Picking Up the Pieces

In late September and early October 2005, four intrepid Dakin Animal Shelter staff members—Karina King, Justen Stevenson, Lori Swanson, and Leslie Harris—headed south to lend a hand to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) shelter operations in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and Gonzales, Louisiana. What follows are excerpts from a diary kept by Leslie during her seven-day tour in Gonzales.

Monday, September 29th. Lori and I leave Sunderland at 7:00 a.m. on the button. We are in her Rendezvous pulling her old pop-up camper. Our drive takes us more than 1,600 miles and over 30 hours of straight driving. We stop to get gas and fast food. Otherwise, we stop only three times for sit-down meals in Virginia, Tennessee, and, just as the sun is coming up, at the Alabama-Mississippi border for breakfast. I have grits. We listen to the waitress, Barbara, tell us of her seven precious little dogs.

The rumors about what we will find in Louisiana abound. An email has been circulating describing conditions at the Hattiesburg, Mississippi shelter as appalling—for humans and non-humans, alike. We will learn more about the power of the rumor mill as the week progresses.

Tuesday, September 27th. In the pine belt area of Mississippi, there are trees down. Hundreds of skinny pines simply snapped off in the middle, in swaths. The guardrails are chinked like braces on a teenager where trees have fallen across the highway and then been removed. As we putter along, we are passed over and over again by tree workers, Bobcat operators, animal rescuers, and insurance adjusters from all over the country. They get thicker as we get closer to New Orleans. It is now hot-with-a-capital-H.

We finally reach Gonzales at around 1:00 p.m. The Lamar-Dixon Exposition Center, where the HSUS rescue operation is headquartered—is easy to find: it appears to be a state fairground. The National Guard stops us at the entrance and sends us off to register as volunteers.

Just as you enter the compound, on your right, are two massive white tents that add an out-of-place festiveness to the scene. These are the air-conditioned FEMA cot dorms for volunteers. Scattered around the big tents in random clusters are the little tent villages of the people who opted for privacy over coolness. Ahead lies the animal complex—five open-air horse barns with row after row of steel stalls. Inside the stalls are horses, dogs, cats, and other animals (rabbits, birds, gerbils, etc.). Dogs, by far, take up the most room. They have been easier for rescuers to find because they come forward. Cats are arriving in greater numbers now as rescuers enter and search homes.

The volunteer reception area shares a tent with the lost animal reporting point. It is staffed by tired volunteers who seem to have only part of the information they need. As we list our skills, we are told that they are desperate for experienced animal handlers in the intake area where animals are coming off of rescue vehicles. Lori and I learn that a new shift will start at 3:00 p.m. This gives us an hour and a half to set up camp, get our clothes changed, and report in.

Having settled in and changed into long pants, closed-toed shoes, bandanas and fanny packs, Lori and I report for work. We are sent to the intake area between barns 2 and 3. There we learn that our job will be to steward animals—mostly dogs, but the occasional cat, rabbit, or hamster—through the veterinary triage process and then into the “kennels.”

The “kennels” are really horse stalls. In each horse stall, there are 3-4 black wire crates set up. These hold dogs. Each dog receives food (primarily Hill’s i/d) and water. Mountains of donated bowls line the middle aisles. None of the crates have bedding, but this doesn’t seem to be an issue for the dogs. Most of them seem too hot to even want a blanket. They stretch out on the plastic bottom of their crate. Fans blow the hot air around inside the open barns. Each stall has a fan mounted in the front grate blowing air at the dogs.

Cats are also kept in horse stalls in black wire crates. The cats, though, can be stacked. The more of them that pour in, the more they are stacked. Each cat receives a litter box (a disposable aluminum lasagna pan or half of a paperboard shirt box), and food and water. I feel bad for the frightened cats that they don’t have a place to hide, but it’s too hot to drape sheets over their cages. Fans continue to blow to circulate air. Kennel workers, dripping with sweat, trudge determinedly up and down the aisles. Their hands are full of supplies; they have leashes draped across their shoulders. They push shopping carts loaded with food, bowls, and cleaning products.

