Recently when a Phoenix dispatcher heard barking on the phone, he had no idea that a German shepherd named Buddy was attempting to save Joe Stainaker's life. The dog had been trained call 911 if Joe had a seizure. And that's what Buddy did. His distress call was just what the doctor ordered.
Most animal hero stories are not quite as dramatic as Buddy's and Joe's, but time and again animals rescue people. Now, as it happened following previous natural disasters, it's our turn to rescue the animals.
Below are some smaller organizations that need donations to help them in their good work. Consider going to their websites, checking them out, and helping. Even though Hurricanes Gustav and Ike have passed, it's not over for the animals nor for the organizations that serve them.
Hopeful Haven, www.hopefulhaven.com Debbie Barlow has been organizing convoys to take food and supplies to farm animals stranded in fields in Louisiana and to farmers and ranchers who can't get to the livestock. Saltwater has saturated the pastures. Hay is ruined. Debbie is bringing cat and dog food to the farms too. It's a desperate situation.
Humane Society of Louisiana, www.humanela.org Jeff Dorson has teamed up with Kenneth's Studio for Hair, a popular salon in Metairie and New Orleans to have what they're calling a 30 in 30 campaign. They want to raise $30,000 in 30 days. They're selling 8-inch plush cat and dog toys named Katrina, Gustav, and Ike online. This special fundraising effort is to bring desperately needed animal supplies and pet food to coastal parishes for the animal shelters there and for returning residents whose stores are closed. They're also having a Hurricane Pet Rally and Reception with a pet food drive in Metairie on September 20th.
MuttShack, www.muttshack.org Amelia St. James continues to work with parishes that need animals rescued and animal shelters refurbished. MuttShack worked closely with Louisiana State Animal Response Team (LSART) which oversees pet evacuations and all other animal-related agencies during disasters. MuttShack and LSART provided animal transport trucks and services at pickup points. Their professionalism and training helped things to go much more smoothly.
Animal Rescue New Orleans, www.animalrescueneworleans.org Charlotte Bass Lilly and Robin Beleau are two of the dedicated people we met when we visited New Orleans after writing our book, Rescued: Saving Animals from Disaster. Evidently their shelter has been destroyed, and they must rebuild. Meanwhile, they continue to coordinate volunteers to keep stranded animals alive.
Houston SPCA, http://hspca.convio.net/site/PageNavigator/homepage_new These are the Animal Cops people on Animal Planet. The organization has set up disaster hotlines for pets and wildlife. They sent rescue teams to areas of Texas that were hard-hit by the hurricanes to evacuate pets from animal shelters. On their website you can see what supplies they need.
Kinship Circle, www.KinshipCircle.org Brenda Shoss runs this organization that specializes in communication about animal rescue needs. Many animal rescuers turn to Kinship Circle for updates on who needs help and where it's needed. They coordinate volunteers for MuttShack's disaster relief. (See above.) Brenda writes in the September 10th issue, "At PPPs [Parish Pickup Points] we tagged animals with numbered bands that matched wristbands worn by their people - in case they became separated, as happened to stranded animals after Katrina. After detailed paperwork, evacuees boarded buses with small animals on their laps. Large animals traveled in airline carriers on climate-controlled trucks. Animals and people went to a mega-shelter in Shreveport, where they stayed side by side.
All of these people and organizations, and there are many more, deserve and need support. If you are reading this blog, at some time in your life, there was probably an animal who rescued you. Now, even though you help animals all the time, this is a special situation that calls for all of us to give back to the best of our ability. The animals, as always, will be grateful.
Showing posts with label animal rescue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animal rescue. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Animal Rescue Meets Hurricane Gustav
The good news is that from most accounts, animal rescue before and after the hurricane has improved tremendously. The majority of people with pets acted responsibly and brought their pets with them. Animal rescue groups worked side by side with government agencies to get pets onto buses or shipped in air-conditioned trucks to temporary shelters. Standardized record keeping meant people and pets would be reunited. Three years of applying lessons learned after Hurricane Katrina paid off.
See an NBC video clip for some of the best coverage we found about the disaster preparations for pets. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#26486144
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) video gives a good sense of how much better pet evacuation was organized. http://video.hsus.org/?fr_story=05a4cc52bd83b42070825840fbf20d4bf5c85728&rf=bm
For people who left their pets behind, no excuse is a good one this time. There were loads of options provided. The operation wasn't perfect but it was about a thousand percent better than after Katrina.
This leads us to another point. Pardon our soapbox here, but where was the media in reporting what would happen to the pets? National articles and television news segments didn't start mentioning animals until after most people were on their way out of the area.
