Sargento's Story

"There are those who see the need and respond. 

I consider those people my heroes." 

— Fred Rogers

Dog rescue is not glamorous.

I don't know how those people with the cameras do it — the ones who film themselves saving animals on the side of the road, all calm narration and steady hands. That's not how it works, not for me, anyway. For me, it's shaking hands and a racing heart and blood on my clothes and being late to work and crying in my car.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It was a Thursday morning, 7:10 AM. I was driving east on the 105, between the 405 and the 110, on my way to work. Everything was normal. Traffic was moving fast. I was going to be on time.

Then I saw him.

A German shepherd, standing strangely still on the shoulder of the freeway, right under an overpass. His tongue was hanging out, his eyes were huge — the kind of wide, unblinking eyes that don't just say, “I’m scared.” They say, “I don't know what to do and I am out of options.” Morning rush hour traffic was whipping past him at full speed, and he was just there. Alone. 

I don't usually work with big dogs. I'm five feet tall and have constant back pain. Most of my rescue work involves animals I can physically pick up and carry to my car if I need to. A full-grown German shepherd is just not that. But something about this dog — something about the way he was just standing there, so still, made me pull over on a freeway in fast-moving traffic, get out of my car, and walk toward him.

I talked to him. I don't remember what I said. Probably something like, "Hey sweetheart, it's okay, You’re a good boy." The kind of thing you say when you're trying to convince both the dog and yourself.

He stayed where he was as I approached.

I held out my hand. He sniffed it. I held it out again. He sniffed it again. Then he licked it — gently, carefully, like he was deciding something. I think he was deciding if I was safe. I think he was deciding if he could trust me. And I think, in that moment, he decided yes.

On my end, that lick broke something open in me. My nose stung and my eyes watered. Here was this big, hurt, terrified dog, and he was licking me gently, choosing me. I felt something I didn't have words for at the time — it was some feeling somewhere between heartbreak and honor.  It was a raw, cracked-open feeling when a living being in pain looks at you and says, without words: I'm scared, but I really want to trust you. Help me.

So I did.

I remembered I might have a lead in my trunk — a very short one, meant for small animals. Not exactly ideal for a full-grown German shepherd, but it was what I had. I walked back to my car, praying he'd still be there when I came back. He was right where I left him, waiting. I got the lead around his neck. It took a while. We did a lot of hand-sniffing, a lot of me talking in a calm voice while cars screamed past us in the noise and wind of that underpass, and a lot of my heart hammering so hard I could feel it in my teeth.

It took about thirty minutes — thirty minutes of earning his trust, getting the lead on, and coaxing him into my car. Looking back, I think getting into the car was really painful for him. I didn't know yet how badly he was hurt. I just knew he needed to get off that freeway, and somewhere in the back of my consciousness I was aware that there was blood on me.

I had the sweetest bleeding dog in my car

I drove him to a nearby animal shelter where I'd recently completed volunteer training and had been volunteering on Sundays. We got out of the car and learned they weren't open yet, but there was a list of emergency phone numbers posted by the door. I called while he sniffed my shoes, and then as I was on the phone we went for a little walk, him still with the lead around his neck, me on the phone trying not to feel frantic. I noticed that he was dripping blood from his mouth, but he was also sniffing flowers, so I chose to not to think about what that blood meant.  Someone answered and said they'd contact animal control, who would be there “soon”. 

The workers at the shelter started to arrive for their morning shifts, before the public was allowed in. I showed them the bleeding dog. I told them I was a volunteer there. I told them the whole story. I asked if I could please leave him with them, would they please, please help him.  They said they had to check the manager, and went to go get her while the dog continued to sniff flowers and drip blood and look up at me every minute or so to check that I was still there.  This is what the manager came outside to.

The manager said no.

I begged. 

She said no again. Regulations. She said I'd found him on the freeway, and I needed to take him to the Carson shelter — which is a high-kill facility. I argued. He was a good boy. He'd trusted me. I didn't want to take him somewhere that might end his life. She told me that if his owners were looking for him, that's where they'd look–and warned me that animal control sometimes took forever to get to where they ought to be, and that I should go to Carson shelter now.

