My team and I have been working nonstop this month. Conditions on the ground in Puerto Rico remain challenging, with our inboxes overflowing with requests for help with abandoned dogs. The volume of these messages is beyond anything I have seen in over 15 years of rescuing. However, with you in our corner, we are helping with as many of these requests as possible and saving as many lives as we can. 40 lucky satos even got to fly to new homes this week! Keep reading to meet a few of these dogs below.

Also, please join us in looking back at the first major news article that helped The Sato Project become what it is today. As I often say, the more people who know about our work, the more who can help us make a difference. Never was this statement proven more true than it was exactly 10 years ago this week.

Whether you discovered us word-of-mouth from someone you know, through a newspaper or on social media, thank you for being a part of our community and helping us save lives every day. We truly could not do it without you.

40 satos had their lives changed forever this week. Early Tuesday morning, our team in Puerto Rico loaded up a small cargo airplane with 40 lucky satos. All of the dogs onboard were rescued from streets, beaches, or overcrowded municipal shelters. Five of these passengers were also flying as part of our ‘No Dog Left Behind’ program, our initiative started after Hurricane Maria to reunite dogs with their families who have moved to the mainland US. 

Just after 4pm, the airplane landed in New York, where our team of volunteers and a crowd of excited families were waiting. One by one each sato was loaded off the plane and took their first steps in their new lives. For most of them, these first steps meant walking out of the airport directly to their new families. 

We would like to give a special ‘thank you’ to our Freedom Flight partner Wings of Rescue, our incredible volunteers in both Puerto Rico and New York, Million Air HPN for providing such a welcoming place for our satos to land and all of YOU, our donors and friends who make this life-saving magic possible. 

We still have four satos available for adoption from this flight. Are you looking to expand your family? Click here to meet available dogs Ysa, Jesse, Sofie, and Dingo. 

Top: Satos Kai, Dollar, and Lulo meet their new families for the first time at the airport. Bottom: Ricco and Mija are two satos who flew this week as part of our 'No Dog Left Behind' program. Both dogs were rescued from the streets by families in Puerto Rico, but needed help in order to move with them to the mainland. Thanks to our transport, they are now back where they belong: in the arms of the loving families who saved them.

10 years ago, in March of 2012, The Sato Project was only in its fourth official month of operation. Dead Dog Beach still had a large pack of stray dogs that called it ‘home’ and our Founder, Chrissy Beckles, was gradually rescuing one dog at a time as finances would allow. Through Facebook and word of mouth, Chrissy was doing everything she could to raise more funds to rescue more dogs, find more adopters on the mainland, and spread the word as far as she could about the many abandoned and abused dogs of Puerto Rico who needed help.

Then, something incredible happened that changed the trajectory of The Sato Project forever. On the morning of March 25th, a four page feature printed in The New York Times put Chrissy and her tireless efforts in a national spotlight. Click here to look back and read The Sato Project’s very first national feature in The New York Times 10 years ago today.

Overnight, thousands of people across the country became aware of satos for the first time. And many were inspired to help. This awareness instantly led to more donations, support, and social media followers who paved the way for continued growth and even more lives saved.

Now 10 Years Later, Dead Dog Beach is mostly cleared (only two feral strays remain), over 6,000 dogs have flown to new lives on the mainland, and The Sato Project has expanded into spay/neuter and vaccine community outreach, disaster relief, and more. Our work has since been featured in multiple national publications, from NPR, CNN, People, TIME Magazine, and many more. However, our team will never forget this first feature that expanded our community much faster than we ever could have done on our own and helped us change the the lives of thousands of dogs in the process.

Cocoa (formerly known as Cupid) is one of the satos who was featured in The New York Times 10 years ago. At the time, she was a puppy who had recently been rescued from Dead Dog Beach. Now a senior dog, Cocoa is still thriving with her family in New York. Her family even adopted a second senior sato last year to keep her company. Left photo by Michelle V. Agins for The New York Times.

When actress and devoted animal advocate Betty White passed away on December 31, fans across the country were left in mourning. If you are active on social media, then you probably already know what happened next: a grassroots movement started that overtook social media and news outlets. During what became known as the #BettyWhiteChallenge, millions of people donated to animal rescues and shelters on January 17, on what would have been Betty’s 100th birthday. The Sato Project was incredibly honored to receive over $10,000 in Betty's memory that day.

On the morning of January 18th, we immediately put those donations to use. We received a plea to help a poor sato who had been found in dreadful condition. Thanks to all of the support we’d received the day prior, we were able to step up and fight for this young dog who desperately needed us, without any hesitation. 

When Betty (as she was appropriately named) first came into our care that morning, our team was not sure that she would survive. In addition to being malnourished, her skin was so ravaged by mange that it was peeling off in chunks and her entire body was infested with ticks, leaving her very weak.  However, just like her indomitable namesake, sato Betty was a fighter too. She made a full recovery and we are proud to share that Betty was among the 40 satos who took their Freedom Flight this week. While Betty is staying in a foster home initially, she already has a new family lined up who can’t wait to spoil her like she deserves.

We are deeply grateful for everyone who donated to our rescue efforts on behalf of Betty White. Sato Betty is just one dog who has found the life she deserves, thanks to your compassion and loving gifts of support.

To help spread the word on the importance of pet vaccinations, March was recently declared as National Pet Vaccination Month. This issue hits very close to home for The Sato Project. When our local spay/neuter community outreach efforts began in 2016, we included vaccines in tandem. However, early last year, a crisis occurred that made our team want to amp up our vaccine efforts even more: outbreaks of deadly distemper were reported all across Puerto Rico. 

In order to prevent more lives from being taken by this horrific, highly contagious disease, our team began holding drive-up, completely free community vaccine clinics for dog owners in disadvantaged communities. Since these clinics started, The Sato Project has protected over 1,800 dogs from distemper, parvovirus, leptospirosis, and rabies. 

Click here to read more about our Spay/Neuter and Vaccination efforts and help us reach more animals. If you are in Puerto Rico and want to stay in the loop on upcoming vaccine clinics and other outreach efforts, be sure to follow us on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter).

It is hard to believe that little Lion was found dumped in a trashcan. Fortunately, a kind woman discovered him and took him to safety.  She couldn’t keep him herself, but knew just the person who would cherish him properly: her niece, Barbara, who has always done everything she could to help animals in need. When Barbara found out about our free community vaccine clinic in Naguabo, she jumped at the chance to get her latest family member vaccinated. Barbara told us that community outreach events like ours are a ‘miracle’ for people like her who want to adopt and help as many animals as possible but can only afford veterinary care for so many. Learn more about our efforts to protect and build permanent change for all of Puerto Rico's animals.