The Rescue at Dead Dog Beach (12 page)

Not long after we set up for the morning feeding and meds at the storage containers, Sandra pulled up. The three of us fed the dogs together and talked for a bit.

“Have you been feeding the two big dogs up the road?” she asked. “I just went by there and saw they already had food and water. I figured it must be you.”

I didn't know she'd been looking after them too. I usually knew when and where Sandra had been. I was used to finding leftover piles of kibble covered in ants. I knew she was struggling financially and doing the best she could for the dogs, but she typically fed the dogs one of the less expensive brands of dry dog food, and often the dogs wouldn't eat it. (Given how hungry these dogs were, goodness knows what was in the cheaper food.)

“I found them on the road a few days ago,” I said. “They were in pretty bad shape.”

“When I saw the bed, I thought maybe the owner had left it for them when he threw them away.”

“Wishful thinking, Sandra. That was me.”

“I've been calling the Rottweiler Nina, but I couldn't come up with a good name for the shepherd,” she said. “Any thoughts?”

“She should have a good strong German name,” Pam said. She had been traveling in Germany a lot for work over the last few years, so I wasn't surprised that she had an opinion. “There was a woman I used to work with in Biberach, Germany, named Nicole. She was a strong businesswoman but a really nice person. What about that?”

“I like it,” Sandra and I said simultaneously.

So Nicole and Nina it was. Our sphere of care was expanding.

T
wo months after we first heard from Isabel Ramirez, she sent Pam another e-mail reminding us that we were welcome to come volunteer with her organization in San Juan but insisting that we were not to contact any stateside shelters. I tried to feel sympathetic that she'd worked so hard to establish a pipeline to the States, but I was hurt and offended by her implication that we'd screw it up.

On top of that, after my initial experience with Martha and Isabel, Pam and I started receiving regular calls and e-mails from more and more people asking for help with dogs they'd seen while they were on the island for a family vacation. Turns out Isabel was sending them to me. I wanted her help, but instead I was getting her overflow work. My pack was between seventy and a hundred dogs at any given time now. Wasn't that enough?

Meanwhile, three new female dogs had started hanging around the beach, five little puppies fumbling around at their feet. One of the adult dogs in this group was a black Labrador, and judging by the coloring of the puppies and her engorged teats, she was the mom of the litter. All the dogs were skinny, and the pups were of an age when they'd need puppy food to supplement nursing.

Despite my best efforts, they were too scared of humans to let me get close enough to help them. They stayed in their own little pack on the perimeter of the beach, watching me interact with the rest of the dogs. I decided to call the Lab Lannie. There was no real reason for that particular name, I just liked the sound of it and it seemed to suit her. It was the first time I'd named a dog before handling it. The good news was that Lannie seemed to be a good mum to her pups, keeping a close eye on them. Puppies are naive, often with very little sense of fear. They had no idea that there were people out there who wanted to hurt or kill them. It gave me some comfort that the mother kept her babies out of reach of people at the beach.

But Lannie also looked tired, and I'm sure nursing was exhausting every bit of energy she had left. Strays who were mothers were at additional risk because they were torn between protecting their pups and saving their own lives. I'd seen it too many times, most brutally the morning I'd arrived at the tail end of some young men smashing a nursing mother to death because she'd growled at them when they tried to take her puppies. I'd chased the men away, dumbfounded why anyone would do such a thing. I suppose they thought they could make a few bucks selling the puppies. Occasionally some folks would grab one to take home to their kids. This might seem like they were saving the animals, but the pups were often too young to be taken from their mothers, or the people didn't understand the responsibility and expense of raising a puppy, so the puppy ended up right back where it started, but usually in much worse condition than when it was taken.

After several weeks of persistence, I'd finally gotten to know Lannie, the two other females, and the puppies, which were growing like little flowers. They were becoming quite a handful for Lannie to keep track of. And evidently they'd been watching me in action with the pack, because one morning they came waddling up to me and tried to climb my legs. They wanted to play with the other dogs. There weren't any other puppies at the beach then, so they were hanging on to some of the shorter dogs, pulling on their ears and pestering the older dogs until they'd get pissed off and growl or wander away to sulk under the metal storage containers.

Since puppies don't naturally know boundaries, they learn from their mothers as well as from the pack. It was beautiful to watch even the old seasoned veterans act stern yet playful with the pups. The three females seemed to let their guard down a little when they were in the presence of my pack. And the pack welcomed the new members without a hitch.

I continued to work on getting Lannie and the other two to trust me more. The key to their hearts was their puppies, so I would approach them only after the puppies had been climbing all over me. Between the scent of the pups and the other dogs rubbing their noses and sides all over me, it wasn't long before the three females let me pet their backs lightly and cuddle their faces. They were still apprehensive, but it was a breakthrough.

The following Saturday, Pam and I went to the beach early to beat the rush of visitors. We stayed with the dogs for a few hours, and then, in an effort to have some downtime together, headed off to San Juan for lunch and some leisurely sightseeing through the old fortified city. As the afternoon wore on, I got antsy about getting back to the dogs before nightfall. Checking in on them at the end of the day was a part of my daily routine. So after I dropped Pam at home, I went to the beach solo.

As was normal on weekends, the dogs were out of sorts, largely due to the chaos and commotion on the beach. It always made them anxious.

There were still a few people hanging out around the area, but most of the families had left. As I walked with my furry entourage, some people stopped to watch and waved. They were actually smiling. I was so proud of my dogs.

As I walked the sandy road in front of the boathouse looking for missing members of the pack to settle them down for the night, I could hear a lot of shouting and laughter coming from the far end of the parking area on the other side of the narrow strip of jungle palms. I picked up my pace to see what was happening, stopping at the edge of the jungle where I could watch without being seen.

