Dear Sato Supporter,

I hope that you and your family are staying safe and healthy during this trying and uncertain time. While the coronavirus has greatly impacted our daily operations, we are determined to keep forging ahead to do everything we can to keep fighting. Our community also accomplished some amazing things over this past month that you deserve to know about, like helping the historic Spayathon initiative break a world record and reach over 50,000 dogs and cats. Keep reading below to learn more. 

Now, more than ever, thank you for being here with us and for all of your support. Knowing that you still have our back during a crisis that is affecting everyone, truly means the world to me, my team, and our dogs. Thank you for staying #satostrong with us. We will get through this, together. 

In gratitude,

-- Chrissy Beckles, President & Founder



The coronavirus is greatly impacting The Sato Project’s daily rescue operations and the circumstances seem to be changing by the minute.  As COVID-19 evolves and continues to affect our efforts, please visit our website for the most up to date information.

As of today, due to the government-mandated 24-hour curfew across the island, we are unable to care for dogs in the streets and are severely limited on accepting any new intakes. Veterinary care in Puerto Rico has also been reduced to emergency care only.  

 

We currently have over 80 dogs in our program in Puerto Rico and our team remains dedicated to caring for them daily. Many of these dogs are ready to fly and already have families waiting for them on the East Coast. However, we are currently unable to fly any of them off the island due to new flying restrictions. Our Freedom Flight partner, Wings of Rescue, has cancelled all private flights and all commercial live animal cargo options have also either been cancelled or do not fly to our region. Therefore, it breaks our hearts to announce that all of our Freedom Flights have now been postponed until further notice. 

Please stay in touch with us on social media ( Facebook , Twitter , Instagram ) or on our website where we will make an announcement as soon as this status changes.

At the end of February, our team completed the sixth round of Spayathon, the collaborative spay/neuter initiative spear-headed by The Humane Society of the United States. The Sato Project has now spayed/neutered and vaccinated 5,816 dogs and cats through this historic effort, thanks to the support of this community and our amazing team of volunteers.

From February 21-26, our team was on the ground in Puerto Rico for Round 6 of Spayathon for Puerto Rico . Our participation in this historic spay/neuter initiative continues to bring us new lessons, inspiration, and a refreshed belief that systemic change on this island truly is possible. 

For this round, our clinic was in Humacao for the third time. We knew there was still a very strong need for spay/neuter services in this community; however, we did not anticipate just how much demand remained. Our team arrived every morning to some of the longest Spayathon lines we had ever seen. The first people in line arrived at 6pm the night before, even though our clinic doors do not open until 6:30am.

By the time we reached our full patient capacity every morning, we still had as many as 150 people waiting who we did not have the space to serve in our clinic. Thanks to some amazing teamwork with a few of our Spayathon coalition partners, however, we were still able to offer every person in line the opportunity to get their pet spayed/neutered and vaccinated for free. Every person who didn’t get in to our clinic was offered a guaranteed spot at a Spayathon partner clinic located about an hour away which had a much bigger daily capacity.

By the end of the week, our clinic (along with our partners, Helping Paws Across Borders and The Humane Society of the United States) completed 814 spay/neuter surgeries over six days. The entire Spayathon coalition island-wide completed 8,276.

The efforts of Round 6 brought The Sato Project’s total number of animals reached through this historic initiative to 5,816. The entire Spayathon coalition all together has now reached an astounding 52,171 animals. When so many compassionate people and organizations come together under a shared goal, it is amazing what we can accomplish. We are so grateful to all of our volunteers and supporters who make The Sato Project’s participation in Spayathon possible. Thank you for helping this dream for the people and animals of Puerto Rico become a reality. While Round 7 was unfortunately canceled, t here are still three more rounds of Spayathon left. Stay tuned!

Erica found little Daisy trying to survive in the streets right by her house. She brought her home and thankfully, her mom, Yaelix, let her add Daisy to their family. Yaelix and Erica got in line at 3am to make sure they could get in to Spayathon before our clinic reached its capacity. They knew they what they had to do because Round 6 was their third time attending a Spayathon clinic. They have four other dogs at home, who are all also dogs they rescued themselves. Thanks to their dedication and willingness to attend the Spayathon multiple times, all five of these dogs are now spayed/neutered and vaccinated. Daisy is just one of 814 animals we treated during our week-long Spayathon clinic at the end of February. To read more stories of the people and pets we served during Round 6 of Spayathon, click here.

Of nine satos who took their Freedom Flights this month, seven of them went straight into the arms of their new families at the airport. These lucky dogs included (clockwise from top right) Quake, Epiphany, Tecto, and Seismic.

Even though future Freedom Fights have been postponed until further notice, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate the nine lucky satos who got to fly just in time. On March 7th, Toby, JB, and Crumb, our our tripod wonder pup, arrived. Crumb was found in the streets with a badly broken leg. Our vet tried to save his leg, but ultimately made the decision that it was beyond repair and he would be better off without it. Once it was removed, Crumb took off running like the wind as if he had been born that way. And seven days later on March 14th, six more satos landed in New Jersey. These pups included four of our ‘Earthquake puppies’ - Quake, Seismic, Rattle, and Tremble - who were found dumped on Dead Dog Beach right after Puerto Rico experienced two large earthquakes within twelve hours. Accompanying these puppies were adults, Tecto and Epiphany. All six of these lucky dogs went straight into the arms of their new forever families who were waiting for them.

JB is our only sato from this batch who is still adoptable. He must have been a family dog because he loves kids and other dogs and is friendly to everyone he meets. JB is almost 1 year old and will be about 60 lbs full grown. If you are interested in adding a professional sato snuggler to your family, click here to learn more about JB.

Congratulations to all of these lucky satos on the beginning of their new lives of happiness.

Clockwise from top: Toby, Crumb, and JB are three more satos who got to fly in early March. JB is still adoptable! Click here to learn more about JB on Petfinder.

It took us three years to rescue Shadow from Dead Dog Beach. Now he is finally living the life he deserves, with a safe back yard to run in, a rescue dog sister named Lil Shadow to play with, and a family to love.

Three years ago, Shadow showed up as a stray on Dead Dog Beach. He was extremely fearful and eluded our many rescue attempts. After Hurricane Maria made a direct hit on the beach in September 2017, our rescue team feared he was lost forever. But then, by some miracle, this brave sato showed up again twelve days later. When we discovered that he had survived, our team renewed our determination to change his life so he would never have to face another storm alone on that beach again. It took us three years to gain his trust and for him to finally give us permission to rescue him. After six months of rehabilitation and recovering from heartworm, Shadow finally took his Freedom Flight last December and went home to his forever family. We recently checked in to see how this special sato was enjoying his new life and we truly could not be happier. 

His family had previously adopted two other dogs named Shadow. When they came across our Shadow’s profile on Petfinder and read his story, they knew that he was the next Shadow for them. Shadow, now officially Shadow Rico, was very shy when he first arrived, but his family says that he is coming out of his shell more and more every day. Now he loves covering his mom and rescue dog sister, Lil Shadow, in lots of puppy kisses, sitting on the couch as much as possible, and playing ‘tag’ with his mom in the backyard. He is still learning how to play with toys and working on getting comfortable with men, but is making strides with his dad every day.

We are so grateful that our Shadow Rico found such a loving and patient home, where he is being allowed all the time and love he needs to finally live the life of his dreams. Stories like Shadow’s are truly the heart of what keeps the The Sato Project running. 

After living so many years on the streets, we are so grateful that Shadow Rico found such loving parents to help him live his best life.

"We fight so the dogs of Puerto Rico don't have to."