The Sato Project, a leading force in the fight to diminish the estimated 650,000 stray dog population in Puerto Rico, announces the crisis has become too extreme for adoptions alone to make a difference. The organisation asserts that a mass spay/neuter/vaccination initiative is the only way to disrupt the overpopulation cycle.
The Sato Project, a 501(c)(3) organisation dedicated to the abused, abandoned, and stray dogs (or “satos”) of Puerto Rico, spayed or neutered and vaccinated 340 dogs in Guayama in just three days at the Coliseo Dr. Roque Nido Stella through its new Operation Sato programme. The pop-up clinic offered these crucial veterinary services to owned dogs and strays completely free of cost to owners and rescuers.
Chrissy Beckles, Founder and President of The Sato Project, has made it clear that high-volume, high-quality spay, neuter, and vaccination programmes are the only way forward for the Puerto Rican rescue community. To that end, the organisation has decided to divert a significant portion of its resources toward the Operation Sato initiative. “We can’t rescue our way out of this,” admits Beckles.
In Puerto Rico, the cost of vital medical procedures like spaying, neutering, and vaccinating can be a significant burden for pet owners
Since Beckles started The Sato Project in 2011, the nonprofit has placed more than 7,500 stray dogs with loving families across the mainland United States. It has primarily focused its rescue efforts around the area of Yabucoa, home to the infamous “Dead Dog Beach,” a popular dumping ground for abandoned pets and litters of puppies; on its shores, disease and rampant breeding produced feral packs of dogs numbering in the hundreds, competing for limited food and fresh water and transmitting illness back and forth.
Thanks to the work of The Sato Project, that area is now largely clear of strays. Some of the organisation’s other initiatives have included the distribution of 150,000 lbs. of humanitarian and emergency animal supplies after natural disasters such as earthquakes and Hurricane Maria, as well as pulling dogs from overburdened municipal shelters with extremely high euthanasia rates. Operation Sato marks a major pivot in the organisation’s approach to rescue—disrupting the systemic cycle of overpopulation by preventing the birth of unwanted litters, rather than trying to rescue one dog at a time.
“There are an estimated 650,000 stray dogs on the island of Puerto Rico, which is roughly the size of the state of Connecticut,” Beckles explains. “At a certain point we had to take a step back and ask ourselves: Is what we’re doing economically and materially sustainable? Is it even working? Is there a way to reduce the suffering of over half a million animals, instead of just putting a couple hundred dogs a year onto planes, at staggering effort and cost?
“Two unsterilised dogs can be responsible for the birth of 67,000 puppies in just six years. Adoptions are down for the first time in our history. The numbers don’t add up and the cycle only continues. This is a man-made emergency, and we need to come out swinging with a one-two punch approach: adoptions alongside Operation Sato and TNR [trap, neuter/vaccinate, release].”
In Puerto Rico, the cost of vital medical procedures like spaying, neutering, and vaccinating can be a significant burden for pet owners. In 2023, The BISSELL Pet Foundation and Cathy Bissell donated crucial medical supplies and surgical equipment to launch the first Operation Sato, which examined, spayed, neutered, vaccinated, and microchipped more than 1,200 dogs in just six days, completely free of cost to families. Building off the success of its collaboration with BISSELL, in 2024 The Sato Project partnered with Dra.
Adriana Luna, a local veterinarian in Puerto Rico who runs the nonprofit LunaVetHelp. Since joining forces, Operation Sato and LunaVetHelp have continued to organise local Operation Sato events in different municipalities around Puerto Rico; at the end of June, they brought it to Guayama, where owners and TNR candidates waited hours for a chance to have their dogs serviced for free.
“We had people waiting in line at 2:30 a.m. to make sure their dogs would be seen at 7:00 a.m.,” Beckles says. “Even after treating hundreds at a time, we always end up turning people away by the end of these events. It’s heartbreaking when you see people who want to give their dogs the best care possible, or they come upon a stray and want to give it a shot for better quality life out on the streets. But we are a small team, and we can do only so much.”
In addition to high-quality surgical sterilisation, all the dogs seen at Operation Sato are given 4DX snap tests for bloodborne illnesses such as heartworm, ehrlichia, and anaplasmosis. The dogs receive a suite of vaccinations to inoculate against diseases such as rabies, bordetella, leptospirosis, and parvovirus. They are also microchipped and given flea/tick/heartworm preventatives. The Sato Project reports that it has already treated over 2,000 in the first half of 2024 alone.
The organisation is soliciting financial support as well as in-kind donations of vaccinations and other medical equipment to facilitate this ongoing work. If you would like to learn more about this initiative, adopt a sato, or join the #SatoStrong community, you can visit thesatoproject.org or follow The Sato Project on social media @thesatoproject.
This is a guest post by The Sato Project. Want to write for us? Visit www.dogstodaymagazine.co.uk/essay-submission or email editorial@dogstodaymagazine.co.uk
