By Tim Carman

September 8, 2005

NEW ORLEANS—Cats pose a unique set of challenges for rescue units here in this ghost town where animals may now outnumber residents, who have been ordered to leave the Big Easy until officials can restore power, drain out the water, and decontaminate a city that smells of rotting garbage, waste, and most certainly death.

Thursday morning, under yet another day of blistering sun, The HSUS’s Disaster Animal Response Teams (DART), as well as volunteer rescuers from all over the country, found themselves locked in a battle to save cats, hundreds of them, whose traits of hiding in tight spaces and avoiding strangers made for lengthy and sometimes frustrating encounters.

One two-truck team, led by Bruce Earnest, a DART veteran, spent a good portion of the morning chasing down felines in two residences. The first of the two, a carriage house on Tchoupitoulas, served as an object lesson on the difficulties in rounding up cats who’d prefer to remain independent, even if it could ultimately cost them their lives.

The owner of the carriage house had left the key with volunteers at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, Louisiana, where The HSUS and the Louisiana SPCA have set up a temporary shelter and staging area. The owner also left directions as well as the number of cats who needed rescuing: a staggering 13. Every member on Earnest’s team knew what that likely meant.

Sure enough, as soon as HSUS volunteer Jane Garrison opened the door to the tiny, three-room carriage house, the stench assaulted her nostrils. Feces and urine covered almost every square inch of the dwelling, from the kitchen floor to the futon mattress in the bedroom, to the overflowing litter box in the back bathroom. It was as if someone had poured a 60-gallon drum of ammonia in there.

A pair of cats was secured in relatively short order, although not without incident. The second, grabbed by HSUS volunteer Drew Moore from Portland, Oregon, shredded his rubber gloves as he placed the animal into a carrier. Moore, to the astonishment of all, came away without a single scratch. The remaining cats proved to be even more troublesome.

As Garrison and Earnest flushed the cats from their bathroom hideaway, the animals bolted and zig-zagged their away across the litter-strewn bedroom and directly into the dim, densely packed kitchen. With all the cats huddled in the kitchen, the team constructed a blockade consisting of flimsy cardboard boxes, a large package of paper towels, cat carriers, and sheets, in an attempt to keep the animals isolated in this area. The team constructed a similar makeshift barrier to the bathroom entrance.

Alone in the kitchen, Moore tried to grab the first of about 10 cats huddled in dank corners and cabinets. But before he could get a hold, the cat blitzkrieged his way through the kitchen blockade, across the bedroom, and wormed his way through the bathroom barrier. Undaunted, the team constructed a more impermeable barrier, using a dirty piece of luggage, a blanket and even a piece of wire mesh found inexplicably in the house. Once again, this Leavenworth prison wall proved no match for one escape artist. Another feline dug her way through the barrier and ran for the bathroom.

Finally, Earnest suggested changing tactics. Garrison quickly agreed.

Back outside the carriage house, the team members encountered a number of people gathered there to get the team's attention, including a member of the National Guard who had a wildlife and environmental background. She offered the Guard's help, and a DART member asked if the military had any traps that could be used at the carriage house. The guardswoman readily agreed to check into it.

Second Time’s a Charm

Meanwhile, a tall man in a T-shirt and shorts was standing by, patiently waiting for his turn to speak. Once he did, Wendell Miller explained that a friend of a friend had six cats trapped in a locked house on nearby Camp Street. Miller only had a key to the fenced gate, and he wanted the team's assistance breaking into the home and rescuing the animals.

The house was a veritable fortress. Not only did it have a locked brick-and-iron fence, but it also had a locked wrought-iron gate in front of a heavy wooden door. The team determined the only way in was through the French doors leading into a side room filled with prints and paintings of dogs and cats in various costumes.

But even the seemingly simple task of smashing a glass door proved tricky. It was a double-pane door with safety tempered glass, which surprisingly deflected the blows of Earnest’s crowbar. That's when Miller, without prompting, picked up a giant piece of brick and hurled it at the door. It shattered the first layer of glass. Earnest finished off the second pane with yet another brick fastball.

The same smells of ammonia and feces that assaulted the senses at the carriage house were present here, too, just in smaller doses. Even though Miller reported that the cats were supposed to be confined to three rooms, it was clear the animals had the run of the spacious house. Feces littered almost every room.

