120 sato valentines, seven satos featured during Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl XVIII (including one with his own special segment), spay/neuter awareness month, and more. Our small but mighty team has had a very busy few weeks. Please keep reading for more on all of the life-saving magic that our community made happen this month.

As always, thank you for being here with us and making our work possible. If you'd like more updates, don't forget to follow us on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter).

In the early hours of the morning on February 12th, our team in Puerto Rico prepared 120 dogs to take the journey of their dreams. Just after sunrise, the airplane with our partner Wings of Rescue was loaded and on its way to New York!

120 dogs rescued from Puerto Rico and their new families got to experience a Valentine’s Day they will always remember this year. On Saturday, February 12th, as the sun was rising in San Juan, Puerto Rico, an airplane took off into the sky. Onboard were 120 dogs (and a few cats!) who were all rescued from streets, beaches, or crowded municipal shelters. Later that day, just as the sun was setting in Westchester, New York, our precious cargo landed safely.

Thank you so much to all of our donors, volunteers, and partners for helping us make this special ‘Love is the Air’ mission possible. Thanks to all of our combined efforts, 120 special Puerto Rican treasures began their new lives of love and comfort, just in time for Valentine’s Day. Want to see more of this love in action? Click here for more photos and a short video of our special February transport.

Top: Our team in New York unloads our precious cargo from the airplane. Bottom: Petraca, Minga, and Chloe are just three of 40 satos who got to meet their families directly at the airport. Top left photo by Jack Reed, all other photos by Alexandra Lloyd.

From left to right: Irwin, Wes, and Wasabi in a few of their shining moments during Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl XVIII. All photos by Tony Aviles for Animal Planet/Discovery+

Did you catch the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet earlier this month? If so, you might have seen six sato superstars take to the field and give it their all! We are so proud of each one of our special athletes who represented our #satostrong community and Puerto Rico on national television (see last month’s newsletter for individual stories on each one of them). It brought us so much joy to see Irwin happily playing with the other dogs, to cheer on Wasabi when he scored a touchdown, to laugh at Wes when he got in trouble, and more. If you weren't able to tune-in, the entire game is still available on replay at PuppyBowl.com with your TV provider.

In addition to our six puppies participating in the big game, we also had a special adult sato get featured in his very own segment alongside Puppy Bowl Ref Dan Schachner! Click on the video below to watch. Go Sonic! 

February is spay/neuter awareness month. This designation is meant to help raise awareness for the importance of spaying and neutering, for both the health of our pets and the well-being of our communities.

Spaying/neutering is also very personal to The Sato Project. It is a vital component to our efforts to end suffering and create permanent change for the satos of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico has a stray dog crisis. There are an estimated 500,000 abused and abandoned dogs roaming the island (which is roughly the size of Connecticut). Rescuing dogs from the streets, rehabilitating them, and flying them to new homes will not solve this crisis alone. We have to address the root causes of why there are so many stray dogs suffering in the first place and do everything we can to stop more unwanted litters from being born: we have to spay/neuter.

Since 2016, The Sato Project has spayed/neutered and vaccinated over 7,500 owned dogs and cats through our community outreach programs, including our previous partnership with Spayathon for Puerto Rico (which was sadly cancelled due to the pandemic) and our community voucher program. Want to help us reach even more?

You can learn more about our spay/neuter community outreach efforts here on our website or support them directly by clicking here. 

Left: Lucha shortly after she arrived at our veterinary clinic, in dire need of medical care. Right: Lucha just a few days after she arrived to her new home in New York - already modeling for her very own photoshoot!

Our volunteer Daisy found Lucha on the side of a busy road in Humacao. Lucha walked right up to her and politely asked for help. It was clear that this sweet senior girl did not have it easy. She had a large scar under one of her eyes, worms, a severe fungus on her ears, and was positive for ehrlichia, a tick-borne blood disease. Our team estimated her to be at least 7 years old. As soon as we had her safely at our veterinary clinic and began treating her for all her ailments, this calm, sweet sato stole all of our hearts. She even hit the jackpot and got to be fostered in Puerto Rico by our longtime volunteer, Elba, instead of staying in the clinic. But little did Lucha know that this was only the beginning of her dramatic change for the better. 

Meanwhile in Queens, New York, her future mom, Ivy, decided she was finally ready to adopt. Ever since she was a child, Ivy had always wanted a dog; however, she never felt she was quite ready. Roommates, space, finances, jobs, etc., always seemed to get in the way. A few years ago she started fostering to gain experience handling the responsibility of a dog, which helped her gradually come to the conclusion that she was finally ready to commit to a rescue dog of her very own. Through that experience she also assessed that an easy-going adult or senior dog would be most amenable to her lifestyle. When our team sent her a photo of Lucha, she immediately fell in love.

Thank you to our entire community for helping this senior sato’s dream finally come true.