The Rescue at Dead Dog Beach Read online

  Melanie chuckled. “I’ll do my best. But no promises.”

  This didn’t bode well.

  I got to the beach around 7:30 A.M. to prep the dogs and get them settled for the day. I wasn’t taking as much time with them as I normally did, so I could be ready for our visitors. Shortly before nine, I drove back up the road to where I’d made the den for Nina and Nicole and waited. The girls were still pretty sick and grew tired quickly after breakfast. After an hour waiting by the side of the road, the dogs wandered back to their den to sleep.

  Moments later, Melanie and Nancy pulled up in a Ford Explorer. I was pissed off, and I’m sure it showed on my face.

  “I know! I know! I’m late. There, we got that out of the way.”

  I kept scowling.

  “Steve, this is Nancy. Nancy, this is Steve.”

  Nancy handed me a business card for her rescue group. She was pretty, perfectly coiffed, and overdressed in a pair of designer jeans tucked into a pair of really expensive-looking red leather designer boots. She didn’t look like any rescuer I’d ever met. I would later learn that Nancy was a schoolteacher who had moved to the island a few years earlier. Her plans had changed when she met and married a wealthy land developer who’d been living on the island for about ten years. She initially started volunteering with Save a Sato, but found the organization too dysfunctional, so she started her own. Basically, she grabbed strays off the street and took them to an expensive vet in San Juan, paying whatever it took to get the dogs healthy. Her heart was definitely in the right place. But, like me, she had no long-term plan in place.

  Given the delay, I skipped the preliminaries and jumped right in. “I want you to meet a couple of my worst-case dogs. Don’t be alarmed by their appearance. They look pretty rough, but they’re good girls.”

  “I’m fine. I’ve seen it all before.”

  I gave a whistle and within seconds Nina and Nicole were poking their heads out of the dense jungle foliage. They came trotting up to us, tails wagging.

  Melanie didn’t show any emotion, but Nancy started to weep as she knelt down to cuddle the dogs. I was glad she wasn’t put off by their appearance; some folks were afraid to touch them, thinking their skin conditions were contagious. But Nancy pulled them close to her face and talked to them as if they were babies, which had the unfortunate effect of riling the dogs up. Nina and Nicole started to pull away from her grasp, looking to me for guidance.

  “Hey, Nancy, I know you’re really feeling the dogs’ pain, but you need to do your best to be strong for them, okay? Your energy is all wrong, and you’re starting to upset them.”

  She got up off her knees. “I was just trying to get to know them.”

  “I understand, but they need us to be calm. Getting them worked up just drains their energy unnecessarily.”

  Nina and Nicole were by my side now, awaiting my next move.

  “You’ll notice I say very little to them. They read my body language and my energy without the clutter of a lot of words. See how calm they are now?”

  I couldn’t blame her for being a little put off by my lecturing, but it needed to be said. In any event, she was undeterred, and I admired her for that.

  “I’d like to take them to Dr. Ramos, my vet in San Juan,” Nancy said.

  “Really? That’s awesome. There’s nothing I want more than to see these girls get the proper care they deserve. What will you do with them after their stay at the vet?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Nancy said.

  Melanie piped up, “Betsy gave me the names of some shelters in New York, New Jersey, and Florida that might be interested in working with street dogs from here. I’ll reach out to them.”

  “Perfect!” I said. “I’ve been trying to do that for months, but they don’t seem to have any interest in helping independent rescuers like me.”

  Nancy had brought a few large travel crates along just in case there were dogs she could take back with her. I opened the back of her truck and unloaded the two biggest. I set them on the ground and began unfastening the nuts holding the top half to the bottom.

  “Hey, Steve!” Melanie barked. “What are you doing? We just put those together!”

  “These dogs have been through hell and back several times already. I don’t think they’re going to be too happy jumping into the crates without an introduction.”

  “Steve, we don’t have much time, and you’re wasting it now. Can’t you just put them in?”