Moore and Earnest somehow found and captured two cats buried between the washer and drier in a narrow room crowded with folded and loose clothes, which provided ideal hiding places for fearful felines. Garrison discovered cats three and four hiding under the bed in the main bedroom, which was likewise brimming with stacks of carefully folded clothes, not to mention a network of furniture that afforded even more secure locations for small animals. Using tiny tins of cat food and enormous amounts of patience, Garrison lay on her stomach for minute after minute after minute, cooing and sweet-talking the cats out of their dark lairs.

The final two cats were also discovered in the same bedroom. Earnest secured cat number five behind a heavy dresser, while the last feline, a beautiful black-and-white creature, decided to play a cat-and-mouse game with Moore.

Moore initially located the cat under a piece of furniture, behind a stack of clothes, but when he tried to grab the animal, he flitted to a space under the bed. Moore patiently tried to woo the animal out, but once again the cat scampered away—only to stop dead in his tracks at the site of another rescue team member. That’s when, after minutes of pursuing the animal, Moore easily grabbed the frozen cat and put him into a carrier.

By the time its Thursday adventures were over, Earnest's team had rescued approximately 15 cats from the Uptown neighborhood of New Orleans.

Dog Daze

For those who love to dissect the differences between cats and dogs, New Orleans provides yet another case study. While cats are largely confined to homes, dogs generally are free-roaming, their travels limited only by floodwaters and their own sense of fear.

Like the abandoned cats, the stranded and stray dogs of New Orleans come in many different personalities. Some are approachable, some are not. Some will try to bite you; some will try to lick you.

The main difference between cats and dogs down here is geography. If a cat's geography is limited to four walls, a dog’s is virtually boundless. Unless the dog is fenced in, he is free to use the entire city as a hiding place. This does not make for easy work for rescue teams.

Earnest's team on Thursday tracked down about 14 dogs in Uptown, but couldn't convince at least another four to give up their wandering ways. Of those captured, many eagerly embraced the rescue team’s offerings of water, food, and cool place to rest, including a sweet Rotweiler who was lying quietly under a holly bush beside the front porch of a house on Fourth Street. The dog was so quiet, in fact, that Moore "thought he was dead" at first. But the Rottie gingerly rose from his leafy refuge and walked sweetly to the rescue truck.

If only the white boxer on Soraparu Street were so gracious. Earnest and Moore used bolt cutters to slip the chain off the fence that held the animal, who clearly eyed each man suspiciously. If the truth be told, Earnest and Moore weren't so sure about the dog either. They all kept a certain degree of distance in this complicated ballet between animal and rescuer that used the entire backyard as a stage.

Earnest and Moore tried every trick at their disposal: treats, water, comforting words, and bodily supplication. Earnest even employed the "Want to go for a ride?" ploy. Nothing worked on this poor boxer who circled his backyard, where a bath towel still dangled from a clothesline, a sign of the surreal in the this now-deserted city. 

In the end, the boxer seemed to simply surrender to the idea of capture. Perhaps Earnest and Moore had proven their worth to the animal. Perhaps the boxer finally sensed their inherent decency and trustworthiness. Whatever the reason, when Moore put out some food, the boxer promptly ignored it and walked over to Earnest, who quickly leashed the dog. The boxer trotted with Earnest over to the rescue truck, friendly as could be, and jumped right into his air-conditioned crate.

Short on Space

With their two trucks filled to capacity with animals, Earnest and company headed back to the Lamar-Dixon compound late Thursday, around 9 p.m., only to find another challenge awaiting them: a lack of kennel space.

While no official numbers were readily available on the number of animals already sheltered at Lamar-Dixon, The HSUS teams have been involved with more than 1,500 animal rescues in Louisiana and Mississippi. At Lamar-Dixon, those overseeing the operation said that they had temporarily run out of crates, as well as space for more dogs and cats.

Already tired, sunburned, and hungry, Moore and Earnest waited patiently by their trucks as officials cleared more space for the flood of animals that now are pouring out of the city, reminiscent of the flood waters that spilled into the city only a week before.

Tim Carman is managing editor of hsus.org.