[Latin guitar music] (Adri) Puerto Rico is my home.

Puerto Rico has been my home for the past 21 years.

I stand around and look at the beauty that's around me right now, and I just love what I see and it brings out all the creativity and all the joy.

I love it, I love it.

Life is good.

Life is really good.

It's a lot better than I would have ever imagined.

My mom was Puerto Rican.

She was a wonderful musician and a composer and a poet.

And my father used to have a beautiful bass voice and sing in tune.

And I remember them singing harmonies when they were in harmony.

When they were in harmony.

I have a lot of happy memories of my early childhood.

My mom was so loving and I adored my siblings, but as we got older, my father became verbally and mentally abusive and it tore our family apart.

There were times that I felt broken.

Kind of like the satos of Puerto Rico, searching for love and a place to belong.

People say that I save the dogs, but really, they saved me.

[waves crashing] [Instrumental music] (Adri) Music calms the soul.

I started piano when I was five.

We had a little upright piano in our den.

My parents came running in and said, “oh my God, she's playing piano!” Oh my God, listen to that!

So immediately, they put me in piano lessons.

Once my parents divorced my stepmother used to force me to stay in the piano room after school until she heard music coming.

It was really a traumatic thing for me.

Being forced to play piano for hours on end became a source of real anxiety.

I played a couple of concerts that my father went to, and I screwed up so bad, and I was so shaky and so scared.

He was an alcoholic and he became a really mean drunk.

There were times that I would come home from school and I would look at that door handle and be terrified to go i because they had dual custody.

And so when I was at my father's house, it was really scary.

It, it, it put me in knots.

It was something that just was there constantly.

That tenseness, that fright.

I recognize now that he really enjoyed seeing us sweat and seeing us suffer.

And he did it to a lot of people.

He did it to my mother.

He used me as the bait dog.

In other words, I... “here, do this Break all your mother's dishes when you get into her house.” So, of course I would go, because I needed my father's love.

And I already knew I had my mother's love.

So I went, and then broke her dishes, and mommy was crying.

It would... you know, I remember now I feel so guilty because I made my mom cry.

I feel guilty now.

I don't touch the piano now because I was forced into it.

[Latin guitar music] But then in high school, when doctor D'Angelo came around, I said, “well, what instrument do you need me to play?

I can play”!

And he said, “here”.

And he walked out of the back room with this big bass.

And I looked at that thing, and I fell in love with it.

And I said, “that!

I'm going to play with that!

Oh, man!

You'll be proud of me”.

I started playing bass in the band.

It was wonderful.

And then it was my choice.

So when I graduated school, I left home and I got myself a bass.

[Instrumental music] (Adri) And I decided that I wanted to go to Musicians Institute in Los Angeles because I wanted to learn electric bass, and I wanted to learn jazz.

All I do is play, play, play, play, play, go into classes and play, play, play all the time.

And it was the most fun life ever.

It was hard because you break your back lifting equipment and schlepping stuff.

But you know what?

It was just so worth it.

It's so much fun.

This gave me license to say yes to every single thing that came my way.

I've been married four times.

Twice to the same man.

He's a nice man, he just didn't make it.

[bells tolling] bong, bong, bong (Adri) My struggles came basically from emotionally having had my father be such a cruel and narcissistic person.

It bled into my other relationsh And it was a struggle.

It was really hard.

Now that I'm old, I look back and I learned a lot.

But it was very difficult for me to have a regular, healthy relationship with anyone because I did not know what that was.

I didn't know what that looked like.

But it's through struggle that you grow.

One day my sister called me at work and she told me mommy had a stroke and she was freaked out.

And I said, hold on.

Wait a minute.

I'm coming, I'm going home.

And it was really touch and go.

The first year was very difficult because I was learning the techniques of moving her.

She stayed paraplegic.

And so I became really expert at that.

And then we started having fun.

I take her to the beach and wed go swimming.

I, you know, Id take the wheelchair down.

And we go on Sundays dancing.

Even though she was in a wheelchair, I'd twirl her around in the wheelchair and she'd be smiling and we'd be laughing.

And it was lovely.

It was quite lovely.

It's really strange when you're in a position where you're the parent and they're your child.

And it was an honor.

I was redeeming myself by taking care of my mo and giving her quality of life, as she gave me quality of life and never, ever rejected me.

In all of the horrible stuff that happened when I was young.

She never once rejected me, even though I was such a mean girl to her because I was listening to my father's propaganda.

