DawnWatch LA: "Money to aid pets lacking, official says" -- Times-Picayune, 7/18/06

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 23:30:00 GMT

This article presents a good opportunity for animal friendly letters to the editor. The Times Picayune takes letters at http://www.nola.com/contactus/

Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
July 18, 2006 Tuesday
NATIONAL; Pg. 3

Money to aid pets lacking, official says;
Evacuation shelters also are insufficient

By Robert Travis Scott, Capital bureau

BATON ROUGE -- Louisiana has insufficient money and animal shelters designated to cope with a major evacuation of pets if a hurricane threatens a population center, an official overseeing the state plan said Monday.

Although state and local agencies are preparing to deal with another Katrina-scale disaster, the No. 1 responsibility for pet safety in an emergency falls upon the pet owner, said Rebecca Adcock, director of alumni and public programs for the Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine.

Emergency animal shelters are not ideal for pet security and identification, so owners should evacuate to the home of a relative or some other place that welcomes pets, said Adcock, who represents one of several agencies working with the Louisiana State Animal Response Team.

"The best place for your pet is with you," Adcock told the Baton Rouge Press Club.

Adcock praised the Legislature for passing a pet evacuation bill in the recent session.

"This bill is something that puts us ahead nationally," Adcock said.

Prior to the legislation, the state Department of Agriculture and Forestry had a program to tag and evacuate large livestock, but no state agency was charged to deal with pets.

Seat at the table

The new law places most of the responsibility for pet evacuations on parish governments to organize their own plans and coordinate the efforts with state agencies, including the agriculture department, the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness and the LSU vet school. The Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has taken the lead in organizing an evacuation plan for New Orleans.

The law is a big help because it gave the animal response team a seat at the table for emergency preparedness planning, Adcock said.

Still, there is no real money appropriated for the cause, Adcock said.

"That's one of the gaps in the plan," she said.

After Katrina, from 80 percent to 90 percent of the cost of pet evacuation was covered by donations from animal-protection groups, pet food companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers, she said. Some of that generosity might be available again, she said.

The state has set aside $150 million for evacuation expenses in general, and now with the new law the animal response team has a "better chance" of getting some of that money, Adcock said.

Shelters, containers needed

One of the animal response team's biggest obstacles is finding enough facilities willing to become pet shelters during an emergency, she said. Locating animal shelters near human shelters is especially difficult.

Coliseums in Shreveport and Alexandria will serve as "megasites" for pet shelters, but the team would prefer to use a number of smaller shelters and is still trying to identify them. After Katrina, the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center near Gonzales was the major pet destination. That venue is not currently scheduled to receive pets again, but discussions are under way, Adcock said.

The state is using inmate labor to build pet containers, which are being staged in eight Louisiana districts in anticipation of a crisis, she said.

The Humane Society of the United States, one of the major financial contributors to the Katrina pet relief effort, recently gave several thousand animal-carrying crates worth $150,000 to the Louisiana Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Melissa Seide Rubin, vice president of field and disaster services for the Humane Society, agreed with Adcock that not enough pet shelters are available in Louisiana. She said state officials are working hard to meet the need.

Donations by nonprofits

Rubin also agreed that the state appears to be relying on the expectation that donations through nonprofit groups will handle the cost of future disasters. The Humane Society has in fact put aside money from donations that poured in after Katrina to prepare for future storms, Rubin said.

The state homeland security office plans to begin evacuation procedures 96 hours in advance of an approaching storm, and pet evacuation efforts will coincide with that order, Adcock said.

All pet owners should put identification tags on their animals. Veterinarians can implant a microchip ID tag under the animal's skin and collars also should have an ID tag. Major pet supply stores are selling ID kits, Adcock said.

Volunteers can join the program by visiting the response team's Web site at www.lsart.org. Also, the Louisiana SPCA volunteer program can be reached at (504) 368-5191, ext. 142, or by e-mail to Ginger@la-spca.org.