Lori and I queue up with the other intake staff. For the first three hours we stand or sit around in the heat. A catering truck drops off Styrofoam-packaged meals. Half are vegetarian. The meals are surprisingly nutritious—brown rice and vegetables, peas, carrots, a roll. All the water, Powerade, or Mello Yello you can stomach. We grab a meal, pull up a cooler, and begin to eat. As if on cue, the first rescue vehicles pull up.

Thus begins hours and hours of taking frightened, filthy, starving animals off trucks and out of cars. There are dozens of private vehicles with “SPCA Animal Rescue” hastily painted on the windows. They are mini-vans, SUV’s, and even sedans. Then there are animal control vehicles from faraway cities like Beverly, Massachusetts. There are rescue and adoption vans from local humane societies. The rescuers are bedraggled after days in the city. Some of them will come to us more than once throughout the night.

We take the animals off the vans and place them in waiting airline carriers. Intake handlers pair up with a paperwork volunteer. Each animal gets an admission form, a tab collar with an identification number, and two Polaroid photos. One Polaroid and the main copy of the admission form go to workers waiting in a large trailer labeled “Computer Center.” There, volunteers enter the animal into the Chameleon database, scan the photo, and upload the file to Petfinder.com. People in the community looking for their animals can search the website.

If a dog comes off the vans too frightened to handle safely, he goes in his crate to the Chill-Out Row. There he sits to think about himself for a while. Volunteers work with these dogs to see if they are truly going to be dangerous or if they are simply frightened, tired, or have been without human contact for too long.

Handlers walk the dogs through a triage center. Cats are left in a line outside the horse stall set up for cat triage. If an animal comes off a vehicle in critical condition, s/he is swept off to the waiting VMAT (Veterinary Medical Assessment Team—or Assault Team, as we begin to call them) emergency station—veterinarians and technicians providing emergency care.

At the triage stations, the veterinarians—all volunteers, of course—briefly examine, deworm, deflea, vaccinate and then microchip the animals. The vets sign a health certificate and send us to the kennels. If they determine that an animal is not healthy enough to be immediately kenneled, they refer us to the VMAT station.

As we unload animals, there is a constant trickle of evacuees wandering around looking worried. They have hastily-scribbled nametags that read things like “ Burt. Lost Pitbull” or “Edna. Lost Cat.” We do our best to steer them toward the right barns.

As the evening wears on, we receive word that a vehicle is coming with more than 100 animals on it. This turns out to be a large, air conditioned semi-truck with 107 crated animals on board—primarily dogs and cats, but also hamsters and birds. They are frightened, stressed, filthy, and often wet from spilling their own water. It takes hours to unload them. As we work with the truck, the usual vehicles continue to come in and unload. Another semi pulls in, this one only holding 20-some animals.

The wait to get a dog into triage now lasts at least 30 minutes. We stand, kneel, or sit on the pavement with our charges. Some of us hold and hug them. Some of the dogs just can’t deal with the contact. They stand at the end of their leash looking worried. Others pace, whine, lunge at other dogs and people. Many of them have diarrhea.

An old female rottweiler smiles at me and holds out her paw. She nuzzles my pocket for more cookies. Her body is covered in tumors and it’s obvious she has had litter after litter of puppies. She has a ring of gray hairs around her neck where her collar used to go. She isn’t wearing one today.

We are told that the animals coming in now are rarely found on the streets. Most of them are coming in from abandoned houses. When searchers went door-to-door looking for people, they found animals. They marked the doors with how many animals were inside. Animal rescuers now go in and remove the animals, record the address, and write “Rescued” on the door.

In some cases, we have the name or phone number of the animal’s person. We have mail taken from a mailbox. Two fat, friendly rottweilers come in with a Speedee Lube receipt. It includes a name and phone number. I dub the male rottie “Mr. Carroll,” based on his person’s last name. He is a happy, loveable lug—until the microchip. He tries to eat the technician.