You know?

And as she was dying, I was singing to her, and I was rubbing her.

(Adri singing) ♪This little light of mine.♪ ♪I'm going to let it shine.♪ ♪This little light of mine.♪ ♪I'm going to let it shine.♪ ♪This little light of mine.♪♪ And she was just like on her way out.

And then finally, when she left her body, I could see I was almost like I could see her flitter up and look down and be so happy to be out of her body.

And she went dancing away because she loved to dance.

So it was just wonderful.

It was not wonderful tha I lost my mom, but I'm glad that I was able to give her comfort.

You know, because she's lived a really hard life too and I was able to give her comfort.

The days after my mom left were reall depressing because I was empty.

After you give and you start giving and you know what that feels like.

Then you feel empty.

If you're not giving.

[waves lapping at a shoreline] (Adri) I never wanted kids because I thought after my upbringing, I would kill a child.

So I never had kids, but I had dogs.

[guitar music] (Adri) I've always been a rescuer, you know?

And I've never purchased a dog.

I've always adopted a dog.

I started rescuing dogs with my friends.

And we decided to start an organization called Amigos de los Animales.

Friends of the Animals.

One of the girls in her organization.

She said, why don't we just now that your mommy's gone, why don't we just take the dogs to your house and turn it into the shelter?

And I said, “why not”?

You know, and that was the beginning of the shelter.

Amigos de los Animales shelter.

[Latin guitar music] (Adri) Setting up a shelter is the hardest thing I've ever done.

The island is inundated with so many abandoned animals.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

After we started building up and I already had 50 dogs, everybody jumped ship and left the island, and I was taking care of them all alone.

But block by block.

Piece by piece.

Crate by crate.

We were able to build it up.

I had to do the donations.

Had to get donations.

I had to make sure that the animals had the medication they needed.

I didn't have any mone to pay the water bill in there.

Water was going to get cut off.

So I pawned all of my jewelry all of my antique gold jewelry that my mom left from my grandmother at 1800 bucks, paid off water bill.

I'm a hard worker, and I know I could do it.

Being in Puerto Ric is the best thing in the world.

People started saying, hey, you know, this lady's here.

She needs some help.

And so people started coming in little by little, started helping out.

And it was two people then it was three people.

And all of a sudden there were four people.

Then all of a sudden there were five people.

And then we had these volunteers.

Thank you so much.

And with that, we're going to say.

(Adri singing) ♪Who let the dogs out?♪ ♪Who, who, who, who!

Who let the dogs out?♪ ♪Who!♪♪ Thank you so much.

Applause yourself!

And then we got people ther at the shelter working with me full time.

[water spraying, dogs barking] I got into a rhythm with the animals and it started feeling right.

I felt like, okay, I can do this.

If I could take care of mom and give her quality of life, I can rescue dogs and give them quality of life and get them homes you know?

(Russ) I first heard of Amigos de los Animales through MeetUp.

I had been here living here for a few months.

And from the first day that I walked as a volunteer, I loved it.

Everybody was so welcoming.

It was just a place that I knew I belong.

[ambient Instrumental music] (Adri) Russ came along.

Ever since then, hes been coming to the shelter so much to the point, that we've already hired him.

He's working with us.

You know, as one of the staff.

(Russ) What makes this shelter different from other shelters Amigos de los Animales is a free range shelter where we keep our dogs in packs.

We have a few packs that, you know, some in the front, some in the back.

And so dogs can stay together and have, you know, they play and and develop friendships and get to where we can also evaluate, is this dog good with other dogs?

Because some dogs aren't.

They need to be in a famil with where they're the only dog.

[ambient music] (Russ) The greatest challenge for Amigos de Los animals is the number of dogs that are still out on the street.

They estimate from 500,000 to 1 million dogs that still live on the streets of the whole island.

[ambient music] (Adri) Each rescue is different.

And we're trying to be as kind as we can.

And we try to calm the dog down.

And they think that they're happy on the beach, but they're not getting fed.

They've got they're full of parasites and they always have to go to the vet.

[unintellible dialogue over ambient music] (Adri) He had anaplasmosis.

It's blood borne disease coming from ticks.

And it kills the dogs if they go long enough.

They'll just walk, walk, walk and then drop dead because it eats their red blood cells.

So as soon as he's finished being vetted, then he will be adopted.

(Nick) ...Cairo, Cairo.

You're ready to get out.

Where are you going?

Where are you going?

We met Cairo while we were on vacation.

