You Ain't Never Had a Friend Like Me

Watching the news of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we all wished for a miracle. And last night, I saw a movie about one. Perhaps you've seen it. Been around awhile. It's called Aladdin. At the risk of ruining the surprise, a genie saves the day.

One song in the movie had a particularly catchy rhythm, and powerful lyrics. It ends like this, with the genie promising Aladdin to fulfill his wishes:

Mister Aladdin, sir, have a wish or two or three
I'm on the job, you big nabob
You ain't never had a friend, never had a friend
You ain't never had a friend, never had a friend
You ain't never had a friend like me.

"You ain't never had a friend like me." It could've been my Scottish Terrier, Duffy, singing the lyrics. Because we've made a kind of pact, Duffy and I and Rudi (my wife): "All for one, and one for all." I've never had a friend like him.

Rudi and I aren't alone among pet owners. Approximately 36% of the nation's households own dogs (an average of 1.6 apiece). Approximately 32% of the households own cats (an average of 2.1 apiece). (The two groups don't total 68% of the nation, since some people own both cats and dogs). I assume that the same percentages apply to Katrina's victims – and to the rescuers. And of those owners and rescuers both, I assume that most of them have bonded with their pets in the same way that we have with ours. It certainly sounds like it, judging at least from the news reports, such as the one of the child who was so upset at being forced to leave his dog behind when he was rescued that he cried until he vomited.

So how to explain this report, from the web site of the Humane Society of Canada (at humanesociety.com)?

There are reports that government officials in New Orleans and other areas hard hit by Katrina are preventing animal rescue efforts in the mistaken belief that this will take resources away from the relief and recovery efforts and make the evacuation of people more orderly and effective. Based upon our experience in working in disaster and war zones, it will instead have the opposite effect, as people will resist leaving their pets behind and there will be a strong public outcry and opposition in the event stray animals are harmed. In our judgment this will increase the risk to people and animals in the disaster zones.

We have expressed our concerns to the Office of the US Ambassador to Canada [remember, this is a Canadian group] who has advised that this is a decision made by local government officials and FEMA which is responsible for emergency preparedness and response.

Well, okay, but that's just Canada, right? Probably just some intra-continental, cross-border jealousy thing? No. Read this report from the web site of Best Friend Animal Society, at bestfriends.com

Kanab, UT (9/09/2005 ) - Best Friend Animal Society's photojournalist Troy Snow filed the following report from inside New Orleans where time is running out for the animals. To date Best Friends is the only animal rescue group rescuing animals from the flooded streets in metro New Orleans.
Troy Snow's report:
Sept. 8: In Orleans Parish, animals still cling to life and to trees, standing on car tops, in flooded areas as rescue grows more urgent
Reported by Troy Snow: We exit the I-10, drive down the off-ramp, and park our truck at the water's edge of what were once the streets of New Orleans. Two bloated human bodies lie half-in, half-out, looking like they may explode any moment.
Ken Ray unhitches the boat. He's a volunteer from Alabama, who came out to help, discovered we need boats, and drove another 700 miles to go and get his own boat.
We spend the day in roughly just a 3-block area. Three of us are on this boat: Ethan and Jeff, staffers from Best Friends Dogtown, and me, Troy, helping them and taking a few photos. First, we see two pit bull dogs standing on the edge of a recreational boat parked in a driveway. They must have been standing there since the hurricane blew in 11 days ago. We cut through the fence to let our boat come closer and pull up to the dogs. They jump aboard and smother us in kisses. These must have been fighting dogs. One of them is covered in old scars.
Next, we see two more pit bulls standing on the roof of a car. One of them dives into the water and starts swimming to us as we pull closer. We pull him aboard and navigate our way toward his pal. He looks just like Tawny – but tired and fearful and not sure whether we're friend or foe. … OK, now we have him. He's smiling now. He knows he's safe.
In all, we gather up just 10 dogs. Each one means navigating up to fenced yards, cutting through the fence to get the boat in, grabbing tree branches to pull up toward the porch. Some pets are on porches, some still indoors. At one address where we have permission to enter, we hear a dog barking through the windows. We pull up to the window and see him inside, standing on the bed to stay above the water line. At other houses, we can't break through the fence although we hear meowing.
Several times during the day, we go back to the freeway off-ramp to deliver the dogs to Ken who's waiting at water's edge. On one trip, we're joined by a reporter from the Los Angeles Times who's seen us from the freeway and stopped to see what we're doing.
At the end of the day, with a boatful of dogs, we return to the freeway ramp once again. It's beginning to get dark. We hitch the boat back up to the truck and are about to leave when we hear an eerie howl in the dusk, echoing across the neighborhood. First we say to ourselves, we'll get him tomorrow. Then we look at each other, and unhitch the boat again. The dog is about 300 yards away, standing in the back of an old truck. Again, he's been sitting there for 11 days, bewildered, emaciated, dehydrated. The water there is about five-foot deep. We bring him aboard.
On the way back we see a cat on a roof. Try to get there. Can't do it.
We have photos, details, and addresses of every animal we've picked up. Hopefully, one day, they'll all be reunited with families – at least if their families are not like the ones lying there on the off-ramp, half-in half-out of the water.
What we've done today is really just a drop in the bucket. There are thousands upon thousands more animals stranded like this, with only days, if that, before they too will just give out.
Why are we the only people in this entire area of town? Why are others being turned back when there is so much to be done? Will we even be allowed in tomorrow? At least, as we drive back to the sanctuary out of town, we have a few furry refugees with us. We comfort them as they comfort us.
I don't get it. Maybe you do? Summarizing the more poignant of the quotes from Mr. Snow's report: "There are thousands upon thousands more animals stranded like this, with only days [that was on September 8th] if that, before they too will just give out." … "Why are we the only people [rescuing pets] in this entire are of town?" … "Why are others being turned back when there is so much to be done?"

