The Rescue at Dead Dog Beach Read online

“Make it fast.”

  When I returned with my truck twenty minutes later, the men were waiting next to the dogs. The smell of decay coming off the corpses was sickening. They’d covered their noses with their bandannas to ward off the stench. Sadly, I had become accustomed to it.

  The men watched as I struggled to roll the dogs into the sheets I’d brought and put them in the plastic storage bins in the back of my truck. It was the only sanitary way to transport them. After I’d moved a couple of the dogs on my own, the men stepped in to help.

  “Thank you,” I said to them. I felt a little light-headed. It was a bit surreal to express gratitude to the very men who had committed such a violent act.

  As I got in the truck to leave, I glanced back at the sanitation men. They were all staring at their feet. I had a feeling—or perhaps just a hope—that this was because they felt ashamed.

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  In the weeks that followed, more and more dogs disappeared from the beach. I started slowly driving the entire length of the long road to the beach, combing for remains. The stench of death along that route became overwhelming. I started finding dead dogs stuffed into plastic bags, crammed into five-gallon pails, and thrown into the ditch on the side of the road. Some appeared to have been poisoned, others beaten to death.

  The attacks were escalating—in frequency and brutality. I couldn’t continue to just clean up the mess without doing anything about it. It was time for another visit to the police station to see if I could finally persuade the authorities to step in.

  “Local hotel owners are killing the dogs,” I told the desk sergeant.

  “How do you know?”

  I didn’t want to tell them about my encounter with the men on the beach a few days earlier. Nor did I want to rat out the fishermen who’d also told me the hotels were poisoning the dogs. It didn’t matter anyway. The policeman behind the counter seemed pissed off that I was bothering him with such trivial matters.

  Afterward, I decided to go over their heads: to the mayor’s office. But even there, I got the same response: nothing.

  So I continued to care for the survivors and newcomers to the pack—or, as I started calling it, perhaps a sign of my increasing preoccupation and obsession, “my pack.” One day a young male German shepherd showed up. Not yet fully grown, he had the bravado of a teenager. He tried to mount all the females in my pack and challenge the already-established alpha males. I had to break up a few near battles before they escalated into something more serious that could result in injury.

  Despite the troublemaking, it was obvious that this newcomer, whom I named Kyle, wanted to please me and that he had a lot of potential to be a great dog. Kyle had no food aggression, and even his roughhousing with the other males showed no killer tendencies. He was just trying in his clumsy young way to establish himself in the pack. When he wasn’t causing mischief with the other dogs, he followed me around like he was glued to my knee. He just wanted to be near me all the time.

  One morning while doing my rounds, I knelt down to pet some puppies while Kyle rubbed his face and shoulder against my side and nuzzled my face with his nose. It was a little obnoxious, but I ignored him as I focused on the little ones.

  Next thing I knew, I felt warm liquid running down my lower back and into the waistband of my pants, right down my ass crack to the inside of my legs. I jumped up, startled, only to find Kyle with his leg still hoisted, finishing his pee. He looked at me with an expression that closely resembled a smile. He was marking his territory: me.

  Pissed off and grossed out at the same time, I started to strip off my pants and shirt. I got my pants down as far as my ankles before they stuck on my boots. Fortunately, no one was passing by at that moment, as I’m sure it was quite a sight. After I got them off, I walked back to the truck for a change of clothes. Kyle pranced along beside me like nothing had happened.

  I slipped into my surf shorts, grabbed a towel, and made for the shoreline to take a swim, sixty dogs in tow. It seemed a good opportunity to do some training with Kyle: He’d given me a bath, now I was going to give him one. He took it like a trooper, sitting quietly, ears down, sulking between my knees in the shallow water while I bathed him. As I did with all the dogs over time to kick-start the healing process for their skin, I used medicated shampoo and rinsed it with fresh water. Often, the dogs’ coats would start to grow again soon afterward.