There were two compact cars in the middle of the parking lot, their engines revving to a high-pitched screech. A couple of other cars were parked along the side of the lot, with men sitting on the hoods, watching the action.

Between the deafening roar of the revving engines and the men shouting, I heard barking coming from my left. It sounded frantic. I turned to see two men running out of the jungle near the edge of the boathouse, right where Lannie and the pups had made their den.

The men had all five of the whimpering puppies in their arms. I could tell these men weren't taking the puppies from the beach to make a few bucks selling them from a box on a street corner. These guys were out for blood.

Without a thought, I ran full speed toward them, leaping over the waist-high cinder-block wall like a runner over a hurdle. Upon landing, my left foot struck the trunk of a wet fallen tree. Next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground holding my ribs and gasping for air. I scrambled back up, but those few lost seconds would prove to be crucial.

I picked up a green coconut from the jungle floor and ran toward the men and the cars in the parking lot. It was too late. While I lay gasping for breath, the men had already set the puppies in the middle of the parking lot while the men in the cars were drift driving, doing doughnuts around the pups and blocking any chance of a possible escape. Lannie and the other two dogs were desperately trying to get to the puppies, running between cars as they passed.

Just as one of the dogs reached the pups, one of the cars steered directly toward her. I heard a loud thump and a yelp. I saw one of the females roll to a stop. She was dead.

I ran out into the middle of their makeshift raceway. No one could hear my screaming. But it didn't matter. The puppies lay flattened in the gravel.

One of the two cars came to a stop ten yards in front of me revving his engine. The other car was still joyriding, chasing the other dogs. Just as Lannie got to where one of her puppies lay dead, she was blindsided by the speeding car. She flew through the air and landed with a sickening thud. After that, she didn't move.

I stood in awe of what I had just witnessed. The world seemed to slow down around me, and my hearing faded out.

The men raised their hands in a
“What's the problem?
” gesture. The looks on their faces were cold and heartless.

I was done. I had finally been pushed over the edge. I walked toward the men.

At first they egged me on, like they were up for the challenge. I didn't care anymore. I kept walking toward them.

All of a sudden the men were scrambling to get back in their cars. The first car raced toward me like he was going to run me over. Maybe he planned to turn at the last minute to scare me. I was ready for anything. As he got near, I threw the coconut at his windshield, where it lodged halfway into the passenger compartment. The car slid to a stop and two men jumped out, ready to fight.

I already had my machete in hand. When they saw that, they jumped back in the car and raced away. The other cars took turns zooming toward me, then swerving away at the last minute. I swung the machete as the last car passed and smashed the passenger side mirror.

In the silence that followed, the dust still swirling over the gravel and the corpses of the puppies, my mind raced.

Lannie whimpered and lifted her head. She tried to get up but couldn't. I went over to her, and she tried again. She was disoriented and panting. I knelt down at her side to check the extent of her injuries. She looked past me at the puppies and whimpered through her nose. This was the first time she'd really let me hold her.

“It's okay. It's okay,” I said to her over and over like a mantra. I did this whenever one of my dogs was hurt. I felt like I could transfer my calm energy to the dog this way.

Lannie had been hit in the head. Her ear and the side of her face were swollen and bleeding. She'd lost an eye.

I managed to pick her up and carry her to the edge of the jungle where she'd made her den. She lay in my lap, and I caressed her tattered body until the sun set. I had a feeling she was going to recover, but I wasn't sure how either one of us was going to live with the memory of what had just happened.

W
hen I got home that night, I had a drink. Then I had another. It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last, that I drank to erase the nightmare of a particularly gruesome or heartbreaking experience on that beach. Between the darkness of my days with the dogs and my faulty coping mechanisms for the grief, I was changing as a person. I bit Pam's head off all the time at the tiniest provocation. And sometimes I needed a drink or three to get me through those long, hard nights of the soul.

I was determined not to become a raging alcoholic, after I'd lost my father to the bottle. But I was becoming a tough bastard to live with. I didn't envy Pam one bit.

After all, she was still trying to live her own life, survive her job, keep up with friends and coworkers, and be a loving wife, while I was becoming increasingly isolated with the dogs and my darkness and the evil that was happening at the beach. More than once, I told her she should get out while she still could. Even now, it pains me to realize that I was treating the dogs better than I treated her.

Her response to my warnings and apologies was always the same: “Don't go back to the beach. You
need
to stop going and try to get your head clear.”

“I'm sorry. I can't leave the dogs.”

“Steve, you have incredible street smarts, survival smarts. You can outrun pretty much anybody. But one day you're not going to pick me up from work because you chose not to outrun the wrong guy. You have to see that your anger is your Achilles' heel. You'll die in the name of the dogs.”

But I didn't stop going to the beach, and somehow, thankfully, Pam found the strength to stick by me. For her, marriage was about growing old together, having a lifetime of stories to share, and staying together through the best and worst times. She understood how important saving the dogs was to me. She, in turn, was determined to save me from my own demons.

However, all I did was add stress to her life. Mondays were pizza night at the Palmas del Mar pool house with the other expats Pam worked with. I felt like an outsider and usually opted not to attend these functions. Most of the spouses (known as “trailing spouses”) were women; I was one of only three men who weren't themselves employees of the company.

Whenever one of Pam's coworkers asked me how it was going with the dogs, I usually made the mistake of answering honestly. I could see by the looks on their faces that they regretted asking. But one of my fellow trailing spouses approached me during a gathering to ask about some of the stray dogs running around Palmas del Mar.

“The situation with the dogs is awful,” she said. “I hate seeing them roaming around the community by themselves like that.”