What Hurricane Katrina has torn asunder, The HSUS Reunion Center tries to bring back together.
To date, more than 460 reunions have been confirmed by Reunion Center case workers who spend hours following imperfect paper trails in painstaking attempts to reunite displaced pet owner with animal. Below are just two stories among the hundreds of successful reunions. The first was written by Valerie Sheppard, director of Humane Society University, and the second by Traci Bryant, director of academic programs for Humane Society University. Both have been taking time away from their full-time jobs to reunite Katrina evacuees with their pets.
Paula Messick and Carmine
Paula Messick's story began the moment Hurricane Katrina's floodwater started to seep into her New Orleans home. Messick and her cherished dog, Carmine, struggled to stay dry for three days. Carmine turned out to be quite a hero. Whenever Carmine found a dry spot, he pulled along Paula, who is terminally ill.
Because of her illness, Paula realized she must seek medical care. She tried to flag down a passing boat by waving yellow pillow cases. They took one look at Carmine by her side and kept sailing down the river that once was a street. The next boat, a pirogue, stopped, but the boater won't let Paula bring Carmine. But he promised that his dad, who was staying put, will check in on the dog. Paula secured the back door in a way so that Carmine could escape the house if needed, then she bid her faithful companion good-bye—until who knows when.
As Paula began a 12-hour voyage to safety, which included a trip in a truck with some dead bodies and ended up at a small hospital in Houston, Carmine began his own adventure.
Once released from the hospital, Paula started an anguished online search for Carmine. She eventually found him on Petfinder.com's rescued Katrina pets section, and then called The HSUS's Reunion Center to explain her desperation: "He was my companion and possibly added years to my life," she said. "I was diagnosed as terminal in '02 and have outlived my doctors' predictions thanks to him."
He saved her. But could someone have saved him?
Meanwhile, Linda Blair, actress, animal advocate, and founder of Linda Blair Worldheart Foundation, had the gut-wrenching task of selecting 50 dogs, from among hundreds, whom she could personally evacuate to foster homes. "Somehow, Carmine spoke to me," Linda later said on her web site in a letter to Paula. "He visually and spiritually suggested I take him along."
So Blair brought him to New Mexico via Mississippi and Texas.
Given Blair's background in film, perhaps it was only fitting that Paula's story have a Hollywood ending. Next week, Blair is flying Carmine to Paula's waiting arms. "My baby's coming home to Momma," Paula blissfully declared.
Still, Paula worried. "Do you think he'll be mad at me that I left him?" Not to fear. We suspect her boy, the dog she met during Mardi Gras, will be celebrating once again when he sees her. —Valerie Sheppard
Karen and Kaya
It was my very first day working at the Reunion Center—and my first case. I didn't feel I was off to a very good start since, after reading the information on the contact sheet, I couldn't even figure out why this person had called. The caller, Judy, requested information on a lost dog. Her message, however, stated that she had the dog at a kennel in New Jersey. She knew the dog's name was Kaya, and knew it was found in Louisiana.
If she had the dog, I thought, why was she calling on a lost report? I'd have to call and figure out what was going on.
As soon as she answered the phone, Judy's warmth and energy were evident. She did have the dog in a kennel in New Jersey—but the dog wasn't hers. Judy was a foster caretaker who so badly wanted to help this hurricane-orphaned animal find her family that she searched Petfinder.com's database until she found a lost report that matched the dog she had. We talked a bit, and Judy gave me some identifying information on the dog so that I could "quiz" the person who'd entered the lost report, and see if it, indeed was a match.
I was nervous calling Karen, who had entered the lost pet report on Petfinder.com. What if I got her hopes up, and it turned out not to be her dog? I began by explaining to Karen that a foster in New Jersey thought she may have the dog Karen was looking for, but I was careful not to sound too excited.
After asking some preliminary descriptive questions, I got to the big one: Did her dog have a collar? She did! Karen went on to describe the collar, the St. Bernard Animal Parish 2004 rabies tag, and how she'd scrawled the name KAYA into the collar. I tried to remain as calm as I could, and simply said, "Well, ma'am, I believe this is your dog."
I wasn't prepared, however, for the deep, heart-wrenching sobbing on the other line—and within seconds not only was I crying, but several volunteers on the phones next to me were wiping their eyes.
I came to find that Karen was one of the brave souls who stayed behind with her animals during the hurricane. As she put it, "I would never leave my babies." However, the water was rising to deadly levels and she was forced by rescue teams in boats to leave her home. She was not able to bring her three large dogs with her. Barron, a reddish German Shepherd, and Cisco, a German Shepherd/malamute cross, are, as of this writing, still missing.
But Kaya, a little wolf-like German Shepherd, will soon be back in Karen's arms—courtesy of Judy Marinaro, a volunteer with Companion Animal Placement Program, who went the extra step to bring a furry bundle of happiness back into a life flooded with grief and destruction. Truly, there are angels everywhere. —Traci Bryant