  I don’t know what it was about sitting in the ocean with Kyle that day, but his disposition changed toward both the pack and me. From that day on, he fit in like he’d been there all along.

  The next afternoon, in the midst of a drenching rain, two Texans in one of the oil refinery pickup trucks pulled alongside me when I was feeding the dogs. The refinery was about two miles up the road, and I was accustomed to seeing these trucks trolling the beach from time to time, the occupants checking me out. Usually the trucks made the dogs a bit jumpy, but they didn’t seem bothered this time.

  The passenger in the pickup rolled down his window.

  “Hey, what’s up?” I said without looking up from what I was doing with the dogs. I wasn’t sure what these guys wanted, and they didn’t look threatening, but I didn’t feel much like talking.

  “We’ve been hearing about this long-haired dog guy at the beach, so we wanted to check it out for ourselves. You’re kind of a legend back at the plant.”

  When I stopped and looked up, they were both smiling down at the dogs. The driver shut off the engine, and they got out, despite the rain. The dogs nosed at their hands, and the guys leaned down to give a few of them a pat.

  “This is amazing, all these dogs are really dialed into you. I’m really impressed, my friend.”

  The dogs were behaving like they knew these guys were friends. If the dogs felt that way, they must be all right.

  “Hey, I’m Stephen,” I said, extending a hand to shake. They introduced themselves, and we took shelter under a palm tree.

  “You seem like a nice guy, but you’re sure pissing some people off, you know. They don’t like the bad rap this area’s getting.”

  “All I’m doing is taking care of a bunch of stray dogs.”

  “You’ve drawn a lot of negative publicity to this area, and people don’t like that much. It’s bad for business.” The driver had a concerned look on his face when he spoke. I knew he was probably right.

  “Maybe if these businesspeople spent some of their time and money helping with the problem instead of just bitching about it, the problem wouldn’t exist, and I wouldn’t have to clean up somebody else’s mess. Why don’t you take that message back to them?”

  “Look, I hear you. I’m on your side, but, seriously, watch yourself, okay? I envy your heart and tenacity coming down here every day, but, like I said, some people want you to go away, you know what I mean?”

  Jesus, the warnings were coming from all directions now.

  One of the men gestured at the machete and billy club on my hip. “Is that all you have for protection?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’d consider getting a sidearm, if I were you.”

  “Thanks, but no offense, I hate guns.”

  “How much you shelling out for all this dog food, man? This can’t be cheap.”

  “Upward of a thousand a month. It’s cutting into my and my wife’s savings pretty seriously, to be honest.”

  “Damn.” They both reached for their wallets, pulled out some cash, and handed it to me. “You’re doing a good thing here, brother.”

  I’m not sure what these men expected when they arrived, having heard only what a nuisance the dog guy was, but I got the sense they left with an understanding that I was a decent guy who was just trying to do right by these defenseless animals. It was a comfort to know there were still sympathetic folks out there. But they were few and far between.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  After the Texans left the area, I took another walk down the beach toward the hotels. Se
venty or so dogs trailed along behind me.

  As I drew near a building that had once enclosed an abandoned public swimming pool, several men approached me from the edge of the jungle. They were gardeners for a local hotel, tasked with cropping the palm trees and removing coconuts so people didn’t get clobbered by one while walking the beach (an experience I could relate to). As I neared them, the dogs moved in front of me and started to growl, as if trying to keep them away from me. Some of the dogs had been with me for only a few days or weeks. Their loyalty impressed me and emboldened me.

  Feeling safer with them at my side, I stepped in front of the pack and quieted them so I could speak to the men, who kept looking over their shoulders and acting a little nervous. I got the sense, as with the men I’d encountered before, that they didn’t want to be seen fraternizing with the enemy.

  “The owners are furious with you, man. You shouldn’t have gone to the police and the mayor’s office. They don’t like that.”

  Turns out I was wrong about the police doing nothing. After I left the station the last time, they evidently went straight to the hotel owners with my complaint about the dog killings.