By 12:30 a.m. it is clear that Lori and I are not going to be able to function much longer on the 2-3 hours of sleep we had in the car the night before. Our feet and legs are killing us from standing on the pavement for 10 hours. We notice that the faces of the volunteers around us have changed—many people dropping out and others taking their places. All of the volunteers—including us—are exhausted. It’s time for Lori and I to pack it in for the night.

There are still a dozen animals waiting for intake. There are at least 75 cats in airline carriers lined up outside the feline triage station—with only two vets working that station, I suspect they will not be able to finish before morning.

I leave for the campsite. Lori joins me once she has walked her last dog through the process.

We are filthy. We smell like diarrhea and the dark muck that coats many of the animals. Our clothes are ruined. We want nothing more than to fall into bed. But we don’t. We gather up our things and try to hunt down a shower.

Next to the cot tents are large white trailers for bathrooms and showers. A sign on the women’s shower says it is only operational from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. There is no electricity inside (meaning no lights), but the water runs lukewarm. We dangle a flashlight from a shower rod. I take the best shower of my life.

As we fall into our bunks in the camper, we can hear the cars passing on the road leading into the center. Many of them are slowing down and turning in….probably with animals to unload. It is 2:30 a.m.

Wednesday, September 27th. Because we don’t need to report to work until 3:00 p.m., Lori and I putter around the campsite, hanging tarps to shade us from the sun. The temperature will soon soar to 100 degrees.

At 3:00 we report back to the intake area and prepare to process the loads of animals due in. We learn from our team leader, Linda, that last night we admitted 350 animals—putting 283 of them directly through triage.

Today is slower. The semi trucks bring in only 30 and 70 animals a piece. One has a gold fish floating in a coffee can (with his food can duct taped to the coffee can). There is a snake in a crate. There are at least ten dangerously aggressive dogs on one semi. Chill-Out Row becomes crowded as the evening passes. Most of the dangerous dogs are pressed up against the back of their crates looking feral.

The first dog I take off the transport is a rangy black and tan shepherd mix. His eyes have the sunken, weepy look of the dehydrated. He is eager to leave his crate and bolts as soon as I open the door.

I wrangle the dog around to pose him for his photograph, but the camera malfunctions and my paperwork partner has to go find another one. Meanwhile, the dog starts to have a conniption. He begins spinning, throwing himself on the ground, and frantically snapping at his leash. The thin nylon rope sliplead I’m using won’t take the abuse much longer. A volunteer comes over and slips another on. Together we try to get him to a crate in Chill-Out Row.

The frantic dog continues to flip over and gnaw at his leashes, finally snapping the one the other volunteer is holding. With expert timing, one of the vets from the U.S. Public Health Service shows up with a control stick (a 6-foot-long metal pole with a coated wire noose at the end). He slips it on just in time and uses it to safely direct the dog to a waiting crate.

My next dog is an 8-month-old red hound mix. He is a rack of bones, but easily the sweetest dog on the planet. He flops on the pavement for belly rubs and cookies while we wait for the triage vets.

Sometime in the afternoon, Dakin’s Shelter Manager, Karina, arrives. She and her new friend Heather have driven down from the Hattiesburg, Mississippi shelter. They are needed more here. Karina jumps directly into the fray, serving as the technician to the cat triage vet.

Lori and I continue to unload dogs, escort them through the triage process, and then walk them to new kennels in the barns. There is constant confusion about whether the dogs go to Barn 5 (a quarter mile walk away) or Barn 2 (right behind the triage center).

A frightened Chow Chow will eventually be unable to finish triage before he has to be put on a control stick and placed in a kennel on Chill-Out Row. We learn that the dog has his reasons for being upset. He came from a home that was flooded to within two feet of the ceiling. He had made his way the ceiling fan to survive until the floodwaters went down.