It would have been very helpful for national media to report that people should be bringing their pets, having them in crates, and bringing medical records. Evidently word hasn't spread that when people think there's no safety for their pets, they will stay through a disaster. This endangers them, the animals, the first responders, and animal rescuers.
See the following article in USA Today's September 1 online edition for a short article about the evacuation. A longer article by Sharon L. Peters is in the Tuesday print edition in the Lifestyle section. We were quoted in these articles and asked to compare pet evacuation processes for the two hurricanes - Katrina and Gustav. "Gustav prompts mass pet evacuations, By Sharon L. Peters, USA TODAY Thousands of pet evacuations were carried out over the weekend ahead of Hurricane Gustav and plans and resources are in place to find and care for the left-behind animals that survive the hurricane. . .
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-09-01-gustav-pets_N.htm
Another aspect that fell short, in our opinion, was the availability of pet-friendly hotels. In destinations where people were evacuating, there still weren't nearly enough hotels that welcomed fleeing people with their pets.
We believe that in a crisis, such as a hurricane, ALL hotels should temporarily become pet friendly for those who have their pets in carriers. At least, they could provide pet rooms like smoking rooms. Pets will never do as much damage to a hotel room as humans. Anything a pet does can be cleaned with a good vacuum cleaner and stain remover. Can hotels say the same thing about their human guests?
Check out our website for information on how to prepare pets for disaster and what to keep on hand for any emergency. Go to www.rescuedsavinganimals.com and click on "Preparing for disaster tips."
Save your pet. Save your life. People get hurt when they stay behind or go back into danger to help their pets.
What have you seen or heard that impressed you about the Gustav pet evacuations?
See an NBC video clip for some of the best coverage we found about the disaster preparations for pets. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#26486144
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) video gives a good sense of how much better pet evacuation was organized. http://video.hsus.org/?fr_story=05a4cc52bd83b42070825840fbf20d4bf5c85728&rf=bm
For people who left their pets behind, no excuse is a good one this time. There were loads of options provided. The operation wasn't perfect but it was about a thousand percent better than after Katrina.
This leads us to another point. Pardon our soapbox here, but where was the media in reporting what would happen to the pets? National articles and television news segments didn't start mentioning animals until after most people were on their way out of the area.
It would have been very helpful for national media to report that people should be bringing their pets, having them in crates, and bringing medical records. Evidently word hasn't spread that when people think there's no safety for their pets, they will stay through a disaster. This endangers them, the animals, the first responders, and animal rescuers.
See the following article in USA Today's September 1 online edition for a short article about the evacuation. A longer article by Sharon L. Peters is in the Tuesday print edition in the Lifestyle section. We were quoted in these articles and asked to compare pet evacuation processes for the two hurricanes - Katrina and Gustav. "Gustav prompts mass pet evacuations, By Sharon L. Peters, USA TODAY Thousands of pet evacuations were carried out over the weekend ahead of Hurricane Gustav and plans and resources are in place to find and care for the left-behind animals that survive the hurricane. . .
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-09-01-gustav-pets_N.htm
Another aspect that fell short, in our opinion, was the availability of pet-friendly hotels. In destinations where people were evacuating, there still weren't nearly enough hotels that welcomed fleeing people with their pets.
We believe that in a crisis, such as a hurricane, ALL hotels should temporarily become pet friendly for those who have their pets in carriers. At least, they could provide pet rooms like smoking rooms. Pets will never do as much damage to a hotel room as humans. Anything a pet does can be cleaned with a good vacuum cleaner and stain remover. Can hotels say the same thing about their human guests?
Check out our website for information on how to prepare pets for disaster and what to keep on hand for any emergency. Go to www.rescuedsavinganimals.com and click on "Preparing for disaster tips."
Save your pet. Save your life. People get hurt when they stay behind or go back into danger to help their pets.
What have you seen or heard that impressed you about the Gustav pet evacuations?
Sunday, August 31, 2008
The Animals Need You after Hurricane Gustav
Our blog this week is focused on the preparations for Hurricane Gustav bearing down on the Gulf Coast.
Animal rescue experts urge people to prepare for disaster and evacuate with pets. A Zogby International study found that 44 percent of those who stayed behind when Hurricane Katrina hit did so because they wouldn't abandon their pets. Animal rescue and disaster preparedness for pets has become vital for saving human and animal lives.
