Posted on 09/03/2005 9:56:20 PM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
ATLANTA (AP) - As Valerie Bennett was evacuated from a New Orleans hospital, rescuers told her there was no room in the boat for her dogs.
She pleaded. ``I offered him my wedding ring and my mom's wedding ring,'' the 34-year-old nurse recalled Saturday.
They wouldn't budge. She and her husband could bring only one item, and they already had a plastic tub containing the medicines her husband, a liver transplant recipient, needed to survive.
Such emotional scenes were repeated perhaps thousands of times along the Gulf Coast last week as pet owners were forced to abandon their animals in the midst of evacuation.
In one example reported last week by The Associated Press, a police officer took a dog from one little boy waiting to get on a bus in New Orleans. ``Snowball! Snowball!'' the boy cried until he vomited. The policeman told a reporter he didn't know what would happen to the dog.
The fate of pets is a huge but underappreciated cause of anguish for storm survivors, said Richard Garfield, professor of international clinical nursing at New York's Columbia University.
``People in shelters are worried about 'Did Fluffy get out?''' he said. ``It's very distressing for people, wondering if their pets are isolated or starving.''
Valerie Bennett left her dogs with an anesthesiologist who was taking care of about 30 staff members' pets on the roof of the hospital, Lindy Boggs Medical Center.
The doctor euthanized some animals at the request of their owners, who feared they would be abandoned and starve to death. He set up a small gas chamber out of a plastic-wrapped dog kennel.
``The bigger dogs were fighting it. Fighting the gas. It took them longer. When I saw that, I said 'I can't do it,''' said Bennett's husband, Lorne.
But the anesthesiologist, a cat owner, promised to care for the other pets.
``He said he'd stay there as long as he possibly could,'' Valerie Bennett recalled, speaking from her husband's bedside at Atlanta's Emory University Hospital.
The Bennetts had four animals, including their two beloved dogs - Lorne's English springer spaniel, Oreo, and Valerie's miniature dachshund, Lady.
They moved to Slidell, La., in July when Valerie took a job at an organ transplant institute connected to Lindy Boggs. Lorne, a former paramedic, is disabled since undergoing a liver transplant in 2001.
On Saturday, as Hurricane Katrina approached, both went to the hospital to help and took all four animals with them.
Patients were evacuated starting Monday by rescue workers using small boats to traverse the floodwaters surrounding the hospital. On Wednesday night, the Bennetts were told they had to go, too.
They fed their guinea pig and left it in its cage in a patient room. They couldn't refill its empty water bottle because the hospital's plumbing failed Sunday, they said. They poured food on the floor for the cat, but again no water.
``I just hope that they forgive me,'' Valerie Bennett cried.
They handed the dogs to the anesthesiologist. Valerie got his last name but no cell phone number. ``I wasn't thinking,'' she said.
But on Saturday afternoon, Valerie Bennett said she saw a posting on a Web site called petfinder.com that said the anesthesiologist was still at Lindy Boggs caring for the animals.
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Even in emergencies like this, there are rescue workers that let things go to their heads. With that little boy, it was probably some jerk that got of on the power he had rather than the compassion he should have had.
Actually, there is a section under FEMA specifically for the rescuing of pets during emergencies.
Where is PUKA I mean PETA? in this situation
Last year in FL, practically every hotel and motel waived their no pets rule for people evacuating from the storms. Very few proplems were encountered. Everyone ewas aware of the situation and did their best handling their pets.
PETA and HSUS don't do shelters. They try to get face time for soliciting donations and they get in the way of the people that do know what they are doing.
You are quite correct. There is a large DART team presence in Pinellas COunty and there are loads of volunteers from people going to rescue the animals down to epople willing to foster them until their families get situated. They will be working their butts of on this. The hardest part was gettig enough air conditioned vehicles for the volume of animals being gathered
Microchipping was the most successful method. Also, if you do get separated from your pet, make sure you have a photo of your pet with you in it. It's a great way to prove that the dog to cat is yours. Too many poepl do try to get a nice purebred animal after a disaster by claiming it is theirs.
Let me see. I'm a hotel owner who's going to take in hordes of folks I've just seen rioting on TV, who have a culture of entitlement, and I've got no great assurance I'm ever going to see a dime for the weeks or months I will have to put them up.
