Rescuing our dog from a trash can in PR🇵🇷🐶

This is the story of how we rescued our second dog, Sadie, in Puerto Rico. This is a long story but I promise it’s a sweet and interesting one.

TW: I do talk about my first dog getting attacked, as it is one driving force for us looking for another dog. I marked the area I talk about it with ⚠️symbol. You can skip it if you’d like. It’s not necessary to read, it just gives insight.

It was March 8, 2021, and we were living Manati, PR (which is on the North Coast of the island). My BF and I had been talking about wanting another dog for a little while, but we hadn’t been looking for one or specifically feeling called to take in any of the rescues we had been seeing on the Facebook pages we follow.

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I’d like to take a moment to make a note here (you can skip this if you’d like):

I very much hope for every pet out there to be rescued and to live a life of safety, love, and health. However, I also very much believe that every person needs to get the RIGHT pet for themselves, their family, and their lifestyle. This is very important for the person and for the pet. There are too many people out there who randomly rescue the first dog they see, or rescue based on how pretty a dog is or how young it is. I totally understand the desire to have a pretty pet or a young pet. BUT people need to understand what comes with that. The issues we’ve faced with Pup Pup due to his breed + age we found him + how long he survived on the streets, differ GREATLY from the issues we’ve faced with Sadie. Different breeds and mixes have different temperaments and desires. How long they survived on the streets or in a bad household, is going to come with an array of trauma that you will have to work through/with, and often short and long term health issues. As much as I wish it was, it’s never as simple as just taking in the dog/cat and everything is perfect. It is work, and people need to be aware of that.

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Back to my story:

⚠️We had been talking about wanting another dog, and ideally what kind of dog. Pup Pup had been attacked by larger dogs TWICE within a 1 month span. Both times he was thrashed around by the neck, and I thought that was it for him. The first time, my BF was there with me, and we were both injured trying to save him. The second time, I was alone, and was injured again. I had been walking him, when 2 dogs escaped a hole in their yard and attacked. When I got him, I was shielding his body with my own, and a random good man literally picked me up and dragged me into his yard and locked us in so we’d be safe. He also administered first aid and called my BF for help.

After that, I was very traumatized, and the desire for another dog grew immensely. When you have one dog, especially a tiny one, you’re an easy target to the other dogs. As soon as you have 2, the chances of a dog attacking drop significantly (at least in PR when we were there).⚠️

We started taking it more seriously looking for a dog that felt right, but it would be 2 months before we found Sadie.

The night before we found Sadie, I had a very vivid dream. I dreamt that I was with Pup Pup and that we saw a little white dog on the street. I looked around and couldn’t find anyone, and the dog kept following me and ended up going home with me. I dreamt that this dog became part of the family, and dreamt of all the things we’d do together. When I woke up, I had this INTENSE craving for a very particular drink that I hadn’t had in months. It was from a little food truck next to a gas station that was 30 minutes away (near an area we previously lived).

I told my BF about the dream, which he thought was interesting, and then told him that I felt like I had to go to this food truck today - right now. His sister was visiting us at the time, and I straight up said they could come or not, but I had to go. So we made a trip of it, with plans to stop by a park near there.

Two minutes down the road from our destination we both see this tiny flash of white on the opposite side of the road. This is a busy road, lots of traffic, and as we pass I’m trying to see what it is, when my BF says “ITS A DOG!” I repeated it back in shock, and he goes “SHOULD WE-“ before I cut him off yelling “YESSS!”

He whips around in one of the craziest u-turns we’ve done to date, and we immediately pull up to where we saw it. The whole time his sister is in the backseat yelling “Is this really happening?” over and over lo 😂😂 We both run out of the car, and we find this tiny 6.7 lb, bright white puppy, living in a toppled over garbage can. It was clear she had been living on trash for a while, as she was extremely bloated, and actively eating trash when we walked up. We spent a few minutes on the side of the road with her, and looked around the area for any other dogs. We gave her some water and a treat, and once sure that she was in fact alone, we scooped her up and took her to the car.

Pup was immediately confused as heck; he was completely silent just sniffing her and staring at her. We went to the food truck for the drink that brought us here in the first place, and decided to go to Petsmart instead of the park.

At Petsmart, we purchased a crate and mat, a cuddle toy for in the crate, as well as some puppy toys, teething / chew toys, some grooming tools, a harness and a few other things. We kept the dogs separate for the first few hours of being around each other, but once we got home we supervised them interacting with each other.

Sadie revealed herself to be a completely cracked-out ball of energy; constantly running, jumping, etc FOR WEEKS. Pup was beyond patient with her and I couldn’t be more proud of him.

We hadn’t specifically planned to get a puppy, but it’s definitely a different feeling you get when you raise a dog from that early on and see them grow up and go through their personality changes. She was only about 6 weeks old when we found her, and she had worms, was full of trash, and a huge amount of gut issues. She also had already begun to exhibit food and other resource guarding. We worked everyday on those issues, and 3 years later she has grown into such an exceptional, kind-hearted dog.

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