On Thursday, we received a frantic call from a woman in Mississippi asking us where she could take her pet because she had to evacuate. The hotel the woman had found wouldn't accept pets. It's unbelievable, three years after Katrina, that there still aren't enough pet-friendly hotels. People died because they wouldn't leave their animal family members behind and had no place to go with them. This kind of tragedy can't be allowed to happen again.
Yet even though Hurricane Katrina precipitated the largest animal rescue operation in history, chronicled in our book, RESCUED, and the PETS Act provided federal incentives for states to include pet evacuation in disaster planning, complacency has returned.
Many people are simply not prepared with a pet disaster kit that contains food, water, photos of their pets, and medications. They haven't compiled a list of pet-friendly hotels along evacuation routes. (See www.rescuedsaving animals.com for items to pack in a pet disaster kit and tips for preparing to be safe in any emergency.) This means they are putting their lives, the lives of their pets, and the lives of animal rescuers at risk.
When we did interviews in New Orleans for RESCUED, we visited Animal Rescue New Orleans (ARNO). The executive director told us a story that we'll never forget. She explained that volunteers in search of abandoned animals after Hurricane Katrina found an entire family that had refused to evacuate because they couldn't bear to leave their pets behind. The family's cat, starving and nearly dead, was lifted off a woman's lap by the ARNO rescuer and brought to their shelter. The entire family had perished. We all had tears in our eyes while listening to this tragic story. People choose to stay in or return to dangerous situations rather than abandon their pets."
Below is a partial list of some of the organizations that are on the ground right now. They all need donations of money, NOT ITEMS, to keep them doing the good work of saving animals. It's a VERY costly process. Please consider making a donation.
United Animal Nations, uan.org
MuttShack Animal Rescue Foundation, muttshack.org
Animal Rescue New Orleans, animalrescuenreworleans.org
Humane Society of South Mississippi, hssm.org
Humane Society of Louisiana, humanela.org
Houston SPCA, houstonspca.org
Pets America, petsamerica.org
Hopeful Haven, hopefulhaven.com
Code 3 Associates, code3associates.org
Louisiana State Animal Rescue Team, lsart.org
International Fund for Animal Welfare, ifaw.org
Animal rescue experts urge people to prepare for disaster and evacuate with pets. A Zogby International study found that 44 percent of those who stayed behind when Hurricane Katrina hit did so because they wouldn't abandon their pets. Animal rescue and disaster preparedness for pets has become vital for saving human and animal lives.
On Thursday, we received a frantic call from a woman in Mississippi asking us where she could take her pet because she had to evacuate. The hotel the woman had found wouldn't accept pets. It's unbelievable, three years after Katrina, that there still aren't enough pet-friendly hotels. People died because they wouldn't leave their animal family members behind and had no place to go with them. This kind of tragedy can't be allowed to happen again.
Yet even though Hurricane Katrina precipitated the largest animal rescue operation in history, chronicled in our book, RESCUED, and the PETS Act provided federal incentives for states to include pet evacuation in disaster planning, complacency has returned.
Many people are simply not prepared with a pet disaster kit that contains food, water, photos of their pets, and medications. They haven't compiled a list of pet-friendly hotels along evacuation routes. (See www.rescuedsaving animals.com for items to pack in a pet disaster kit and tips for preparing to be safe in any emergency.) This means they are putting their lives, the lives of their pets, and the lives of animal rescuers at risk.
When we did interviews in New Orleans for RESCUED, we visited Animal Rescue New Orleans (ARNO). The executive director told us a story that we'll never forget. She explained that volunteers in search of abandoned animals after Hurricane Katrina found an entire family that had refused to evacuate because they couldn't bear to leave their pets behind. The family's cat, starving and nearly dead, was lifted off a woman's lap by the ARNO rescuer and brought to their shelter. The entire family had perished. We all had tears in our eyes while listening to this tragic story. People choose to stay in or return to dangerous situations rather than abandon their pets."
Below is a partial list of some of the organizations that are on the ground right now. They all need donations of money, NOT ITEMS, to keep them doing the good work of saving animals. It's a VERY costly process. Please consider making a donation.
United Animal Nations, uan.org
MuttShack Animal Rescue Foundation, muttshack.org
Animal Rescue New Orleans, animalrescuenreworleans.org
Humane Society of South Mississippi, hssm.org
Humane Society of Louisiana, humanela.org
Houston SPCA, houstonspca.org
Pets America, petsamerica.org
Hopeful Haven, hopefulhaven.com
Code 3 Associates, code3associates.org
Louisiana State Animal Rescue Team, lsart.org
International Fund for Animal Welfare, ifaw.org
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