What do I need to make my pleasure complete? Their cats clawing my curtains to ribbons and sharpening claws on my furniture, their nervous little dogs pissing on the rug regularly, and their large dogs baying all night and upsetting any paying customers I might still have. Oh, that sounds just ducky.
There's a reason that most hotels and most landlords have a no-pets policy: that reasom is that most pet owners are blind to the damage done by their critters -- especially when what's being damaged is someone else's.
If people have had no food in five days, it's not time to loot the 7:11, it's time to warm up the brazier and dress out Fido.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
How sad. Some people will be fighting depression for a very long time.
I can't do much, but I would have happily gone into debt to fly that little boy's dog to my home and keep it safe for him until they could be reunited, paying to fly it back. He will never trust a policeman again and will be traumatized for the rest of his life. Hopefully nothing worse befell him in the shelter.
I'd rather take in a pet than a person. If my health were better, I wouldn't minded sharing my home with a couple of those mothers with babies, but if they are on drugs or have boyfriends . . .I am unable to cope with that sort of thing any more.
This is way off topic, but if more mothers nursed their children, the babies might not have died. I'm not criticizing them for not doing it. To save my baby, I would try to find someone who would nurse it like they used to have wet nurses if anybody is humane enough to do that any more. It would be taking a risk, but then I suppose it always was and we just didn't know it as I think diseases can be transmitted through breast milk. Most healthy women can easily nurse two babies.
See my other post. PETA doesn't do shelter/rescue work. They are a mouthpiece and that's all.
When you are old and alone, when you are sick, ignored, lonesome your pet is vital and is adored. They are a blessing from God and they become family and sometimes the best friend in the world.
It is an unneeded cruelty to people who have lost everything in the world to tell them they now have to leave that pet uncared for without food or water and abandon it. Utter cruelty by those who do not understand what pets mean to people that need them.
Look at how many people would not evacuate or go to the shelters because they could not take their pets. So, we have to have helicopters save their lives now.
They get to a shelter and finally get care and FEMA will bring in psychiatrists to help them adjust to their loss. Big deal, that pet would probably help them more than any of the psychiatric babel.
And, a few small animals in those relief centers brings peace and joy and provide a warm, friendly distraction. Which is why many nursing homes have nursing home pets roaming around.
We need to have that policy adjusted a little. People are the primary goal, but there are cases where that pet is just as important to that person than a relative. Why be so harsh?
I'm sort of surprised the crowd didn't forcibly reverse his decision.
I keep hoping that the huge publicity given to that little boy's case, and the huge fuss he made after the dog was taken, will somehow result in the dog being kept safe and identifiable, and returned to the boy.
Yes, there are many groups doing that. But the chances of these pets being reunited with their owners are slim.
What you do is create a central website. Put up posters, announce site on TV, radio, at the shelters established for hurricane survivors, etc. so that the word gets out. The website can be governmental or private, doesn't matter. All those organizations or individuals who are sheltering animals that survived the hurricane should then photograph and post pictures of the animals they took in on that centralized site, and post a description of the dog, cat, etc. (breed, weight, size, color) so that the owners of animals that were separated from them can go to the website, scroll through the animals' pictures and descriptions, and then use a central contact phone number and/or e-mail address on the site, to find out where their pet is, and eventually reunite with the pet.
This should be relatively simple to do, as anyone who took in a pet pr pets can post from anywhere they live in the U.S. Or, if they took in a pet and are not computer savvy, they can go to a local animal shelter or library to have them send in a digital picture and description to the website (and put the directions on how to do this on the website itself). Problem solved.
I wouldn't leave my dogs for anything. I'd eat bark before leaving my dogs. The philosophy I have gained since owning my dogs has saved my life, slowed my pace, and is on the edge of making me semi-upper middle class.
I'd build a raft and sail out to sea before taking a bus without my dogs.
P.S., in refining the website, there would be headings for dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, etc., so that the owners can go directly to the list for the type of animal(s) they own. And, if possible, the location of where they found the animal (specific or general vicinity) should be listed by those that gave shelter to the animals. But I'm sure someone would design a fine website. A group like Noah's Ark or some other large pet shelter group might want to pick up on this, create the site, get some backing maybe from the gov't, and get going on this project. I think it's a great idea, because I thought of it (hehehehe). Hope some organization or person might refine my ideas and actually do it.
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