I have a silver Siberian husky tonight. Her name is Sheba. Her paperwork says she had been alone in the house since two days before the hurricane hit a month ago. By now, Sheba is a rack of bones and her hair is falling out in clumps. But she wants to play and cuddle. We know who her people are! She will have a happy ending.

Sometime in the afternoon, I am asked to take a dark brindle pitbull away from another handler. The dog’s ear is bleeding. His handler had allowed him to get too close to another dog in the intake area and he got in a fight. It wasn’t his first—his entire body and massive head are covered with scars. I walk him on two leashes through the triage process and down the way to Barn 5. We give all other dogs a wide berth. He joins a constantly growing row of pitbulls in the kennels. I have yet to see a neutered one.

By 9:00 p.m. the gates close. They are now enforcing a well-publicized curfew. At least five rescue vehicles are turned away because they came in late. We are instructed to return for work at 8:00 a.m. to prepare to receive the animals that were turned away tonight.

Lori, Karina, Heather and I make our way back to Camp Dakin. We enjoy a cold drink before heading for the late night showers. Heather is planning to go into the city to do rescue tomorrow morning. There are rumors of finding far more dead animals than live ones, of tires flattened by debris hidden under floodwater, and threatening packs of feral dogs.

One thing we’ve learned about this place is that nothing is more robust than the rumor mill. As I write this, Lori says she has heard that President Bush is coming here tomorrow. See what I mean?

Thursday, September 29th. We awake from a nice cool night’s sleep at 6:30 a.m. Lori fires up the campstove and we have apple & cinnamon oatmeal and peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast. After gearing up (we now know to hoard the good leashes, take spare toilet paper—the restrooms are frequently out—and mist ourselves with Off to deter fleas), we head to work.

This morning’s intake consists of last night’s late arrivals. We put through a few frightened cats and a couple of dehydrated dogs. My main charge is a black pitbull dubbed “Gonzo.” He was found dashing around outside the camp gates this morning—probably dropped off by people unable to care for him. He is too frightened to get out of the car. He has to be coaxed off the backseat of the rental van (where he spent the night and relieved himself this morning). Fortunately, the Oregon rescuers who found him are planning to appeal to take him home with them.

Once the morning rush is over, Karina, Lori and I head back to Camp Dakin. We know the intake won’t really need us until our evening shift and we don’t want to waste our energy and hydration on sitting around in the sun. This evening’s trucks, again, are semis, pickups, and mini-vans. The dogs and cats coming off the trucks are almost exclusively racks of skin and bones.

I am called to take in a German shepherd—a massive sable male who was probably a lovely example of his breed a month ago. Today he tips the scale at maybe 50 pounds. Beneath his patchy coat you can see every rib, every bump of his spine, and the entire construction of his hipbones. As he walks, he can barely lift his back feet. His hind end is almost completely bald.

The rescuer plops a giant black cage down next to the shepherd. There is a bedraggled yellow and grey cockatiel inside. The rescuer tells us that they are a bonded pair (this is camp lingo for “they came from the same household”). He says the bird saved the dog’s life.

Turns out, the rescuers were given an address and told to go there to get a cat out. They looked all over for the cat but couldn’t find her. Then they started hearing the bird. Following the bird’s noise, they found the dog. He had been locked in the backyard, using a tool shed to escape the heat. I don’t think he had had a bite to eat since his family evacuated more than a month before.

The next dog I get is a young female black Labrador retriever. She is so grateful for human contact that she melts against me, licking my cheek. She doesn’t want to be alone anymore. She breaks my heart.

Lori is called up to help with the semi truck when it comes in. Turns out that a white pitbull has escaped from his crate and is running loose inside. The driver, a southerner, jokes about the rescued duck and fish he also has on board. He hopes the pitbull hasn’t helped himself to the easy meals.

When they open the back door of the semi, Lori is perched on the rear bumper. I look over and see a jolly white pitbull face poke out the door. He is smiling a big dog smile and looking mischievous. There are no feathers sticking out of his massive mouth. The duck and fish have survived unscathed.