Supporters of the animal response team include the Louisiana Veterinary Medical Association, Louisiana Animal Control Association, Hill's Pet Foods, Humane Society of the United States, Louisiana Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals, Louisiana Wildlife Rehabilitators Association, Veterinary Information Network and PetSmart Charities.
(END OF TIMES PICAYUNE ARTICLE)
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Date: Tue Jul 18 17:30:50 2006

Louisiana DawnWatch: Oily Dog rescue on front page of River Parishes Picayune 12/11/05

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 19:04:00 GMT

This front page story on Oily Dog provides a great opportunity for letters to the editor in support of the PETS Act (see https://community.hsus.org/campaign/US_pets_act_house2) or in favor of adoption.

The Times-Picayune takes letters at http://www.nola.com/contactus/

Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
December 11, 2005 Sunday
RIVER PARISHES PICAYUNE; Pg. 1

Texas man adopts oily dog from Chalmette;
St. Rose woman has hand in 'Slick's' rescue

By Matt Scallan, River Parishes bureau

The photo of an oil-soaked dog in the ruins of a Chalmette neighborhood evoked a storm of outrage from readers of the Dallas Morning News when it was published Sept. 10.

Why hadn't the photographer rescued the slippery shih tzu, angry readers wanted to know.

Animal advocates launched a Web site devoted to "oily dog," not knowing that she had found her way to the home of Angie Robert, a St. Rose woman who works at the St. Charles Parish animal shelter.

"A friend on a rescue team told me that they had found this dog that had been soaked in the oil spill in St. Bernard," said Robert, who quickly agreed to take the dog and find it a new home.

She named her "Slick," and repeatedly washed her to get the oil out.

"She still smelled like oil for weeks," Robert said.

One potential adoption didn't work out, so Slick was back with Rogers.

Meanwhile, Don Rorschach, a retired lawyer who lives in Irving, Texas, had posters made of the Dallas Morning News photo and shipped them to Chalmette, where activists posted them on utility poles.

As complaints grew about Morning News photographer Tom Fox's failure to rescue the dog, Fox returned to the area along Judge Perez Drive where he had seen the dog, and turned over an animal believed to be "Oily Dog" to animal shelter workers in the area.

But activists quickly determined that the rescued canine was not the one that Fox photographed on Sept. 6, and outrage boiled up anew.

"It looked more like a lhasa (apso) than a shih tzu," Rorschach said.

The Morning News ran a Sept. 16 story with the headline: "ID of oily dog murky now," that included Fox' explanation of why he hadn't rescued the dog.

"The thought of helping the dog crossed our minds like it did several other times when we crossed paths with many stray dogs," Fox wrote. "Under the circumstances of having to cover this huge catastrophe, we couldn't do justice to aiding all of these dogs. Issues emerged: If we pick up this dog, what about the others? Where do we go with the dog to get him cleaned up and cared for? Who would we find that had a background in saving a polluted animal? "

By now, Robert, who had been keeping the dog at her home for more than a month, became aware that people were looking for the dog.

But she wanted to be sure that whoever got custody of the dog would take care of it.

"I wanted to know who I was dealing with," Robert said. "I wasn't going to give her to just anybody."

But Rorschach won her confidence, and he drove in from Irving to collect the dog.

"She's just an incredible dog. I spend about 23 hours a day with her," he said.

Rorschach and his wife wanted to give the dog a more dignified name, but one that gave homage to the circumstances that brought her into their home.

After searching the Internet, they settled on "Orli," which means "The light is mine" in Hebrew.

"We call her Orli Slick," he said.

When Rorschach arrived at the animal shelter, he wrote Robert a check for $2,000. She reluctantly accepted, then donated the money to the St. Charles Parish Humane Society's Building Fund.

"The money would have come in handy around Christmas," said Robert, who has two children. "But there were so many people involved in the rescue that I just couldn't keep it for myself," she said. "Rescuing animals is what I do."
. . . . . . .
More details and links to news stories about Slick can be found at www.oilydog.org
. . . . . .
Matt Scallan may be reached at mscallan@timespicayune.com or (985) 652-0953.

(END OF ARTICLE)
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(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. To unsubscribe, go to www.DawnWatch.com/unsubscribe.php. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)

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Date: Sun Dec 11 12:04:23 2005