I finally gave up.

I got him back in the car–he did NOT want to get back in, and after setting my GPS, got on the freeway toward Carson with a very good boy in my backseat, feeling like I'd failed him. 

When I got off the freeway there was a red light. I checked my phone.

Three missed calls. Four text messages. All from the same person: Officer Diaz, Hawthorne Animal Control telling me that she was there at the first animal shelter, where was I?

I called her back.

"Bring him back!" she said.

I turned my car around and drove back to Hawthorne.

I want to stop here and talk about Officer Diaz for a moment, because she is the true hero of this story. While I was driving toward Carson, Officer Diaz had gotten to that first animal shelter to take care of the dog and was trying to get a hold of me — three times, four texts — because she had the authority and the will to get this dog the help he needed. She didn't know me. She didn't know the dog but she reached out over and over again. When one door slammed in my face, she kicked another one open from the other side.

I met her back in Hawthorne, in front of the Police Department. She took one look at him and confirmed what I suspected but hadn’t had the presence of mind to actually address— he'd been hit by a car. She gently lifted the fur on his rump to show me where the skin had peeled away from his body, and I had to look away because it was nauseating. His bottom teeth were smashed out. He had cuts on his face, his ears, his legs. He was wearing a blue collar. No tags. No microchip.

Officer Diaz warned me that the City of Hawthorne has funding to help injured animals, but that funding has a hard limit. If we couldn't cover the cost of his care, they would euthanize him. She recommended I start a GoFundMe, then she took him to the El Segundo Animal Hospital.

I went home. I cleaned the blood off my arms and my clothes. I changed. I went to work in a daze.  I was absolutely not present.  All I could think about was that good boy, and if he was ok, about his huge scared eyes, about the way he'd licked my hand on the shoulder of the freeway in the very moment he decided to trust me.

I called the hospital on my lunch break and learned that they had named him Benny, and that he needed surgery. A broken jaw. Three dental extractions. Sutures. X-rays of his skull, chest, and abdomen. The radiology report would later show a fractured jaw, shattered and missing teeth, air trapped under the skin of his face, bruised lungs, and possible hip dysplasia. All signs of being hit by a car.

His medical care would cost about $3,000, she told me over the phone. This dog had survived being hit by a car on the 105 freeway, the pain, the fear, the hours alone on that shoulder, had chosen to trust a stranger. And none of that would matter if we couldn't pay for his care.

With Lin Manuel singing in my head, I wrote his way out. I started a GoFundMe that night, just as Officer Diaz had suggested. I wrote his story while my hands were still shaking. I posted it everywhere I could think of — Facebook, Instagram, Nextdoor, my website, emailed everyone I knew.  I asked them all to help save a dog named Benny, knowing with certainty that if they didn’t, I would do it myself.  He’d licked my hand.  I wasn’t going to let him down.

Then I went to bed.

By the time I fell asleep, over $1,000 had come in.

When I woke up at 5:00 the next morning, it was over $2,000.

Strangers I had never met had donated money to save a dog they'd never seen, on a freeway they'd probably never driven, because a woman  they didn’t know pulled over and then asked them for help.

I cried. I sat at my kitchen table and put my head down and cried because I was so overwhelmed by the kindness of people — friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers — all deciding that this dog's life was worth saving.

Then Officer Diaz texted me, “call when you can”  I called immediately, heart in my throat.  Was he ok?  Did he make it through the night? 

She picked up right away and shared that the night before, a woman named Kim had called every animal shelter and animal control office she could find, looking for a missing German shepherd. Kim had finally reached Officer Diaz and sent her a photo. Officer Diaz thought she might have found Benny's family — but we didn't know for sure yet.

I worked all day–I was teaching classes.  I didn’t get the opportunity to check the GoFundMe at all until a friend of mine texted me and asked if I knew I was over $4000.  Again, I cried, right there at work, at the goodness of people I didn’t even know. 