I take my first dog to VMAT. He comes off the truck a rack of bones, an emaciated little black dog who is such a mix of breeds that any bloodline was lost long ago. He is so weak he can’t stand in line, choosing instead to sit or lie down. The intravenous fluids the veterinarians gave him in field triage are the only thing that have kept him going this long. My triage vet says he is too pale and weak to go to kennels so we go to VMAT. There, he is put on fluids and put up for the night under observation.

This evening, like the last, ends early. The last vehicles come through around 9:30. In the meantime, Lori and I learn that we will be in charge of Chill-Out Row tomorrow. Back at Camp Dakin, we head for our now ritual shower-by-flashlight and scrub off the day’s dust, muck, and sweat.

Friday, September 30th. Again, our area is scorching hot and there are no animals coming in. So for the first few hours, Lori and I go around and “requisition” supplies for Chill-Out Row. This means that we simply walk through different areas and swipe what we need. If it isn’t nailed down around here, it’s fair game.

Toward evening, the semi arrives and Chill-Out Row is suddenly swamped with dogs. Many come off the truck with “caution” already written on their crates. Many of them threatened their rescuers or the staff of the field triage unit.

Some dogs don’t have “caution” on their crates but are simply paralyzed with fear and incapable of coming out of the crates. They shrink against the back wall of the kennels and turn their faces to the corner away from their intake handlers. Rather than force them out, we simply scoot them, still in their crates, over to Chill-Out. This semi brings us 50 animals, including a flock of chickens, a couple of turtles, and a ball python.

There is a skinny longhaired Chihuahua named Hi whose companion Chihuahua, Daisy, succumbed to starvation. I melt at the sight of Hi. He looks like a wispy version of my own Hattie Brown. Hi eats canned dog food off my fingers as I sit on the pavement in Chill-Out. He has been labeled a fear biter, but with enough time to chill out and some food in his stomach, Hi makes it through triage.

Lori and I spend our evening moving dogs in to Chill-Out and then trying to coax frightened dogs from their carriers. Many of the dogs just need time to adjust to the surroundings. It is nighttime, but there are spotlights set up all over the place casting wild shadows. There are large industrial fans blowing in different directions creating a roar and often-violent breezes. The dogs in all the barns are barking and the place stinks of feces. There are clanging pans, slamming doors, chugging engines, and shouting voices. People zip back and forth in golf carts or on forklifts. We drag crates over the ground with a clatter and noisily toss them in piles. As we bend to peer into airline carriers, we must appear as dark shadows with no faces to the frightened dogs inside.

It isn’t a wonder to me that any dogs are frightened and dangerous. It is a wonder to me that they all aren’t.

There is a black Chow Chow in Chill-Out. He is the only dog in a wire crate rather than an airline carrier. He is ragged, balding, and barely moving. He was sent to Chill-Out directly off the semi because he had a “Caution. Aggressive” label on his paperwork. We are concerned that he is not going to make it out of Chill-Out alive—he is morbidly thin, his eyes are nearly sealed shut with green mucus and he seems unable to move. I approach his kennel to see if he is still breathing. When I touch the door, I am rewarded with a lunge, snap, and snarl. Clearly, he’s got energy for the important things.

I go into Barn 2 and scam some canned food and a watering can off our camping neighbor, Mark- From-Indiana. I drop the food through the top of the Chow’s crate and refill his water pan with the can. The Chow scarfs down the food and laps water for a good few minutes straight. But he’s still not my friend. I read his paperwork. An evacuee returned to his flooded house to assess the damage. When he opened the door, this dog was inside. The Chow was a squatter.

As the evening winds to a close, Lori and I spend all of our time getting dogs out of crates to go through triage. We are able to move most of them. But by the time 10:00 p.m. rolls around, the triage vets are closing up shop and we don’t have enough time to get through all our marginal dogs. We simply load the good, the bad, and the ugly on a trailer and transport them to the outer stalls of Barn 1—Dangerous Dog Row.

