Have you ever been to Dead Dog Beach?

Probably not. So I wanted to give you guys a little better visual of what the beach area looks like when we talk about it. Basically there's a long stretch of sandy unpaved road that leads from the main road down to the beach. As you get closer to the water you see a gigantic abandoned marina building on the left. The building is owned by the Port Authority but all the land around is owned by the Municipality of Yabucoa. The building is in such bad shape that we are all amazed it hasn't collapsed on itself.

People come to the beach area to fish or picnic. During the weekends the beach area is packed and those are the most dangerous times for the dogs, mostly because alcohol is usually involved. Sandra knows that Monday mornings means the beach will be littered with beer cans and trash and that there will be urine feces - yes, human urine and feces - all around the area and even in the puppy room. And there are usually dogs missing, especially puppies - people think "oh what a cute puppy!" and take them home with them - those puppies grow up and get the same poor treatment most of the other dogs on the island receive and are more than likely dumped back at the beach skinny and sick and pregnant, if they are female.

And if the dogs don't disappear because they are taken, they may have wandered off to die after being shot, poisoned, struck by a car or beaten with a bat. I wish I were making it up but I'm not. Sandra chooses not to put many gory pictures on her blog - she just wants people to see the faces that need homes - but sometimes she will post a photo of a poisoned or beaten dog. When that happens, you know it's gotten really bad - when Sandra just can't contain herself anymore that she just has to vent on her blog. I personally don't know how she is able to keep herself in control enough to go to the beach every day and not be in the loony bin. She is a saint and a hero for everything she does.

So, here are some photos from the beach and I'll give you some descriptions along the way.

This is an aerial view of the beach area. The town of Yabucoa is about 4-5 miles west (to the left). The large building is the abandoned marina. The point/spit of land at the top right is the rocky tip of the beach and to the left of that, the big whitish flat part is the large sand parking lot. People fish along the top part of the parking lot - that's a seawall that drops a few feet into the bay.

This is a front view of the marina building. You can see the dirt road in the forefront of the photo - that leads all the way around to the parking lot and tip of the beach.

This is the western side of the marina. Different groups/packs of dogs take different areas/territories of the beach up for themselves. There is a driveway sort of to the left of this picture and farther left is wild tall grass that becomes wetland during the rainy season. Some females birth and raise their puppies in the tall grass to keep them safe.

These two pictures are of the rusty skeleton of the marina. On the interior is the area where boats used to come in and could be loaded and unloaded and/or put in/removed from the water. Kids play in there and I've seen them climbing up in the tall rafters and jumping into the water - it's an accident waiting to happen and I have no idea why the municipality hasn't sealed the whole place up.

Also there are people who bring their horses there for exercise. Even the way this is done is cruel. The guys basically run their horses off the edge of the concrete into the water about 10-15 feet below! They have ropes around their harnesses and the guys have the horses swim back and forth around the basin. I'm not sure how they get them out. There is sand that gets washed up into the basin area and it rises up to a higher level but I don't think it's tall enough for the horses to climb out there. Regardless, I know water exercise is great for horses but the way it's done at the beach is not humane.

This shows the concrete rooms in the front of the marina building. There are 3 or 4 rooms that are just concrete with a window and door facing out and a door going into the marina area. There is nothing else in the rooms, everything has been ripped out, either removed by the Port Authority or stolen and kids come there and spray paint on the walls and other vandalism. The dogs use the building area for shade and shelter from the rain.

We used a couple of the rooms when we did our on-site spay/neuter event in August 2006. It was a "down and dirty" M.A.S.H.-style "clinic" where we rounded up dogs and rescued a bunch and a vet performed chemical sterilizations on 11 males. This photo is of the "recovery room" (the same room pictured above at a different time). It looks gruesome but the dogs are all under anesthesia after the procedure. We blocked off both the doors and window and stayed there until about 8 p.m. until they had each recovered enough to release back to the beach.

Here we have the famous "puppy room". In the first picture, you see it all the way on the right. In the second picture you can see how Sandra puts corrugated metal sheets up against the doorway to keep the puppies inside. She keeps the room as clean as possible and not only feeds and waters the puppies but vaccinates, deworms, and treats them for whatever ailments she can. The problem with keeping them at the beach is obviously that they are not safe. The metal sheets keep the puppies in but not the people out.

Here are some other shots from the beach area.

And here's Sandra at the beach - the dog is Kerr who was a long-time beach resident (he was there for almost a year) that was rescued and placed over a year ago.