The Rescue at Dead Dog Beach (26 page)

Something inside me snapped.

In one leap, I hopped across the six-foot-wide section of the pool, rounded the corner, and in one Jackie Chan–like move I was on top of the pump house and running down the top of the wall. The edge was about eight inches wide. The yard had a steep slope, and I was getting farther off the ground the farther I chased him. I think I caught him off guard by how quickly I went after him. I had almost reached him when he jumped off the wall and into the jungle on the other side of the property.

I saw red. I wanted to beat the little bastard within an inch of his life. I wanted retribution.

A voice in the back of my mind was screaming at me to stop. I ignored it.

In my peripheral vision, I saw movement in the tall grass. I wobbled to a halt, nearly losing my footing. When I looked again, I saw a dozen men waiting below with machetes. A wave of vertigo overtook me as I looked down at them, about twelve feet below where I stood.

They started to taunt me. The young man I'd chased was in the middle of the pack, laughing his ass off.

I hated them all. I wanted to make them pay. I scanned their faces.

I wrestled with humility and mortality. If I didn't walk away, I'd likely die fighting. It was what they'd wanted all along.

I walked the walk of shame back along the top of the wall while they called out to me in Spanish. I didn't understand the words, but I knew they were mocking me.

I looked back toward the house to see the moving men walking along the wall toward me.

“Are you okay?” the lead man asked.

“Be careful. There's a bunch of guys back there that tried to jump me.”

The movers called out to my attackers in Spanish, warning them to leave. The posse yelled back, but slowly their voices faded into the jungle.

I called Pam, who was still at the real estate agent's office.

“Stay in the house with the movers, Steve. Please.”

When Pam returned a few hours later, she told me that Blanca finally understood the seriousness of the situation when Pam told her what had just happened to me. We weren't just bailing on the house; Pam's company was sending us home for safety reasons. But it was Wednesday afternoon and we were scheduled to leave on Friday. Blanca had us over a barrel. She charged us the next two months' rent and kept the security deposit. We had no leverage to fight her. Still, the money she squeezed us for was a fraction of what we lost in the robbery.

The following day we went to get the official police report. Although I was all too familiar with the station in Yabucoa, I'd never been to the station in Humacao. After a day of jumping through hoops and being shuttled from one clerk to another, we finally sat down with the detective on the case.

“There have been several break-ins in the community lately. We're looking into several suspects.”

“The way your house was ransacked, it might have been someone who knew you'd be away.”

“Steve, here's another thing to consider,” the detective said, leaning toward me, his elbows on the desk. “You're pretty well known around here, you know what I mean?”

I smiled. “How so?”

He smiled back. “I think what you've done with the dogs is great. But you have made enemies. There are people who feel you have made them look bad, people who can hurt you. Or worse. Steve, you can't beat them. It'll end badly for you and your family. Please listen to me. I'm on your side.”

“Thanks, man. It's nice to know there are still a few good cops around.”

“Yeah, there are a few of us,” he said with a chuckle. “Now go home and be safe, okay?”

I reached out to shake his hand as I stood up to leave.

“What you have done for the dogs means a lot for all of us who care about animals,” he said. “Thank you.”

I had tears in my eyes hearing him say that.

He escorted us to the exit.

“Thanks again, bro,” I said.

“My pleasure, my friend. You take care of yourself and your beautiful wife.”

I
had a feeling that saying good-bye to my dogs was going to be the hardest thing I'd ever done, and I'd been through some things I didn't think I'd survive.

A few hours before we were due to fly out, I pulled up to the beach for the last time. The dogs came out to greet me like always, following alongside the truck, happy to see me. I'd been crying since I left Bryan's house a half hour earlier. The dogs could sense something was wrong. The nudged at me and whined. Even the dogs that were usually more standoffish were vying for attention.

I tried to go about my normal routine. I set out food and water. But instead of the other chores I usually performed, I sat down in the middle of the pack while they ate. Dogs licked and nudged me. A few crawled into my lap.