When everyone is settled in for the night, Lori and I arrange with Scott (the head behaviorist) to return in the morning to reassess and care for our dogs.

We return to Camp Dakin and eat our ritual evening peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We take stock of our condition. We both have scores of mosquito and flea bites. Both of us have developed a rash around our ankles from our work boots, the heat, and fleas. Our late night, lukewarm shower couldn’t be more welcome.

Saturday, October 1st. Lori and I awake to a hot, humid morning at 8:00 a.m. At 9:00 we head up to greet our Chill-Out charges from the night before. Because we don’t want them to end up on Dangerous Dog Row, our job this morning will be to see who is ready to come out and be a good dog.

More than half of the dogs are, if not happy to see us, at least willing to venture out of their wire crates. While some of them have soiled their crates overnight, most are relieved to get a walk.

This job is not for the faint of heart. Many of the dogs we work with are fight-trained pitbulls, grumbling rottweilers, and glowering Chow Chows. Many are probably always going to be dangerous on some level and may never find an adoptive home. But there are others here—like a black and white Chihuahua mix who tends to bite when you pick her up—who just need time to work through their experiences. Lori names the little dog Sylvie and spends lots of cuddle time with her.

By noon, Lori and I head off for lunch. We are due back at 6:00 p.m. to help clean the kennels in Dangerous Dog Row. The other workers are grateful to have experienced handlers to work with. Scott said he has had to dismiss a number of well-intentioned folks who just didn’t work out. We are honored that Scott thinks so highly of us. In the evening, we suit up for work. Though I’m not normally a gearhead, my fanny pack belt now contains a Leatherman, my phone, a tiny bungee with a roll of duct tape on it, spare nylon leashes, and a carabiner for contingencies. It also has latex gloves, spare tab collars, two Sharpies, and a bottle of water. Lori and I rattle and clank when we walk. As we head up the main drag to sign in at the volunteer table, we pass two women wearing no fanny pack and carrying nothing spare. Rookies.

We get to Dangerous Dog Row and see that Scott is working on the last two of last night’s more recalcitrant Chill-Out Dogs. He is getting them out of their crates on snappy snares or control sticks to see how much they can come around. They aren’t doing too badly and are all placed into crates inside the stalls of the outside aisle. This is the aisle for the most dangerous dogs. This is where Lori and I will clean tonight.

We grab a shopping cart and load it up with food, bowls, bottles of water, and paper towels. Lori begins walking each dog while I clean his crate and restock it with food and water. Many of the dogs have been holding it since their 8:00 a.m. walk. Others aren’t so delicate.

We have a system of leashing that involves putting on the standard nylon slip lead and then clipping a traditional lead to the ring of the slip lead. This way, when you put the dog back in his kennel, you don’t need to reach in with your hand to remove the slip lead, you just pull on the standard lead and it yanks the ring of the slip lead until it comes off. Given the intense pursuit of food by starved, dangerous dogs, putting your hands near them while they eat is asking for trouble.

The second dog Lori walks is a little blue pitbull with fight-clipped ears. As soon as he comes charging out of his crate, the dog leaps up and grabs both leashes in his mouth. He gives them a shake and dangles. Lori, caught by surprise, works to get a thicker leash around the dog’s neck before he snaps the two nylon leashes. The dog immediately grabs the thick leash and shakes. Prying the leashes out of the dog’s mouth is impossible, clearly he has been trained to jump, grab, and hang on as a way to strengthen his fighting muscles.

One of the other walkers yells at Lori to get a towel for him. I fish a pink towel out of the bottom of the cart. So THAT’S why there are towels! The dog yanks the towel out of Lori’s hand and breaks its lousy neck over and over again. As soon as we put him back in his clean kennel he pees. We clean it again. He poops. We clean it again.

