KELLY DAVIES
Staff Writer
I went to the Malibu Coast Animal Hospital last month for a story on the animals that had been housed from the Topanga Fire. I chatted with the receptionists and watched the veterinarians scoot excitedly from one end of the tiny hospital to the other. I set up my equipment and trucked it out to the backyard, expecting to find poodles with pink bows barking at me from their Louis Vuitton doggy-beds.
But what I found was something quite different. No designer beds, no diamond collars. You see, these dogs didn’t have those things because everything they had was lost — in Hurricane Katrina.
Malibu is just one of the cities throughout the nation that is housing animals after the disaster in the Gulf Coast, whose owners could not take them, who have been left behind and unclaimed.
I’m an animal lover, so this story gets me right in the heart. Back home, I have three goats, a few chickens, an old pig named Sparky and a very obese dog named, appropriately, after chocolate (Coco Bear). I’ve had these guys for more than 10 years, and I can’t imagine having to leave them behind.
But the people in the Gulf Coast have had to do just that, and now their loved ones are our neighbors. Like Fannie, the Humane Society’s Dog of the Week. Fannie’s description says, “I’m a beautiful 5-year-old shepherd mix who was flown here from Texas after Hurricane Rita only to come to Florida and have to go through Hurricane Wilma. I’m a shy gal who is very sweet and is looking for a quiet home where I will be loved. I’m just one of many pets in need of a permanent loving home.”
Two months have gone by and there are still hundreds of shelters across the nation that have taken in Katrina’s displaced animals. A Google search for “Katrina dogs” gives me countless Web pages where I can donate, search for, or volunteer to help lost animals.
“National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week” kicked off Monday, sponsored by the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control. The program encourages Southlanders to adopt more than 350,000 cats and dogs in shelters as part of the “Iams Home 4 the Holidays 2005” program, which will run through Jan. 2.
That same day, the Santa Monica Police Department announced they are offering five dogs for adoption that have been rescued from New Orleans. Before October.
But the effects of the hurricane weren’t limited to a secluded area. There are thousands of animals across the nation being placed in shelters. There are almost 30 shelters in California alone that are housing them. And last month, volunteers with Animal Rescue New Orleans pulled more than 400 living dogs from the wreckage.
The hurricane didn’t just stay in the South; it came to Malibu. I can’t adopt, since dog-smuggling into campus doesn’t appear to be an option. Yet I’m not left feeling helpless. I feel pride that I live where more than 20 Katrina dogs were once housed, and as of Monday, every last one has been adopted. Something like this reminds me that disaster affects us all, that the pain and hopes of others can be felt thousands of miles away, and we are all connected in the most unexpected of ways.
For more information on the dogs being offered in Santa Monica call (310) 450-6179.
11-10-2005
