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A Tale of Animal Rescue
(9/22/05) Ann and I have returned
home safely from New Orleans, having delivered 15 dogs,
and with two other volunteers, 25 cats as well to
Monadnock Humane Society.
We left for New Orleans last Wednesday, with a SUV
pulling a horse trailer full of supplies for the rescue
effort. Two other volunteers from shelters in New
England drove a van down with us. We planned on
delivering whatever we could pack in of our collected
supplies to the animal shelter in St. John's Parish
where we eventually picked up dogs and cats to bring
back here.
It took us three days to get down there. People were
wonderfully helpful when they found out what we were
doing. Even folks that were obviously living in poverty
helped us- like the two men who happened to have an air
compressor in their truck to help inflate our tires (we
did draw the line at exchanging our phone numbers with
them, which they were hoping we would do!). The night
before we were to deliver the supplies and get the
animals we stayed in the staging area in Hattiesburg,
Mississippi where the Humane Society [HSUS] has set up
an area to work from, along with National Guard, and
many police and fire and rescue workers. We stayed in a
large tent, with about 100 cots for workers and
volunteers. The Humane Society had several big
industrial size barns full of animals that had been
rescued. Most were in horse stalls. The animals
themselves looked in good shape. The volunteers did not-
most were working round the clock to care for the
animals and more and more were being brought in every
day. Mind you this was only ONE of many areas like it
run by the Humane Society, the ASPCA, Best Friends and
other animal organizations. The place was chaotic and
tense, but as I said, the animals seemed well cared for.
We drove the next day down through Mississippi to just
outside New Orleans where the shelter was. This shelter
had arranged with the ASPCA to have us pick up as many
of their animals as we could to free up the space for
more hurricane dogs and cats to come in. Other shelters
and rescue organizations from different parts of the
country were doing similar pickups at other shelters in
LA and MS. The landscape there is devastating to see,
and the people around the area are very desperate. Any
place you stopped, even if it wasn't too destroyed by
the hurricane, there was extra security, and lots of
people exhausted, desperate. But we got to the animal
shelter, unloaded our supplies, including what you all
collected, and then loaded up dogs and cats to bring
back here.
The shelters in the south are pretty minimal in terms of
the conditions, but the people really love the animals
and do what they can with very little resources. We were
greeted with tears and hugs, and they were so grateful
for what we brought them. They bought some pizza to
share with us, and then after several hot and long
hours, we were off again around 5 pm. It had been a
sweltering afternoon, with high humidity, lots of
loading and unloading and breathing bad air. The smell
of sewage was heavy in the air around the shelter as
well. There were no motel rooms for hundreds of miles
(we knew that ahead of time) and it was already nearly
evening. We had a rough trip that first night, finally
finding a motel room that was available back in MS. I
got sick with heat exhaustion that night and wound up at
a hospital ER in the morning where I got fluids, some
meds for my asthma and we were off and running again.
We drove to Atlanta where a shelter there took in our
dogs and cats for the night, and we finally, after many,
many nights of very little sleep, got a chance to sleep
in a bit at a nice motel and recover. Lisa LaFontaine,
the CEO of MHS flew down that night to help drive the
cat van back up, as one of the volunteers had to be back
at work the next day, and we were not going to make her
deadline (we got her on a plane home). We picked up the
animals, and drove to Northern Virginia where a friends
relative let us stay at their horse farm. Another late,
late night arrival, and we stunk to high heaven, but our
hosts were wonderful about it. The dogs stayed in the
foxhound kennels, and boy, did they love that!! The
beagles barked most of the night at the moon and the
night noises, and we could feel the dogs beginning to
come out of their stress and open up. They had been just
wonderful, traveling in a hot trailer (it was in the mid
to high 90s during the day- dangerous if they were too
stressed out, but they all did fine). If one of the dogs
seemed too overwrought we brought them into one of the
three crates in the SUV and gave them a break from the
heat.
Nearly home, we pulled into our last gas stop in
Springfield MA. Ann had been especially concerned the
two beagles we were carrying
would escape us at some time. The beagles, by the way,
were of great interest to people in the south- valuable
as "rabbit dogs". We were asked more than once if they
were for sale. Between Hartford and Springfield I had a
hinky feeling that something was up in the trailer, a
kind of intuitive hunch, but I wrote it off. The MO at
gas stops was to open the doors of the trailer to give
the dogs some ventilation (which also meant lots of
conversation with people who wanted to know what we were
doing). Ann had headed to the store to get us coffee,
and heard me yell- "THE BEAGLES ARE LOOSE! THE BEAGLES
ARE LOOSE!" Her greatest fear! The beagle wire crate had
one side that had fallen in and the beagles were out and
about in the trailer- but I grabbed them by the collars
before they escaped. All was saved, but it was a moment
of panic and then of hysterical laughter.
We pulled into Monadnock Humane Society in Keene late
last night. The dogs were tired, but they were also
delighted to get out and play a bit. The cats went on to
another NH shelter. We headed home for a bath and a good
nights sleep.
Yesterday we went back to see them- I can't tell you the
sense of reward there is in seeing them so happy, and
seeing people poking their fingers in their kennels and
talking to them. These dogs have a new chance at life.
As someone wrote to me, "Saving a dog won't change the
world, but it will change the world for the dog you
save". We heard later from the LA shelter that the night
we left with these dogs and cats, there were 22 dogs
brought in the night we left. We had made room for them
to be there. Another group came and got those dogs and
took them to Kansas City.
Ann and I hope to return to the staging area in MS in a
week or two to volunteer. We need a lot of rest and
recovery time to get ready to do that. The trip pushed
us both way beyond our limits, but we found that we had
such a sense of purpose that we could keep going even
under the circumstances.
We will keep you posted on what we are up to.
We can't say enough thank you's to all of you who helped
make this trip possible. From those of you who collected
goods, those who gave some money, helped pack the
trailer, hauled food, made signs, told people about what
we were doing, stored stuff in your houses, sent emails
around, and helped in myriad ways- please remember that
you were an integral part of this. You helped save these
animals and the animals who found space at the LA
shelter after we left.
The dogs will be available in a while for adoption at
MHS in Keene. Go see them if you get the chance. They
are great dogs, soft and loving and deserving of
wonderful homes. We fell in love with them all.
Peace,
Diane Gibbons and Ann Firestone
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