  “Maybe if you’d been on time, Melanie, this wouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Big deal, we got a late start. Get over it already.”

  “It is a big deal, Melanie, if it affects how the dogs are treated.”

  “I’m sorry, it’s my fault,” Nancy chimed in. “I made us stop at Starbucks, and we lost track of time.”

  It wasn’t much of a reason, but I appreciated Nancy’s attempt to defuse the situation. The fact was, I desperately needed the help she was offering, so I needed to focus on that.

  “It’s important that the dogs are properly introduced to being in a crate for the first time. They need to know they that can go in and out freely without feeling constricted,” I explained a little more calmly. “It’ll give them a comfort level they wouldn’t have if we just crammed them in there.”

  I lay the bottom half of the kennel on the ground and gently encouraged the girls to go in and out as they pleased. Within a few moments they were comfortably curled up in a ball awaiting the top and door to be installed on their temporary dens.

  “Now that’s how it’s done! You’re hired!” Nancy said with a big smile.

  In the end, it took only a few extra minutes to introduce the girls to the crates. Once they were secured in the back of Nancy’s truck, we headed to the beach, Nancy following me in her vehicle. She wanted to meet the rest of the dogs and see if there were others she could take back to San Juan with her.

  She’d barely come to a stop before she was out the door and running toward the pack, doing the baby talk thing again. Some of the dogs started barking at her to keep away.

  “Nancy, stop! Just wait a second, okay?”

  I calmed the dogs down.

  “Are you ready to meet them properly now?” I asked her. “I’m not trying to be obnoxious about this, I swear. It’s part of the training, so that someday they’ll be ready to be house pets.” I never let the dogs jump on me or anyone else.

  I had always hoped that I would be able to provide more than just food, water, and medical care for the dogs, so whatever I thought about the appropriateness of Nancy’s approach to the dogs, the important thing was that she was going to get some of them off this horrible beach. She chose a few of the younger, healthier dogs to take with her. I wasn’t going to argue with any of her choices. I mean, hell, she had Nina and Nicole enjoying the nice air-conditioning in the back of her truck already. I would be forever grateful to Nancy for taking on the two hardest cases of abuse and neglect I’d ever seen. Nina and Nicole had come a long way in the seven months since I’d found them in the middle of the road, emaciated, dehydrated, mangy to the point of hairlessness, and totally disoriented. So many times I’d dreaded the thought of arriving at the beach to find them dead. I loved those two girls as much as any dog I’d ever had.

  As Nancy was getting ready to leave, I opened the back of the truck to say good-bye to the girls and wish them luck on their journey to their new lives and forever homes. I could barely swallow; the lump in my throat from trying to hold back tears was actually painful. I had to be strong for them a bit longer. I could feel the girls’ thanking me for saving them as I looked in their eyes and cuddled their faces one last time. They each gave my cheek a lick.

  “We’ve gotta get rolling if we’re going to get back before Dr. Ramos’s office closes,” Nancy said.

  I closed the back door of Nancy’s SUV.

  “Hey, Nancy, one last thing,” I said.

  “Yes? What’s that?”

  “You have to make sure
they stay together, okay? At least while they’re at the vet’s recovering. I think they survived because of each other.”

  “I promise. And I’ll do everything I can to find a family that’ll take them both.”

  I gave both Nancy and Melanie a hug. “I’m sorry I was so sharp with you earlier,” I said, and walked with my pack to the metal storage containers, out of the way. I finally allowed the tears to fall when she drove down the beach road and out of sight. In the end, I was tremendously grateful to Nancy for taking the girls to the vet and footing the bill. That was enough to make me forget the trip to Starbucks.

