What They Faced
For anyone who has withheld the return of a Katrina dog you need to understand the amazingly difficult "life and death" situation that people faced, just take a peek at the below picture and hope YOU are never faced with the same desperation. Many did DIE trying to save their animals (see below in the blog for those stories, many others were forced to leave them by authorities, many were told by authorities they would be held, many came to a crisis after many days with no rescue of rescuing themselves, their children and the elderly. In many cases they locked the animals in top rooms with lots of food and water. Later well intentioned rescuers came along and save the animals....However, the system for reuniting those animals was very poor.
Anyway- Here is what those BAD animal owners you like to call them faced --
This is an actual photo of the storm surge.
posted by EricsDogBlog.com @ Friday, May 26, 2006
9 comments
9 Comments:
Can I ask people to please consider making a donation to Animal Rescue New Orleans?
They are still maintaining feeding stations in the areas devasted by Hurricane Katrina, and many pets are being kept alive by their efforts. They are also still trapping and reuniting pets with their owners.
ARNO has become critically short of food. The pet food manufacturers are no longer making donations, and with over 4000 feeding stations they are having trouble keeping up with the demand for food.
Please help to keep these animals alive.
Oh Eric, if it were me I would have WALKED ON WATER to save my pets because I am so perfect and all-knowing and all-powerful.
That is likely what the pet thieves would say based upon what they appear to think of themselves.
Thank you, Eric, for publishing this. I nearly screamed every time I read a nasty post by the out-of-town rescuers who kept saying that the "bad owners" in New Orleans did not deserve to get their pets back. They stupidly do not realize that most people did not deliberately abandon their animals - they were given no choice because the city of N.O. and the state of Louisiana had no evacuation plans. Most people who were forced to leave their pets behind put out food and water and secured their pets safely, thinking they would return to their homes in a few days. No one envisioned the levees built by the federal government would break and flood the city, preventing anyone from returning. A large number of people stayed behind because they were not allowed to take their pets and most of them died right alongside their pets. Those who sat in judgement of these helpless people and helpless animals decided they knew what was best and stole animals that had guardians searching for them. They made no attempt at reuniting the animals with their people and adopted them out to total strangers. Did they inspect homes or applicants before these animals were handed out? I hope they can live with the injustice they created by their inflated egos of themselves as being omnipotent as to what was best for the animals and their displaced owners.
I am an "out-of-town rescuer". I venture to guess some out-of-towners made judgmental comments while under the stress of the magnitude of trying to care for hundreds upon hundreds of then homeless animals. I know I had some frustrated feelings of "where ARE the owners? don't they care?" only to hear the story of an owner who came the next day, overjoyed at the reunion, talking about the months they spent looking at countless webpages trying to find their pet, and asking their animal to forgive them for not being able to find them sooner. I also heard of those whose animals were ripped from their arms by the storm surge, one who lost her husband because he stayed behind to take care of the animals, and those who came to the shelter hoping to find their animal, only to leave empty handed, but for the tears they wiped from their eyes. These people did and do care. We have to accept different areas care for their animals in different ways (I do wish they would provide heartworm treatment and get with the spay/neuter program), but even if they never do, it doesn't necessarily mean its because they don't care or don't love their animals.
As a rescuer or caretaker, it's our job to do just that, not judge. It's up to the local or governing animal control to decide if an animal should be taken away, or not returned to its owner. With all the um, well-intentioned (?) judgment going on, it's no wonder legitimate organizations have a problem getting permission to help during disasters.
Thank you Eric for keeping it real and fresh. I am still struggling to get a dog back to her owner in NOLA. It angers me to no end to think that they took a bunch of dogs with no intentions of returning them to their original owners. This particular dog was spayed and heartworm free prior to Katrina but the group wants to claim neglect and abuse. The dog was washed away when the levees broke and they had no way to get her. It makes me sick how judgemental and cold some of these so called rescue groups are. Do they think that something like this would not or could not happen to them? Upstate New York is on a fault. I felt a quake a couple of years ago...and honestly, I was not prepared if a major disaster struck. I still don't know if I am, which I am ashamed to say. Not sure how to haul 13 cats and a dog somewhere very easily! I will say that if some vigilante rescue group(s) got a hold of my animals and would not return them, there would be hell to pay. It is a crying shame what the people of the gulf coast had to go through and then to lose their beloved animals too?!? Thanks again Eric. Maybe you can help me compile a list of animal rescue thieves and we could build a website...funny because I googled Katrina dog thieves and found this page...
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Let's not go overboard and make messiahs out of the Katrina victims (people). Do you people watch the news? Terrible things hapen to people EVERY DAY. Do try to see that these are separate issues - the hurricane and animal welfare. I have many friends who live in Louisiana and they are CONSTANTLY witnessing animal abuse and neglect in their neighborhoods.
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