Pray for the people, pray for the innocent animals.
Posted on 09/04/2005 12:04:39 PM PDT by Fawn
AP Photo GAGB101
Associated Press Writer
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.
At the hospital, a 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.
Valerie Bennett left her dogs with the anesthesiologist, who promised to care for about 30 staff members' pets on the roof of the hospital, Lindy Boggs Medical Center.
``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.
On Saturday afternoon, she said she saw a posting on a Web site called petfinder.com that said the anesthesiologist was still caring for the animals.
Louisiana State Treasurer John Kennedy, who was helping with relief efforts Saturday, said some evacuees refused to leave without their pets.
``One woman told me 'I've lost my house, my job, my car and I am not turning my dog loose to starve,''' Kennedy said.
Kennedy said he persuaded refugees to get on the bus by telling them he would have the animals taken to an exhibition center.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals picked up two cats and 15 dogs, including one Kennedy found tied up beneath the overpass next to an unopened can of dog food with a sign that read ``Please take care of my dog, his name is Chucky.''
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.''
The Bennetts had four animals, including two beloved dogs.
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.
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.
Take care of your animals, but when a National Guard boat comes to your rooftop and insists no animals--only humans, then you may be left dying on your house in the company of your now feral animals.
The rescue workers have the correct priority on this. Animals need to be left to fend for themselves under such circumstances. However, if you were able to plan ahead, then by all means, care for your pets.
And your life is more important to me than that of my own pets.
I can handle that.
Bull! God does not insist that animals must die when they don't have to. He doesn't insist that we shouldn't care, or that we should abandon the animals to the eliments when we have the means to save them.
Glad you have a plan. So do I. I would stay with my animals. Pure and simple. You don't know me.
:) Hope you can take some of these pets. Maybe if everyone took a few and then just cared for them, eveutually with photos and emails and Free Republic and other networks the owners and animals could be reunited eventually. Wouldn't that be wonderful?
:) The more I'm around people the more I like my pets. :)
I thought I'd shed the last tear for a while over this travesty. I was wrong. :/ I also realize there will be many more shed as more of these stories come out of NOLA.
Pray for the people, pray for the innocent animals.
I am volunteering to redo their site for them. It is abominable. I have broadband and I finally gave up on it loading the gargantuan pictures that made it impossible to read the text before it jumped elsewhere to yet another gargantuan pic being loaded. :/
If they would like it redone professionally for free, freepermail me.
"Hey, there are animals I would prefer to spend my life with instead of some of the poor excuses that call themselves human."
Same here.
Thank you...I never heard of this org.......I just wrote them a check.
I love innocent animals BUMP
So sad. I would miss my dog more than any of my neighbors, and most of my possessions.
Me too! Besides, if just some of the abandoned pets can be reunited with their owners, think of the emotional boost for those folks who have lost all...
Understand were I’m coming from. If I saw my nephew and my cat drowning in a flood, or a stranger’s child or any adult human (assuming that they weren’t firing shots at me or intending to rape me) it would be my first priority to save the humans at any cost.
However I would also do everything in my power to save and keep safe my three cats. The oldest one a gentile female, Zeda who was named after a late season hurricane at the time I found her and to whom I absolutely credit with keeping my father alive and sane for the year and half he lived after my mother died.
I have reoccurring dreams about tornadoes (I don’t know why living in MD like I do) but a constant theme in these dreams is that I have to rescue children and my cats, bringing them all to safely in the basement of my house.
When Hurricane Isabel hit Maryland, I had my kennels out and ready to go and a plan to get them to safety just in case a tree came crashing down on my home.
My cats stayed with me after my husband left me, after friends I had had for years stopped calling after the separation and divorce. Dear Zelda roamed the house searching and cried for days after my father died. When I had a major bout of conjunctivitis with high fever that nearly had me hospitalized and could have cost me my vision, my cat Willie laid day and night with me, cuddled and pawed me gently as if he just wanted me to know he was there for me. They don't care what my politics are, if I gain weight or lose weight, if I go to church or not, how much I make or how I dress.
I don’t put human life before animal life but then “the more I see of people, the more I love my cats”.
If I lost all my wordly possession I could replace them, but if I lost my beloved freinds, it would possibly be more than I could take. I will donate to human releif efforts first but I will not forget the animals.
Does anyone know a good (definately not PETA or their ilk) animal relief agency?
Quite honestly, I do understand the emotion tied to pets - especially dogs. They can be "just like" part of the family. BUT - sometimes hard decisions have to be made - and the life of a human SHOULD come before the life of a pet. Period.
And my heart would be broken if I had to abandon one of our dogs in an emergency. If possible, I would take them with us. But again, if it's a case of their lives, or human life - I will go with human life.
A number of folks here have donated to Noah's Wish/www.noahswish.com
Some people will snicker but animals make life worth living for alot of people.....
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