We proceed down the row, alternating cleaning and walking by stall. Most of the dogs are reasonably compliant. Some require safety equipment (also called “snappy snares”) to get them out of their crate (to avoid our reaching in with our heads, arms and shoulders), others charge out, eager to relieve themselves. All of the dogs charge back into their crates after the bowl of food.

The work is difficult, smelly, and dangerous. We find it physically and mentally exhausting. This isn’t walking dogs. This is fishing scary dogs out of crates in cramped quarters while other scary dogs bark at you like they’d like to hurt either you or the dog you are trying to help. Then when you finally get them outside, you have to be careful they don’t get after you or any of the other scary dogs being walked around the area. Then you have to put them back in.

By the time we are finished, the dogs have eaten and are now napping peacefully. Lori and I head out for Camp Dakin. We sit in silence for half an hour and then head up for the showers. The word has gotten out that the showers being closed doesn’t mean you can’t use them. There has developed a line.

Sunday, October 2nd. The morning dawns hot and sunny. Lori and I putter around Camp Dakin, sweeping up and putting our dirty laundry away. We are, after all, expecting company. Justen Stevenson, Dakin’s Assistant Shelter Manager, should be arriving some time today.

When Justen arrives, we help set up his tent and get him situated. After giving him a guided tour of the operation we return to camp to laze about in the heat (it has cooled down to only 90 degrees or so today). When 5:30 rolls around we suit up and head for the mess tent. Justen and I grab veggie meals (an unappetizing lump of lima beans and white rice), frozen smoothies (yum!) and, our favorite—miniature powdered donuts. We eat quickly outside Dangerous Dog Row while Lori mixes the evening’s dog food.

Lori and I go back to our now-familiar charges on the row. Having the morning off to relax and recover has made us sharper. We move much more quickly through our charges, better able to deal with the towel-mauling pitbulls and the less compliant of the Chow Chows.

Some of the dogs are doing better. We are particularly fond of a big dark Lab mix with Flying Nun ears. We nickname him Jed and recommend that he be sent to General Population—where he will mix with the regular dogs and be handled by inexperienced handlers. This is Jed’s ticket out of here and on to a better life.

I handle one of the super hyper towel-eating pit bulls. This is the one that yesterday got loose on Lori in the stall. It happens to me. He rushes the cage door and spends his time jumping around, eating the leashes, and shaking the towel. As long as he is focused on something else, you are safe. But getting the slip lead over his head when he is shaking a towel is a challenge. I finally make it happen in the split second between him dropping the towel and grabbing on to a blanket on another dog’s crate. Lori swings open the stall door from behind like she is working the gate at a rodeo.

The pitbull drags the blue blanket into the middle of one of the piles of sawdust the dogs relieve themselves in. He mauls it for a while until he spies one of the Army staffers walking by. The dog decides the Army guy looks tasty so he launches himself that direction. When he reaches the end of the leash, all four feet are off the ground. I swing him 180 degrees to the right and he lands on the blanket again, digging in and giving it a big shake. I’m grateful to see that Lori is done with his crate and the dog can go back.

When we are finished with our cleaning, it is only 8:30 p.m. We go back to the mess tent and requisition extra packages of donuts. Lori, Justen and I need to be on Dangerous Dog Row bright and early tomorrow for the morning shift. Tomorrow will be the last workday for Lori and me. Justen is just getting started.

Monday, October 3rd. We wake at 6:30 a.m. and eat peanut butter and requisitioned packages of miniature donuts. We scrub our faces and brush our teeth and head out for Dangerous Dog Row.

After setting up our cart, we begin again removing dogs and cleaning kennels. Reinforcements soon arrive and we decide to have two handlers work with one cleaner to move down the row.

By noon, we are finished. We go back up the aisle to refresh water bowls and clean up the messes made by the dogs who, for whatever reason, prefer to relieve themselves in their crates rather than outdoors.

After wandering back to Camp Dakin, we decide to check out a rumor that the local Holiday Inn will provide free showers and Internet access to relief workers. We round up our stuff and head over to the motel.

