There are many owners out there trying to find their pets still.
Go to www.lostkatrinapets.com to see some of the pets owners are still searching for.
Reunions are still happening. Just this week the owners of a 14 year old Shar-pei were reuinited with the dog.
And did you read what I wrote earlier about Lost In the System pets? Max from the NBC story is one of those that made it to LaMar Dixon (emergency shelter set-up for animals post-Katrina), then disappeared. No one can tell where he went after he got there.
Please go back and read post # 5 for just some of the issues owners who are seeking their pets are facing.
There was also Cheddar, a beagle, whose owners thought they had found him. They contacted the shelter who had taken responsibility for him. The shelter said they didn't have him, when they did. The owners still pressed them for more info. In the meantime, even knowing the owners were looking for him, the shelter adopted Cheddar out.
HSUS has asked that shelters not adopt out until 12/31, and also the pet is supposed to be posted on the Petfinder disaster site for at least 30 days first. HSUS' initial recommendation was 10/15. Many shelters have gone by that initial date, and have never posted pics on Petfinder.
Sleuthing? I don't mean to paint all shelters with a broad brush, because some have been excellent, some asking for long term fosters for these pets. But some had the people's contact info from the pet's tag, and didn't even try to contact them.
Some owners haven't "claimed them by now" because they have given them up for dead. But some haven't "claimed them by now" because the system of tracking pets (lost paperwork, no centralized database, no standardization of information collected, etc.) isn't a very good system at all, fraught with roadblocks, red tape, etc. And it's very much internet driven-- many of the owners haven't worked with computers, weren't aware of the pet resources on-line or had no computer access.
There's a woman who just set up an information booth in the 9th ward-- those residents just got to go back into the 9th ward on 12/1-- for information about how to search for pets, report pets they're looking for, etc. She was told by one person that she had asked the LASPCA about how to go about finding her dog and the LASPCA told her not to bother, they were all adopted out by now.
I don't mean to appear to criticize your work, while I sit far away and uninvolved.
I just would think at this point finding home for the pets is paramount over reunions with owners that may or may not ever find them.
If I had left a pet behind, I would rather my pet be adopted quickly into a home, than spend months in a kennel cage.
Notwithstanding legal technicalities about pets which were adopted out on a permanent basis, there's a special place in hell for anyone who adopted a pet whose hurricane-victim owner later located the pet, and then refused to give the pet back on the grounds that "it's legally mine now" -- and there have been a few reports of this.