‘I literally cry with every single dog': Street dog rescue saves more than 1,000 Texas animals

Yahoo

25-03-2025

AUSTIN (KXAN) — On a dark, rural road southeast of Austin, Sasha Aghili takes a deep breath before unloading the 'gear' from her car: liquid smoke, a blanket, a kennel and a whole rotisserie chicken. These are all supplies she uses to lure and trap street dogs.
For days, with the help of a neighbor, she has tracked and fed a black German Shepherd in the area. They believe the dog was dumped on the road more than a year prior. They hope the smell of the smoke and the promise of a meal help the dog feel safe enough to come out and enter the kennel she has set up.
From there, Sasha would take the animal home and give it a bath, medical care and time to decompress. Eventually, she'd work to find its forever home.
'I literally cry with every single dog, because I watch these dogs that have been so abused and so neglected, and they learn to be part of a family,' she said. 'It's so beautiful to see how they evolve.'
Over the last few years, Sasha has saved more than a thousand animals with the help of her family, several volunteers and her network of fosters, known as Jack Jack's Pack. The nonprofit finds lost pets and returns them to their owners, as well as rescues and rehabilitates injured, abandoned and abused animals in and around Central Texas. Sasha believes the number of street dogs has skyrocketed in recent years, as area shelters closed intake due to overcrowding.
'My phone is constantly going off, so I get calls all day about dumped dogs: dogs that are on the corner of a highway, dogs that are in dangerous neighborhoods, dogs that are on the back of a country road where they're not getting anything from anybody,' Sasha said.
Jack Jack's Pack often has to prioritize the worst cases. Sasha refers to these dogs as '911s.'
'I hate it because I can't save every single one that I want to save every day. So, it's always: 'What is the worst 911 out of all of these dogs?' So when there's like, the one that's been shot or that's been hit by a car, it's like, 'Okay, well, we've got to go get that dog right now.''
For Sasha, the mission is personal.
In 2021, wind blew open the front door of her home. Within moments, she accounted for five of her dogs, but her beloved, 17-year-old rescue Chihuahua named Jack Jack was gone. Her family searched on foot and by car, knocked on thousands of doors, put up signs, handed out fliers, hired a pet detective, contacted lost pet rescues and posted all over social media and animal search websites. They even got their story on the news, but had no luck finding Jack Jack.
However, in the months she spent searching for Jack Jack, Sasha instead found dozens of other dogs in need. She reconnected as many of them as she could with their terrified families, and she adopted several of them into her own family. One of them, as fate would have it, was named Jack.
From there, Sasha turned her tragedy into a full-time job rescuing dogs.
'I tell every single one, 'You thank your Great Uncle Jack Jack,'' she said, wiping back tears.
Sasha was nominated for KXAN's parent company Nexstar's Remarkable Women contest. It's a nationwide initiative to recognize the great contributions women have made to our communities and honor the influence women have had on public policy, social progress and quality of life.
Watch the story of Jack Jack's Pack on KXAN News at 4 p.m.
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