Oddly, the free shower is in Room 123. This is the hotel staff’s break room. There are no beds, just tables and chairs, a fridge, and a television. The housekeeping staff is eating their lunch, smoking cigarettes, and gossiping. We feel like intruders. But, like the sweet southerners they are, they welcome us in and direct us to the room’s bathroom.

This is the first hot shower Lori and I have had since the morning we left home—Monday, September 26th. We are not disappointed. The water pressure feels like a sand blaster.

After lunch, we repair to vacant cots in the cool FEMA tent. I read, Lori naps. Justen talks quietly with some fellow Massachusetts Animal Coalition folks. Soon the hour rolls around for us to head back to Camp Dakin to suit up.

Back on Dangerous Dog Row, I learn that our helpers from the morning shift will be unable to assist us. I go next door to Barn 2 and find their new supervisor, Mark-From-Indiana. I ask him for two or three extra people to help clean while we handle dogs.

Mark sends us Kathleen-From-Arkansas, Sonya-From-Minnesota, and Sean-From-Colorado. This is their first day in camp. We explain right up front that this is not the place to cuddle dogs. This is a place to be careful, to help us open and close gates, to pass us the equipment we need, and to clean quickly. They nod in agreement.

What luck! These three are fantastic. We breeze through the row and are done by 8:30. We do the re-watering and 2nd-chance cleaning and head for the evening’s volunteer party.

The HSUS has gathered us together, bought $800 worth of cold drinks, and brought in a fresh supply of previously-rare yellow volunteer shirts. There is a raffle (mosquito repellent, drink cozies, and—best of all—blue ceramic cow banks). It is good to hang out with people, swapping stories and finding out what brought folks here. We learn that Sonya is really a civil engineer. Lori goes around swapping Dakin shirts for shirts from other places.

As the crowd thins and the hour grows late, we retire, one last time, to Camp Dakin.

Epilogue:

Today, Tuesday, October 4th, we send Justen off to work with a breakfast of requisitioned donuts. He will return to Dangerous Dog Row with Sonya and Sean.

Lori and I spend the morning breaking camp. We decide to rig up our big silver tarp as shade for Justen’s tent. We give him an extra FEMA cot, our toothbrushing water, and spare leashes. We are sad to leave him behind.

On our way out, we drive outside the fence of Dangerous Dog Row. Justen is there holding the little red Chow mix who hates leashes. In the days past, we had had to use a snappy snare to get her out. Today, she is on a regular leash. The dogs are getting better. We made a difference here.

Random Thoughts from Leslie, After the Fact:

Some readers may think that I paint a bleak picture of things at Lamar-Dixon. Keep in mind that this was not an “animal shelter” but a triage center of staggering proportions. We were responding to a deadly disaster and could not help but bear witness to misery and suffering.

It is also true that my experience was only a small part of the bigger picture. And my perspective is skewed because my work was almost exclusively with stressed or dangerous animals.

More than 8,000 animals have passed through the HSUS rescue operation. Most of them—pitbulls, rottweilers, and Chow Chows included—were sweet, gentle souls happy to find comfort and peace with humans once again.

One only needed to walk through the cat aisles of Barn 1 to find this peace. There, cats lay stretched out in their crates in the heat. The volunteers—cat ladies every one of them—worked quietly and diligently. They scrubbed litterpans, created cardboard hideouts from discarded boxes, and spent time socializing with their charges.

The main dog walking areas for the safe dogs was peppered with dog lovers from all over the country. They walked their new friends, sat quietly embracing them, or played with one of the donated toys. People from all walks of life came here to create an amazing temporary community.

For more information about the whole story of Lamar-Dixon and the humane rescue effort, please visit www.hsus.org. There are wonderful stories, great photos, and good facts.

While you are there, look up information about the proposed PETS act. This would require federal emergency planners to incorporate a strategy for companion animals into their larger evacuation plans for disasters. The tragedy caused by Hurricane Katrina should never be repeated.