I started to sob. I felt the way I did when I had buried my friends day after day. Twelve hundred of them, in the end.

The dogs knew their alpha was hurting. They didn't understand why, of course, but they sensed that I needed them at my side, and they were there.

I hated leaving them behind. I didn't even know if I could. I looked at every dog, taking a mental photograph of each one. I promised myself that I would never forget them or what they had done for me. I was lost when I had found them that day at the beach. Life had lost the vibrancy it held when I was younger. What had happened to my idealistic dreams? When did I give up? Meeting the dogs had given me purpose. I felt alive when I was with them. And now I was abandoning them.

I always lost track of time when I was with my pack, so I had set the alarm on my watch before I left the house. I felt my heart lurch when the watch started to beep.

“Not yet!” I cried.

I felt the dogs' noses against my skin as they nuzzled me, sending a shiver through my body. I cried harder than I had in years, and I had cried a lot in the two years we'd been in Puerto Rico.

“I'm sorry, you guys.” The dogs looked me in the eyes as though trying to understand what I was saying. Their heads tilted and their brows furrowed. They looked so sad.

“I'm sorry for leaving you.”

I felt like I had a thousand pounds on my back as I walked to the truck. I climbed in and pulled the door shut behind me. I had to blink away the tears so I could see the road. The dogs followed as I slowly drove out of the parking lot. I couldn't bear it. I punched the accelerator and sped away. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the entire pack standing on the road watching me leave. It felt like my heart was being ripped from my chest.

When I rounded the corner and was out of sight of the dogs, I pulled over, opened the door, and threw up. I sat there for several minutes, trying to catch my breath. I knew I'd never recover from this.

B
ack in Rhode Island, I descended into a dark, lonely place to grieve. I felt like I'd died inside.

Despite my state of mind, I started at the Rhode Island School of Design that September, and began work on restoring our farmhouse. Built in 1862, the house had a ton of character but all manner of structural problems that needed my attention. I completely tuned out everything happening in Puerto Rico.

And then, on the morning of my birthday in October, I received a desperate e-mail from a rescuer, begging me for help. I knew my departure would result in renewed attacks on the dogs, but I didn't know how bad it would get.

The city of Barceloneta had put together an ordinance prohibiting the ownership of animals in all public housing projects. It stated that “animals represent a grave aesthetic and health problem to the city of Barceloneta.” The ordinance did not specify which animals were okay; it simply forbade them all. So in early October, with the blessings of the mayor, a private animal control firm went door-to-door, violently confiscating some eighty healthy cats and dogs, ostensibly to relocate them to a nearby shelter.

The truth came out later that day. Instead of being moved to a shelter, the pets had been thrown to their deaths from a fifty-foot-high freeway bridge nearby. Miraculously, six had managed to survive the fall.

An Associated Press investigation discovered that these inhumane killings were far more widespread than the one incident. Their investigation revealed a scale of viciousness far beyond what most rescuers had suspected.

A former employee of one of the animal control companies had told the AP that over the years, thousands of pets had been rounded up and brutally killed, their bodies dumped. He'd even led the AP to two killing fields, where rotting corpses and bones were found.

The investigation started a firestorm of public protest nationally and internationally, as well as a rash of lawsuits.

Eighty pets had made the ultimate sacrifice, but, this time, martyrdom finally worked. The AP report seeped into every crack and crevice, right down to the drunken Yabucoa residents running over puppies and hacking up the dogs at Playa Lucia.

I felt devastated, and vindicated. After spending weeks in a post-traumatic haze, this horrible massacre woke me up and forced me to stop feeling sorry for myself.

In early 2008, I received a call to do an interview with
People
magazine. I was thrilled to accept, and didn't flinch when the reporter told me I'd have to pay my own way back to the island. I wanted to keep the momentum the AP article had started going.

