by Cathy Scott
When Betty and Gregory Speyrer returned to their East New Orleans home near City Park in late September, their six cats were nowhere to be found. For the next several months, Betty sent photos and notices to more than a hundred rescue groups across the United States. “I contacted them all,” she said. “No one had them. I’d given up.” After Hurricane Katrina, the couple had temporarily moved to Baton Rouge and were making arrangements to get a FEMA trailer set up on their property where they could live while their house was being renovated.
So, when six months after the hurricane Betty answered an early morning phone call, she could not believe what she was hearing. A worker told her that they’d gotten her “Lost” fliers and that Tiger, the Speyrers’ tortoiseshell male cat, had been found near their house and taken to a temporary triage center. It isn’t true, Betty thought to herself. It has been too long.
Betty hung up the phone, grabbed a cat carrier, and ran out of the apartment to make the seventy-five-mile drive to her storm-damaged home. If rescuers had found Tiger, the other cats could still be there, too, she thought. At the house, she got out of the car and stood there, listening. Then she called out, “Kitty, kitty.” Nothing. Then, again, she called, “Kitty, kitty.” Seemingly out of nowhere appeared Rainbow, their fifteen-year-old (and oldest cat), as if all he had been waiting for was someone to call out his name. Betty picked him up, held him for a moment, and then placed him in the carrier. She drove to Best Friends’ temporary triage center, Celebration Station, in Metairie, just outside of New Orleans, to pick up Tiger.
After she arrived, she walked to his kennel, bent down, and looked inside. “Yes, it’s him,” she told his caregivers. “It’s Tiger.” Betty picked him up and held him against her. She pressed his face against her cheek, and they both closed their eyes. It was difficult to tell who was happier, Tiger or Betty. “Getting Tiger and Rainbow back the same day is incredible,” Betty said. She gave a thumbs-up as she headed out the door with Tiger in tow, and then added, “Two down, four to go.”
Indeed, about a week later Betty received another phone call from a rescuer telling her that yet another cat had been found near her home. This was Charlie, and he, too, was taken to Celebration Station. A week later Giuseppe was found. One by one, four of the Speyrers’ six cats had been rescued.
The last two—Michael and Campenita—have been spotted in their neighborhood but have been too skittish to catch. Betty, now back on the property with her husband in a FEMA trailer, continues to leave food and water outside their home, hoping Michael and Campenita will return. Campenita, the shyest of their cats, was very attached to Michael, their black-and-white tuxedo cat, and Betty believes that is why Michael has not returned. “They played a lot and cuddled up all the time,” she said. “Everywhere Michael went, Campenita followed. I think Michael is staying out there with her.” Michael has appeared a few times. “Michael’s still not sure about coming in,” Betty said, “but he’s eating the food.”
Meanwhile, the Speyrers’ four other cats have settled back into the daily routines they had before Katrina. “The coolest cat is Rainbow, the yellow one,” Betty said. “He’s back to his old habits.” One habit includes drinking water directly from the kitchen faucet. “He jumps on the sink, looks at us, and starts meowing for us to turn on the faucet. He’s always done that, and we always turn it on for him and let it trickle down so he can sip from it. They all copy Rainbow’s behaviors. They’re back to their old ways.”
And just as before, the cats are in and out between the house and the garden patio. “They like to go out in the garden at dawn and stretch and play around. We have grass again, and the garden is full of flowers. They enjoy it.”
One new thing the cats have been doing since they returned home is sleeping in one of the upstairs bedrooms. The Speyrers for months afterward split their time between the FEMA trailer and the second floor of their home. One of the upstairs rooms was where they found Kelly, their fourteen-year-old dog, who didn’t make it through the storm.
“Charlie sleeps under the bed, where Kelly was found,” Betty said. “It’s very sad. Kelly was like a mother to our cats. She groomed them and took care of them. When they were kittens, she would pick them up by the scruffs of their necks and put them in their basket. They miss her.” When the repairs to their house are finished, the Speyrers plan to adopt a puppy for their cats. “Then the puppy can grow up with the cats,” she said, “the way when they were kittens they grew up with Kelly.”