That evening, we all met at the El Segundo Animal Hospital to find out if Benny was their dog.  We went into a room and waited for them to lead him in.  He found Kim first — tail wagging, jumping all over her. Then he came to me. He sniffed me. He jumped on me, wiggling with his whole self. He remembered me. 

Then he realized Antonio was in the room.  He went right over to him and could not stop kissing his face.

Antonio dropped to the floor, wrapped his arms around his dog, and cried.

With his dad and aunt

Benny had a real name: Sargento. He was two years old and he was Antonio's first pet, his baby.

The whole time I thought nobody was looking for him, Kim was on the phone, calling shelter after shelter, trying to find her brother's dog. And Officer Diaz recognized him from a photo and connected the dots.

Antonio and Kim were so grateful — for the rescue, for the GoFundMe, for every person who donated. Kim was warm and outgoing and could not stop thanking me. Antonio was more reserved, but just as full of gratitude. But I kept thinking: don't thank me. Thank Officer Diaz. Thank the strangers who donated. Thank Kim herself, who called every shelter in the county until she found your dog.

I’d never done a GoFundMe before, but I put the hospital bill on my credit card before the funds came through (it takes a few days, I learned later) because Benny needed to go home. I did it on faith that GoFundMe was real, and faith that everything would work out for the best.

Sargento went home that night wearing a cone and a bandage, and missing most of his teeth, but he was alive, and he was loved, and he was home.  

A total of $4,660 was raised. Sargento's bill was $3,601.56. Every remaining dollar after GoFundMe took their share — $902.52 — went to The Lovejoy Foundation, a no-kill rescue in Inglewood that partners with the City of Hawthorne to save animals like Sargento. Had Sargento not had a family, he would have gone there next.

Two weeks later, Kim sent me an update. Sargento's cone is off. He has a brand new blue collar with tags. He's back to his old self. She promised to get him microchipped with Officer Diaz so this never happens again.

People have called me a hero for this. I don’t agree–and I need to get up on my soapbox for a minute, because I am not a hero. I was just doing my thing.

We all have lanes. Mine are literacy and animal rescue. Those are the things that light me up, the things I'll pull over on a freeway for, the things I'll put on a credit card before the money is in the bank. They're my lanes, and I stick to them.

The world is kind of crazy right now. Life can get overwhelming. Compassion fatigue is real — you see so much need, so much hurt, so much bad news, that you start to shut down. I totally get it. 

One of the best ways out of feeling shut down is to do something for someone else.  Maybe it's rescuing animals. Maybe it's helping kids. Maybe it's bringing food to the elderly and sick, or something with the environment, or your neighborhood, or whatever. Maybe you haven't found it yet. Maybe you've found it and you've been putting it off.  That thing that lights you up–that’s your lane. Find it, get in it, and stay in it.  And do it.  It will make you feel like you’re contributing, like you’re doing good.   And you will be.

Imagine what would happen to this world if we all found our own lanes.  If everyone pitched in, in their own special way to make things better.

Mr. Rogers said, "Look for the helpers."

I say: be a helper.

Ok, off soapbox.

When I think about Sargento's story, what I keep coming back to is gratitude. Not just for the ending — though the ending is everything — but for the way it all unfolded. The shelter turned me away, and I was devastated. But that rejection created the space for Officer Diaz to call me. If I'd left him at either shelter, she never would have reached him. He never would have ended up at El Segundo Animal Hospital. Kim never would have found him through Officer Diaz. Antonio might never have gotten his baby back.

Officer Diaz took Sargento into her care. The community — friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers — came together and raised $4,660 in less than 24 hours. Kim called every shelter in the county and didn't stop until she found her brother's dog. And Sargento, who was shaking and bleeding on the shoulder of a freeway at 7:10 on a Thursday morning, went home to his family the next evening.

Everything that looked like it was going wrong was actually going exactly right.

I am so grateful.

Happy to go home