  Another worker put his hand on my shoulder, a grave look on his face. “People talk to you, but you don’t listen. You must listen this time: Bad things can happen here. It’s not just the dogs that go missing. You can too.”

  I could feel my adrenaline pumping. It wasn’t fear, but anger: I couldn’t just walk away and let evil win here. But as much as I wanted these guys, who seemed to mean well, to tell their bosses that I wouldn’t back down, I knew they couldn’t pass along a message from me without putting themselves at risk.

  “I really appreciate your telling me,” I said, taking a deep breath and trying to keep my cool. “Will you please let me know if you hear something is coming down that I need to know about?”

  I shook their hands good-bye and walked back to the boathouse, lost in thought. Holy shit. How did I go from feeding dogs to having my life threatened?

  Instead of stopping, like a normal person might have, I grew more determined. I’d never been particularly good at walking away from bullies. I never would have imagined that animal rescue would become the most extreme sport in my life.

  Unable to give the sickest dogs the level of medical care they needed, I looked up every veterinary clinic I could find on the island. One afternoon I made a visit to the nearest one, hoping I could enlist their help. I didn’t even make it past the woman at the front desk.

  “Do not bring those street dogs anywhere near this practice! We have a clientele to think of. We are not equipped to do anything with satos, only personal pets.”

  In the meantime, I started seeing more refinery trucks and municipal cars parking in the near distance on the beach road and then just sitting there, presumably watching me. My suspicions became fact when I saw them taking pictures through their windows of the pack and me. When I tried to approach them, they sped away as soon as they realized they’d been seen.

  This happened several times, until one morning they grew a little bolder. When I was walking the jungle trails, doing my rounds, I heard someone or something following me a short distance behind. Was it one of my dogs? An iguana?

  I didn’t think so.

  I dropped the buckets of food and water I was carrying, grabbed my machete from my belt, and quickly circled back the way I’d come, hoping to catch the people who were tracking me and find out what they were doing. With my pack at my side, it was hard to be stealthy, so the element of surprise was not with me, but the safety of numbers was. When I reached the spot where I figured the men would be, I heard a car start, doors slam shut, and the sound of spinning tires spitting gravel as they pulled away. As the car receded up the road, I noticed that it was yet another municipal vehicle.

  Someone was clearly sending me a message. I felt like I’d opened Pandora’s box the day I discovered the dogs at the beach. It was becoming more and more obvious that I was in over my head. And my dogs were going to keep dying.

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  Pam and I had been telling our friends Yann and Laurence about the dogs for months, so when they arrived from France for a visit in February, they were curious to see the pack for themselves. I’m sure that like most people back home I’d told about the dogs, they thought I was exaggerating. I needed people like Yann and Laurence to see what was happening firsthand, so maybe they could help spread the word and I could make a real difference.

  The four of us headed to the beach in the morning for the breakfast feeding. I had offered to go early on my own, so they could sleep in, but they insisted that they wanted to go too and that I keep to my schedule.

  As I drove down the long approach road to the beach, they conversed with each other in French. Laurence sounded concerned, so I adjusted my rearview mirror to make eye contact with Yann.

  “What’s up, dude? You guys okay?” I asked.

  “Man, it’s so isolated.”

  “I think that’s why people are able to get away with the horrible things they do here.”

  As we got close to the beach, I rolled down the window and gave my signature coqui whistle to get the dogs’ attention. Within moments, some fifty of them were following the truck. Yann and Laurence unbuckled their seat belts and turned around to kneel on the backseat so they could see the pack trailing behind us.

  “Wow, look how they come for you!” Yann said.

  Laurence had tears in her eyes. “They’re so skinny.”