People come first. I understand that. Rescuing the living humans. Maybe dead humans come next. Burial of one's dead is an important human sacrament. But where on the check-list do we find feeding the starving dogs and giving drink to thirsty cats?

Folks, as I write these line, dogs and cats are dying from hunger and thirst. When many of them could have been saved.

Who turned away the would-be rescuers? And why? It wasn't just would-be rescuers of pets who were turned away: folks bringing food and water to desperate humans were turned away too. But the desperate humans are all saved now. (Or dead.) But the desperate dogs and cats were left behind.

When you bring a dog or cat into your life, you make it a promise, that you'll take care of it. What offends me isn't that in New Orleans and in the other hard-hit areas, pets weren't high on the list. It is that they weren't on the list at all.

In an e-mail to me on the morning of Wednesday, September 14, 2005, Michael Mountain, President of Best Friends Animal Society, said that "tens of thousands" of pets remained to be rescued, and that for most of them, it is probably too late to be saved.

Do you find the estimate of "tens of thousands" unrealistic? This wasn't the first time an estimate for the number of animals affected has arisen. In an MSNBC article by Carl Sullivan on September 13, 2005, a Web Exclusive credited to Newsweek, Mr. Sullivan asked "how many pets would be in a city the size of New Orleans." In reply, the spokeswoman for the shelter operated by the School of Veterinary Medicine at Louisiana State University replied that "There's been an estimate of 10,000 animals in the New Orleans area – based on about a million people there, if one out of ever 10 persons has a pet." Hey, look, I'm an attorney in part because I don't like math, but even I know that if one out of ten people of 1,000,000 people had pets, that is 100,000 pets, not 10,000. A huge difference.

But the estimate that one out of ten people had pets is likely a dramatic underestimate. Assuming a metropolitan population of 1,000,000 (although the actual population of the metropolitan area is larger), and using the method of estimation from the American Veterinary Medical Association based on national averages, the pre-hurricane dog population in the New Orleans metropolitan area would be estimated not at 10,000 dogs, but at 216,329. And the number of cats? Tthe same procedure gives us an estimate of 238,538 cats. Added together, almost half the human population. 454,867 pet. Even if we were only talking about the City of New Orleans itself (with a population of approximately 500,000), that would still mean a pre-hurricane population of almost 110,000 dogs. Put like that, it doesn't sound at all unrealistic to estimate that tens of thousands of dogs are dying because no one with the power to do it cared enough to organize a large-scale relief effort. And these figures ignore the population of stray pets and dogs, estimated to be much larger.

I asked if the Best Friends relief effort had been stymied from lack of money, from lack of manpower, or from governmental interference. Mr. Mountain replied that

Really all three of these options. [Governmental] interference was the big one. For more than a week, we were virtually the only rescue group able to get access to the city. That was because we had a special permit to work with animal control in Jefferson Parish. Everyone else was being turned back.

Plus, people were not allowed to leave with their pets.

And when government rescue boats and trucks went around, they were told not to accept pets, too. All of which actually held up the human rescue effort because people were so reluctant to leave without their pets. In cases where we were allowed to go along too and take the pets, the whole human rescue operation was accelerated because people were confident that their pets would be ok.

I asked Mountain to identify what governmental officials, if any, were the guilty ones. Local government? State government? National Guard? FEMA? He said that has yet to be fully investigated. But, he said it was "definitely no fault due to the military. We went around with the 82nd Airborne 3rd Battalion on a couple of occasions, and they couldn't have been better."

Are any particular policies to blame, I asked? "Absolutely," he replied: "The basic policy that animals are irrelevant, don't count, don't matter. These are people's family members."

I asked if there was anything else he would like to tell our readers.

The public outpouring of support has been the best thing ever, and so encouraging. It totally proves that people agree that saving the animals is a priority -- they're not just furniture!

We have daily update on our website at www.bestfriends.org, and details of how people can still help.

The rescue efforts on the street may be drawing to a close, but the next stage is reunions with families, and foster/adoption homes for the thousands who have been rescued. This will all be going on for many months.

And there will still be many rescues meanwhile as the waters recede and animals emerge who were somehow able to survive.

Sadly, for many pets, even being rescued was not a path to safety. MSNBC reported on September 13, 2005 that many families who did manage to get their pets out with them found that they couldn't keep them in shelters or temporary homes. And in a related story on September 14, 2005, MSNBC reported that while State law only requires that pets be kept 15 days before being (as the euphemism goes) being "put down," the group Noah's Wish is giving owners 30 days. Thirty days. We're now 17 days or so from the hurricane. Tick… Tock… Tick…Tock…

Think it is outrageous the way pets are being allowed to die, with even their would-be rescuers kept away? Call the White House (202-456-1111). Call your Congressman (for San Juan Islanders, Rick Larsen at (800) 562-1385). Call your Senators (for San Juan Islanders, Maria Cantwell at 202-224-3441 and Patty Murray at 202-224-2621). Or contribute to the animal welfare group of your choice. If you want to learn more about Best Friends, check them out at bestfriends.org


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