It was my first time back since our sudden departure. As I walked the beach with the reporter, dogs poked their noses out of the jungle. I recognized a few of them, but most were new refugees. I walked her around, fed and watered the new dogs, pointed out where things had happened. I showed her where I'd buried twelve hundred of my friends. But it felt as if the place had forgotten me.

We visited the boathouse together. There it sat, still sinking into the sand, still speaking in rusted groans, its dank interior reeking of the same horrible smells. I didn't have to say a word—the reporter understood what I had seen there. The day before, she had interviewed the mayor and numerous other public officials. Luckily, she had seen through their bullshit.

She called her editor from the beach. Surrounded by a pack of mangy, smiling dogs, I heard her say, “He's the real deal. We need to run the story.”

After the
People
article ran, a producer from
The Ellen Show
called and asked me to be a guest. I was blown away. I was doing a lot more good here at home than I could ever have done fighting for my dogs, and my life, had I stayed in Puerto Rico.

Appearing on
The Ellen Show
was, for me, the beginning of my real emotional recovery. Ellen herself is a huge animal rights advocate; to have the opportunity to speak with her in front of millions of viewers about the plight of my dogs was everything I could have hoped for. It helped me start believing in the kindness of people again, and, in an odd way, karma. I'd just needed to be patient and accept that the deaths of the twelve hundred dogs I'd buried hadn't been for nothing.

Not only did she help the world learn of the tragedies in Puerto Rico, she donated ten thousand dollars' worth of dog food and supplies from her pet food company, Halo, to help the ongoing rescue and relocation efforts in Puerto Rico.

Soon after this, I founded my own nonprofit organization called the Achates Legacy Rescue Foundation (ALRF), named after my old friend Achates. He'd been my inner strength through the entire Puerto Rican ordeal; his name now represents the heart of my work.

ALRF is based on the belief that, above all, education is the key to saving homeless dogs and cats in our communities and around the world. We promote the creation of educational programs for school systems in target areas, both foreign and domestic, designed to teach adults and children that pets deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

We also help with the nuts and bolts of survival. Stray dogs and cats living on the beaches, in jungles, and on the streets of target areas throughout the world need food, water, medicine, and treatment in order to survive. You can't rescue a dead pet; you can only bury it.

Additionally, we help support veterinary clinics that provide free spay/neuter services, particularly in Mexico and Puerto Rico. We facilitate rescue and rehabilitation services for abandoned or abused animals, and fund shelters and adoption programs. ALRF also does all it can to help eliminate puppy mills worldwide. This is a fitting tribute to my beloved Achates, and to the thousands of dogs that gave their lives.

There are others continuing the work in Puerto Rico. While the government passed Public Law 154 in 2008, which makes animal abuse and abandonment illegal, it is rarely enforced. Penelope Feliciano, a volunteer with Save a Sato in charge of direct adoptions, works tirelessly to send dogs to shelters or forever homes in the United States. Thanks to a grant from the Millan Foundation, the group was able to spay and neuter a number of shelter animals as well as the pet dogs of people who came to them for help.

As Penelope states, one of the ongoing obstacles in Puerto Rico is the macho culture that feels neutering a male dog will make it homosexual. For many people, dogs are considered a source of income, especially in economically disadvantaged areas. But when puppies don't sell, they are abandoned, and the cycle continues. There is a culture of dogfighting that encourages backyard breeding of pit bulls, which are ultimately left on the streets to die. Given the poor reputation these animals have, and thanks to the violence of this pastime, pit bulls that are lucky enough to be rescued have a hard time finding new homes. It is important to get the word out that pit bulls, like most dogs, are gentle, loving animals, with the right training.

Traer Scott was a nice young woman who had come to Puerto Rico back in 2006 to photograph me with my dogs on the beach for a book she was working on. She and her husband, Jesse, had asked my permission to follow me around during my daily routine with my dogs. She never interfered with my routine while she photographed. In fact, I barely knew she was there.