By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
In addition to human misery left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the largest pet rescue operation in U.S. history played out across the devastated New Orleans area.
Dogs, cats, even goats found refuge at Twisted Oaks Animal Rescue of Niles and have been befriended by Dowagiac Middle School seventh and eighth graders.
Aleese particularly enjoyed one of hundreds of homemade dog biscuits baked by Deanna Horrell's fourth hour life skills class using oatmeal, peanut butter, butter and flour.
Aleese “can come and visit you any time,” Barrows said. “You can come and visit her at any time. With this, you can come to the farm any time and visit anything from a little degu to riding the big horses. We have llamas and an emu to visit,” as well as a 4-foot iguana.
A degu is a cross between a chinchilla, gerbil and hamster. It cleans its silky coat with dust baths. Its tail is its last best hope of eluding predators because it comes off with as little as three pounds of pressure - but it doesn't grow back, so that escape strategy can only be employed once, Barrows explained.
A recent arrival at the 4 1/2-year-old facility is a blue-faced Amazon parrot, 37. “They live to be about 80,” Barrows said of the bird.
Bertrand Township informed Twisted Oaks it needs an additional four acres “to continue doing what we've already been doing for 4 1/2 years,” Barrows lamented. “They're telling us we have to remove all the animals we have now - including our own pets - to be in code.
The five students who helped load the pet supplies they collected over three weeks into Barrow's truck Monday afternoon boast a considerable menagerie of animals at home: cats, five horses, a guinea pig, dogs, fish, turtles, lizards and frogs,
Eighth grader Tyler Dutoi only has one pet, but it's considerable - a full-blooded Great Dane.
DMS students helped furry friends by donating dog and cat food, toys, treats or supplies to help care for animals awaiting adoption.
Bringing in a “substantial” item, such as a large bag of Kitty Litter, a two-pound bag of dog biscuits or a 15-pound bag of dog food entered the donor's name in a drawing.
Technology teacher Brian Tompkins generously offered to build a dog house or cat palace for the winner, eighth grader Matt Mersereau.
English classes at DMS have been reading books about rescued animals, Grandholm said, including “Shiloh” by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (Cheri Gowin's seventh graders) and “Because of Winn-Dixie” by Kate DiCamillo (Mrs. Gowin's and Mrs. Kelly Cromer's eighth graders).
Operation PAWS was a schoolwide effort by seventh graders, eighth graders and staff members, who all contributed to the cause.
USA Today reported Oct. 6 that for weeks after, “the only noise in empty neighborhoods of sodden houses was the barking of dogs. Then the barking stopped. Dogs are still here, but many are too hoarse and weak to make a sound. Many others died.”
Owners left behind tens of thousands of animals because shelters and hotels wouldn't accept them. Scattered residents risked their lives and refused to evauate so they could stay with their pets.
Five weeks after the deluge of flooding, animal rescue teams were still fanning across the Crescent City and surrounding parishes at dawn every day in a race against diminishing odds, gathering up hundreds of desperate pets - more than 8,000.
Rescuers left behind fresh water and dry food for dogs and cats roaming streets that their limited staff lacked resources to collect.
The Humane Society and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASCPA) have no way of knowing precisely how many pets were abandoned when the area was evacuated just before the storm hit Aug. 29, but surveys by the American Veterinary Medical Association indicate that two-thirds of U.S. households have at least one pet.
The number of rescued animals so overwhelmed temporary shelters set up by the Humane Society in nearby Gonzales, La., in the horse stalls of Lamar-Dixon Expo Center, and Hattiesburg, Miss., that some pets were flown to shelters in two dozen other states, including Michigan.
The Humane Society also sent more than 200 animals to temporary quarters on the grounds of two Louisiana prisons, where inmates cared for the critters just as displaced as the more than 1 million people uprooted from Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
Every animal is photographed. Their mug shots are posted on wwwpetfinder.com, a Web site set up by the various animal groups overseeing the rescue, which in addition to cats and dogs had included exotic birds, snakes, fish, hamsters, rabbits, guinea pigs and even a few pot-bellied pigs.
More than 1,000 veterinarians, animal control officers and activists from state ASPCA chapters took part in rescue efforts.