Kiko's Korner

Tailwagging the streets of New Orleans

by Judi McLeod

Thursday, September 8, 2005

You didn’t have to be a pet owner to cringe when you came upon mainline media photos of the forlorn little dog wandering along a street in Chalmette, Louisiana so covered in oil, he couldn’t open his eyes.

The pain of the lost little dog shouted from the newspaper photo and would have brought tears to the eyes of anyone with a heart.

Sad tales of Hurricane Katrina’s heartbreak include thousands of abandoned pets. There was the story of the woman picked up by rescue boat who offered her weeding ring as payment to include her dog among the rescued. Authorities, of course had to put the safety of humans ahead of animals, and the emotionally distraught owner had no choice but to leave her beloved pet behind.

Yet, among all the heartbreak and chaos were small glimmers of hope. Within days of the New Orleans disaster, those out on rescue mission were somehow able to corral thousands of dogs and cats and deposit them at a building which happened to have air conditioning in disabled New Orleans’s stifling heat. Vets were even brought in to attend to them.

To lose every possession one has and to know a pet had to be left behind must be emotional nightmares for so many who call the Big Easy home.

Many people consider their pets as family members. It adds to the loss not knowing how a beloved pet would be making it on its own on the water logged streets of New Orleans.

How many of Katrina’s survivors lay in their beds in temporary shelters worrying into the night about dogs like the one depicted in the newspaper?

It’s only geography that kept all those far away from the State of Louisiana safe and dry in our homes.

And Katrina isn’t the only act of Mother Nature to separate humans and pets.

How many pets had to be abandoned by Floridians plagued by one hurricane followed by another?

In Katrina’s wake, thousands of dogs are now said to be running in packs.

Even domesticated Animals have instincts inbred down through the ages.

Some of the animal stories that originate with last December’s devastating tsunami are still being told. Like the one about the elephants in Thailand. A number of elephants are kept to give rides to tourists and their children. According to one compelling version, the elephants are kept tethered at day’s end because they pose a danger to anyone in close proximity, just as they were hours before the deadly tsunami hit.

According to the story, the keeper of the pachyderms was confounded when they started to "act up" the day the tsunami hit. Eventually some of them broke free of their bonds by their own devices and began, what appeared to be a somewhat curious procedure of bending down to take on children and carrying then up a hill. No interference from their keeper could stop the beasts from doing what they had set out to do, carrying the children up the hill, dropping them off and then returning for the next.

None of it made any sense, until the tsunami hit--within a matter of hours. Guided by instinct, the elephants had deposited the children to higher ground before the wall of water hit.

In the sad aftermath of the failed levees, the mental image of Fido, Rusty and Fluffy running in dog packs on the people-deserted streets of New Orleans is a disturbing one. One bound to haunt our nightmares.

But there’s amazing grace that comes from the highly developed instinct of domesticated animals.

Fido, Rusty and Fluffy may be running in the pack, but reverting back to instinct may be the one thing keeping them alive.

God protect our animal friends on the empty streets of the Big Easy.