A plastic pet crate, covered in dirt, sat on a sidewalk near a dry creek bed in San Antonio, Texas, last week. Turned on its side and missing a door, it baked in the nearly 100-degree heat. Cars zoomed by, until someone thought to look inside.
There, on the hard plastic, lay a small dog.
An anonymous caller alerted the City of San Antonio Animal Care Services (SAACS) about the animal, who barely moved but was alive. Animal Care Officer Garza arrived on the scene to assess the dog, later named Leo.
“Officer Garza goes up to the crate, and Leo is inside not moving,” Lisa Norwood, public relations manager at SAACS, told The Dodo. Ticks and fleas covered Leo’s little body. He followed the officer’s movements only with his eyes, seemingly too tired to move anything else.
But, when Officer Garza reached into the crate to check for injuries, “Leo would scurry to the back of the crate and make himself as small as he could,” Norwood said. “Our initial thought was perhaps he’d been hit by a car.”
Using the crate as a “makeshift gurney,” Norwood said Officer Garza loaded Leo into his air-conditioned truck and drove the tiny pup to the SAACS medical facility. On the way, as Leo cooled down, he slowly raised his head.
Staff treated Leo for the ticks and fleas, and gave him vaccinations and some wet food. At just 14 pounds, Norwood said he was slightly underweight. There were no injuries, but Leo refused to eat.
“He wouldn’t move, other than if somebody was trying to put their hands into the crate,” Norwood said. “Then he would cower … Obviously, life had been unkind. Maybe people had been unkind to him. He was very, very shy and very scared.”
One of SAACS’ partner rescue organizations, SNIPSA, heard about Leo and made it their mission to take him on and find him a foster. Once in their care, SNIPSA renamed him Arroyo, which in Spanish means “dry creek.”
“They’re like, ‘Okay, we’re going to get you this new life, buddy. You’re going to have a new name,’” Norwood said. Almost immediately, SNIPSA placed Arroyo, whom they determined is about 5 years old, with a caring foster.
In his foster home, Arroyo now sleeps on a soft bed with a blanket, surrounded by toys. He loves the air conditioning.
Just a few days in this new, loving space was all Arroyo needed to open up: Norwood said he allows gentle pets from his foster and even accepts food directly from their hands.
“When Officer Garza found him, he said … ‘This dog has been hit by a car, or somebody, for whatever reason, you know, dumped them in this crate and left him to die,’” Norwood said. “Arroyo said, ‘No … I’m not going to do that.”
Arroyo’s using his second chance at life to find a way to trust people again, and an interested adopter has already begun the application process to make the pup part of their family. One thing is for sure — there are no more discarded crates in this sweet dog’s future.