  Caring for the dogs over this past year, I had experienced more than my share of emotional and physical breakdowns. Increasingly, I had overreacted to situations that I would normally have overlooked, barking at Pam, getting her in trouble at work, getting into potentially violent confrontations with random strangers who crossed me. I could feel the change in my heart, but I felt my ability to control it slipping out of reach. I found myself pushing boundaries more and more lately. It was scaring everyone who knew and loved me—my brothers, my mum, and Pam most of all. If Pam hadn’t been so committed to our marriage, to supporting me no matter what, she might well have kicked me out, and I wouldn’t have blamed her.

  With every day that passed, I was faced with more death, more burials, and more newcomers to the pack. It cut deep into my heart that I had to leave them each day. The dogs would follow alongside and behind the truck as I drove away. As soon as they were safely out of harm’s way, I would gun the engine as fast as I could so they wouldn’t keep following. I knew they were safer at the beach than on the road, where drivers would deliberately swerve to hit them. I didn’t want them to waste their precious energy chasing me either. More than once I’d had to turn back to collect a few of the dogs that had chased the truck too far up the road.

  Sometimes my mind played games with me. Was I any better than those heartless people who abandoned the dogs in the first place? I felt like every day I got their hopes up, only to crush them again when I drove away. At least today, some of those dogs had had their futures handed back to them.

  Nancy and Melanie made a couple of additional trips to the beach later that month. Between their efforts and Mary’s we got a total of thirty-two dogs off the beach, seen by a vet, and relocated, either temporarily to privately run shelters on the island, or to stateside shelters. But it wasn’t easy going.

  I appreciated the help I was getting, and I knew my job was to continue preparing the dogs for their new homes. During those weeks, I had to make some hard choices. Nancy and Melanie were always drawn to the smaller, cuter dogs, regardless of how long they’d been at the beach or whether they were ready to go or not. The women had a tendency to rush in and out. I tried to understand that they didn’t want to spend any more time than necessary in this depressing place, but they didn’t know the dogs like I did. At first I held my tongue, but on the third trip, when they were loading several of the newest dogs into the crates, I finally asked if they’d discuss their choices with me.

  “I’m concerned because I’ve only just met these dogs and I know they have a few issues I need address before they go. I haven’t had a chance to work one-on-one with them yet.”

  “So?” Melanie said.

  “Have you seen this one eat?” I said, pointing to one of the little dogs. “He’s got pretty serious food aggression issues. He’ll go after you if you approach him when there’s food around. A few of them are like that when they first get here.”

  “No way, he’s too sweet,” Nancy said. “Look at this little baby boy.”

  She had set a sausage treat on top of the crate as she opened the door. Apparently, she was going to prove me wrong. The dog was wriggling around in his crate, responding to her baby talk, as dogs will when they feel anxious. She reached in, pulled him out, and began nuzzling his face.

  “See? How can you say that about this sweetie little muffin?”

  She was looking at me, not the dog, when she reached for the treat. He saw what she had in her hand, and his body immediately stiffened, his eyes fixated on the food.

  “Nancy! I seriously advise against giving him that treat. Especially while you’re holding him. It’ll end badly. Put the dog down!”

  She shook her head and made a sarcastic face at me. As she brought the snack nearer the dog’s reach, he went berserk. It reminded me of the way a shark will attack a seal in the open ocean. It’s a very deliberate and violent act, done without much warning.

  Nancy screamed and dropped the dog, who dropped the treat in midair. As soon as he hit the ground, he stood guard over it, baring his teeth and growling like a wild dog. He gobbled the treat down with ferocity, and then trotted happily back to Nancy for more loving.

  Nancy was shaking like a leaf, a stunned look on her face.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, but I felt worse for the dog than I did for her. It could have been a lot worse. She was lucky she wasn’t bitten in the face.

  As usual, Nancy and Melanie didn’t seem to take me very seriously. To them, I was just the guy who fed the dogs.

