Animal Rights and works to prosecute abuse cases, such as a recent incident in which a three-month old Yorkshire terrier was beaten and thrown off a third-floor balcony.

When I was growing up in rural Maine, people didn’t really know about adopting a pet from a shelter, and they didn’t know about the joys of owning a mutt. As a child, I had a purebred Siberian Husky. After her came a Labrador Retriever with an insatiable appetite - her biggest score was 12 pieces of French toast in a single sitting. I loved these dogs, but our bond didn’t have the same intensity as mine with Rico. Maybe they felt a little too entitled and maybe my heartstrings weren’t pulled quite so hard because I knew they had never suffered.

After Rico died of heart failure at age 13, I knew we had to have another Puerto Rican rescue. So we adopted Valiente, a 22-pound Border collie mix that had been found tied to a trash can. Valiente doesn’t have quite the gravitas of his predecessor (nor is he as quiet; he loves barking at the mailman), but he has many other endearing qualities and already I can’t imagine life without him. For one thing, he’s a shameless cuddler. I look at him curled safely on a pile of quilts and shudder to think what might have happened. He’s not just a great companion; he’s also my own private goodwill ambassador. He gives me a reason to care about what happens in a place far away from Massachusetts, and a connection to the good people there who cared enough to save him.

How dedicated rescuers and adopters are saving the Puerto Rican street dog, one stray at a time.

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