  I knew she’d struggle when she met the dogs for the first time, as Pam had. But she was soon overcome by the need to give them love and asked me to stop to let her out. Not exactly what I thought would happen, but I was happy to see her embrace my pack. Much of the morning, Pam and Laurence sat in the sand near the water’s edge with the majority of the pack around them. A few people I had taken to the beach in the past had been afraid to touch them because of their mange, but, like Pam, Laurence didn’t care. She was able to see past the dogs’ horrible condition and love them anyway. Yann and I watched from a distance, laughing to ourselves at the sight of our usually well-dressed and coiffed wives parked in the midst of what seemed like the mangiest, skinniest, most beat-up dogs anyone ever laid eyes on. Our wives appeared to be in heaven. Even the dogs that were normally afraid of their own shadows got in on the action, getting love from the gals.

  When the women got up to take a walk, I showed Yann around the beach: where I fed the dogs, the burial ground, and where the dogs hid in the jungle. Several of the alpha dogs, which rarely left my side when I was there, followed us. When we got the boathouse, I gestured with my finger across my lips to Yann.

  “Look,” I whispered, pointing across the boat slip.

  Pam and Laurence had gotten there ahead of us and were now sitting cross-legged on the glass-covered concrete floor with one of the wariest dogs I’d encountered so far. I called him Sheppie, and he’d never let me touch him.

  “This is amazing,” I said.

  For five months, Sheppie had been schlepping around behind me wherever I went—he was part of the original crew I’d met in October—but he’d been too scared for human contact. Now he was nuzzling Laurence’s neck and lying on his back for belly rubs.

  An unexpected feeling came over me: a vague, slight jealousy. That’s how attached to these dogs I’d gotten. Sheppie was my boy, and I wanted in on the action. Yann and I approached slowly. Sheppie lay still as I put my hand on his side. I could feel his heart racing. So was mine. And then I felt his body relax under my caress. He turned to face me with his head down and placed his head in my lap. He sighed and rolled over on his back so I could pet his belly too. He was mine now—or, more accurately, ours.

  One day during their visit, Laurence, Yann, and I decided to head up to Arecibo on the north central coast of the island to do a little sightseeing and explore the beautiful beaches while Pam was at work. Pam and I had been there a few times before and thought
it was beautiful. Unfortunately, that wasn’t our experience there this time around: it was at Arecibo where I finally hit the breaking point.

  I parked the truck at an old abandoned restaurant east of the main village. It was a pretty rural area and the old road was overgrown with jungle foliage. The houses were rundown and in disrepair, but the community was fairly quiet, so we weren’t too concerned about anyone breaking into the truck. We grabbed only what we needed, knowing we’d be close enough to come back if we had forgotten anything. I locked the truck and we hightailed it to the beach.

  Yann and I went snorkeling while Laurence caught some rays. Floating facedown in the warm Caribbean water with my snorkel and my mask, I felt truly relaxed for the first time since we’d moved to Puerto Rico. Suddenly I was yanked out of my reverie by the sound of Yann shouting and plowing through waist-deep water, frantically trying to get back to shore. I glanced over in that direction in time to see three men running away, their arms loaded with our stuff. I jumped up and was right behind Yann heading for the shore.

  Yann and I looked at each other and, without words, we started chasing the thieves down the beach. I was a little faster and managed to gain some ground. One of them broke left and plowed through the jungle toward the main road. The other two kept running. I glanced back to see Yann chase the guy into the jungle. When I turned back, the two clowns in front of me broke left and headed into the jungle too. I was able to follow the trail of smashed grass and ended up in someone’s backyard. As I exited the property through a fallen gate, I saw a heavy metal pipe, about three feet long. I grabbed it as I ran. Until that moment, I hadn’t given a lot of thought to what the hell I was going to do if I actually caught these guys.

  A few seconds later, I popped out onto a narrow paved road in front of the house. I heard the slapping of bare feet on the asphalt to my left and to my right. I chose right, figuring maybe they were headed back to town. I ran until I had nothing left, then stopped and caught my breath, wondering what the hell to do next. I turned and jogged back in the direction of the truck.