  “Come here. Let me show you something.” I was reaching for a bag of treats that had slipped down the side of the crate in the back of the truck. I gave a whistle and my pack leaders were at my side right away. “Watch!” I snapped my fingers and made a sweeping hand gesture to the pack. The dogs’ rear ends hit the ground so fast I bet most designer-dog owners would have been jealous. I knelt down in front of Leo, put one of the treats between my lips, and parked my face inches from his nose. He waited patiently for my okay before he gently nuzzled the treat from me. The only evidence that he’d been there was a trace of slobber on my lips.

  “Did you see that?” I heard Melanie whisper to Nancy. “How cool was that?”

  I did this little food trick with more than a dozen of the larger, previously overlooked dogs. They were the ones Melanie and Nancy had declined to take during their previous rescue trips. I had spent a year with these dogs, patiently training them so that if the opportunity ever arrived, they’d be ready to be adopted someday. Until that moment, Melanie and Nancy had had no idea what I really did with the dogs all day at the beach. From then on, they asked my opinion about which dogs were ready to go.

  I felt bad that the four dogs they had selected to take that day weren’t ready to go. I had to pull them out of the truck and put them back with the pack. They hadn’t done anything wrong; they just weren’t ready to be handled yet. I knew how strict most stateside shelters are about dogs with food aggression; if we were to send these dogs on, they’d most likely be put down. The shelters are just too full and the pressure too great for the dogs to be on their best behavior in order to be adopted. I hoped the four would survive long enough for me to rehabilitate them so that they too could be off to a new life down the road.

  The good news was that Nancy and Melanie were now interested in the big dogs. I couldn’t have been happier; I was starting to believe they would live out their days on that godforsaken beach. Yet, I knew their taking the big ones would be a challenge; small dogs and puppies are always the first to be adopted. Bigger dogs and dogs with black or very dark coats are often overlooked.

  In the end, most of the remaining dogs from my first day at the beach, the ones that had survived, were on their way to Dr. Ramos’s office in San Juan. They still had a long road to recovery, and some wouldn’t make it—Lucy, a Dalmatian, died shortly after a surgery to remove a tumor on her heart—but most of them would find their way to real homes. It was the best outcome I could hope for.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SIX

  October was good, but this was Dead Dog Beach, so something had to go wrong. For all my experience with the dogs and the people who tortured and killed them for sport or convenience, and for all my preparations—I had added a Taser to my self-defense arsenal—some things still took me by surprise.

  One morning I drove over to the farthest point of
the beach, past the boathouse, to where the fishermen plied their trade. Three men were standing behind their truck at the edge of the rusting corrugated metal breakwater. They were so engrossed in whatever they were doing, they didn’t appear to hear or see me as I rolled up to the right of where they were standing. I thought their body language was suspicious, the way they were peering into the turbulent water below. I feared they had thrown one of my dogs into the drink.

  I got out of the truck and went to the back to prep the dogs’ food and water. I could hear the men laughing and shouting wildly. They sounded drunk. I needed to get closer without startling them.

  There was an old shack to my right, and I wandered in that direction, pretending to mind my own business feeding the dogs. When I got a little closer, I could see they each had a crossbow and were shooting at something in the water. They stopped to reload.

  I felt a surge of panic and anger. I didn’t want to overreact and get myself killed, but I needed to do something fast if one of my dogs was the target.

  They continued laughing and shouting as they took aim toward whatever they had in their sights in the water.

  “Hola!” I said, offering a friendly wave, hoping to distract them. I thought maybe they’d go away once they realized I was there.

  I looked toward the water to see what they were aiming at. Not the manatees!

  “What the hell are you doing?” I shouted, no longer thinking of my own safety. I pulled my Taser from its sheath on my belt and suddenly found myself standing only a few feet from the men, screaming profanities in their faces.

  They looked perplexed that this gringo was stupid enough to try to face them down.

  One of the men looked angry that I was spoiling their fun. He took a step toward me.

  I pressed the trigger of the Taser as a warning, the bright current pulsating and buzzing between the contact points. The man stopped in his tracks.