We got all over Puerto Rico an we were at one of the beaches.

We crossed the street to get some food and we saw this dog just licking the water up, the run off from the kiosks off the floor, just trying to get some clean water.

And it was really heartbreaking.

He eventually came up to u when we went back to the beach.

He was so friendly and we just completely fell in love, I think immediately, because he was just so friendly and so cute.

We were both like, do you want to take him home?

So I reached out to Amigos de los Animales like, we know that dog.

He walks around with his pack all the time, and they got them... [unintelligible word] They got him vetted.

They took care of him.

They were really limite on space, and they made it work.

And, a few months later, they shipped him right up.

It was, it was super easy.

Oh, wow.

Cairo, down.

Everybody loves him.

He's doing really well.

He's happy, he's healthy and we couldn't be happie to have him part of the family.

You want to look at the camera?

You too sleepy?

Good boy, can you sit?

Can you give me paw?

Just one please.

One paw.

Thank you.

Can you give me your other paw?

Good boy!

(Russ) I get videos and photos every day.

From.

From somebody that's either been on a walk with us or has adopted a dog from us, and and to see our dogs in a happy home is is everything we can wish for.

[Instrumental music] (Corissa) Oh my God, This is what makes it all worth it.

It's it's finding the right person and their forever baby, their forever fur baby.

And just seeing that connection.

It makes us kind of commit to the effort even more.

of rescuing, rehab, rehoming and educating and spreading the awareness of what we do here.

(Julia I adopted a little pet from Adri His name is Timmon Its the name that Adri give to him.

And Timon is part of our family.

We help Adri with the payment of water, of electricity.

Weeks ago, we gave her $7,000.

We think that she helps the municipality with the work she's doing.

So we have to have to help Adri to continue with the her loving world.

(Russ) What we do at the shelter, it does make a dent.

But the problem is so huge, [piano music] we can't do it alone.

[piano music] (Russ) A goal of mine for this year was to walk every walkable dog at one time.

And we did that.

♪I didn't grow up with roses,♪ ♪only thorns.

Some of us were♪ ♪and just made known they were forged.♪ ♪I was fine because I had to be, survive♪ ♪‘cause that's the only thing I knew.♪ ♪But I didn't have a reason till now.♪♪ (Russ) So our walks are not only helping the dogs get exercise and helping us build a bigger community, it's, it's helping people to adopt, to find a dog that they can adopt and love, and having their home.

♪This is true North now.♪ (Adri) Well, you know, the community was here and I created a little bubble of love.

I mean, it's kind of like a Paradise walking in and seeing al the smiling faces that you love.

And you see how each one grows and how each one changes.

Because just like each human has a story, each animal has a story.

And there's animals that are beat up on the street that once they come in, they start understanding and realizing, this is like a nice place.

Good people here, they love us.

Look at that.

They look how they feed us, look how they Take care of me.

(Russ) The purpose of this shelter and the work that all of the rescuers do on this island, is so important.

It fulfills me and lets me feel like now I really have something that can keep me busy, tha can mean something in my life, (Adri) and it just feels right.

Good things always come.

You know, after the storm, good things always come.

♪I created my own constellation.♪ ♪The stars that always peak through the clouds.♪ ♪I'll always have a little baggage.♪ ♪A few regrets, but never any doubt.

This is true♪ ♪North now.♪ (Adri) My True North found me.

♪true North now.♪ I didn't find it.

My True North found me through ♪this is true North now.♪♪ aging, through living and experiencing and being able to organize.

And I'm helping the town of Loiza.

I love my mayor.

She's great to me.

When you save animals and people adopt them.

Those animals are saving those lives.

My dog saved my life.

And there's nothing like finding the best home for the best dog.

And caring for animals just fulfills me, it makes me feel whole.

They bring me unconditional love and affection.

They come here to teach us love.

My house is inundated with love.

[True North Now instrumental] ♪Town to town.♪ ♪City to city.♪ ♪The journey was long and it wasn't all pretty.♪ ♪But it made me strong.♪ ♪Stronger than I should have had to be.♪ ♪But it gave me strength to build this piece.♪ ♪This home.♪ ♪And for once, I don't feel alone.

No.♪ ♪‘Cause I create my own constellation of stars♪ ♪that always peak through the clouds.♪ ♪I'll always have a little baggage.♪ ♪A few regrets, but never any doubt.♪ ♪This is true North now♪ ♪true North now.

This is true North now.♪♪