Other pets left stranded survived, even though, unlike the Speyrers’ cats, they were alone. When Clay Myers, a Best Friends staff photographer, spotted a lone Poodle darting across a yard in St. Bernard Parish on September 20, he nearly missed her because her hairless body was covered in soot the same color as the ground. He followed her to a yard, where she was about to jump into a large flowerpot, which was full of toxic sludge. “I wasn’t going to let her jump in,” Clay said. He bent down to grab her. She started to bite him. He pulled away and then tried to pick her up again. This time she let him. To him, it looked as if she was giving up. “Once I got her down from the pot, she was submissive,” he said. “She had a look of shock and fear.”
When Clay rescued the aging, balding, emaciated seven-pound Poodle that Tuesday, he was nearly overcome by the enormity of the event. One more life had been saved, and he was the one (with volunteer Mike McCleese from Cincinnati) who’d done it. “I looked into the eyes of the ones we rescued,” he said, “and I know they were asking, ‘Where did everybody go? Please get me out of here.’ ”
Marina, the Poodle, was one of the lucky ones. The rescue team knew that these dogs and cats had been without food or fresh water for more than twenty days. Deep down, no one expected to see a skinny toy Poodle survive the watery muck, which by then had dried into a two-inch-thick crust of gray toxic clay. Rescuers had not even been permitted to go into that section of town until a couple of days earlier. There was no way this dog would have survived one more day.
I was with the team that day, reporting on the rescues, when the Poodle was brought to the rescue van and started to crash. The temperature was about 105 degrees and it was humid. She closed her eyes, and her body started to go limp. Susan Thomas, a volunteer veterinary technician from Ashtabula, Ohio, watched as the dog was carried to the van. She ran up to us and asked, “Can I help? I have an IV bag in my van.”
“Absolutely,” she was told. “Do whatever you can to help her.” Sue ran back to her van, grabbed the IV bag and a needle, climbed into the rescue van, and started giving the dog subcutaneous fluids. Sue and Josh, another vet tech from Ohio, whose last name wasn’t known, continued hydrating the Poodle for an hour and a half. “We kept moving the needle in different places [across her back and shoulders],” Sue said, “making sure she got fluids everywhere, but we didn’t know if it would save her.” The dog began responding, and the life returned to her eyes. Sue searched the transport van for dog food. The only thing in a cupboard in the back were cans of wet cat food. “This should work,” she said as she popped one open. She put some on her fingers, and the dog licked it from her hand. “This is why I’m here,” said Sue, who had arrived a day earlier at Camp Tylertown with the Ashtabula Animal Protective League. “I have never, ever—and I’ve been doing this twenty, thirty years—seen a dog look like that: no hair, bony, the heat. We kept patting her down with cold packs, trying to get her temperature down.” Helping save the Poodle, Sue said, “was probably the most rewarding experience I’ve had.”
For the two-hour drive back to Camp Tylertown, we wrapped the dog in towels. On the way, the Poodle rested on my lap. We were in a pickup with volunteer Mike and photographer Clay, following the transport van back to base camp. The Poodle kept looking up at me, as if questioning where she was going. After a while, though, she settled down and fell asleep. When we arrived at camp, Mary Salter, a volunteer with Animal Ark in Minnesota, was standing near Ellis Island waiting to assist. I got out of Mike’s truck, carrying the
Poodle. “Can I help?” Mary asked. “Thank you,” I told her. “She needs to see a vet right away.” I explained that the dog had crashed after she was rescued, and that veterinary technicians had given her fluids to revive her.
Mary gently took the dog and ran with her the twenty or so yards to the M*A*S*H Unit, where a group of volunteer vet techs and a doctor were waiting for their latest animal patients.
The next day, Sue and Mary stopped by the triage center to see how the Poodle was doing. “Better,” they were told. For Sue, it was a pleasant surprise. “I was bracing myself to learn that she hadn’t made it,” she said when she found out that the Poodle had survived. “She made me want to go out there and spend more days and stay longer. I was thinking, if she was out there, then there are more like her out there.”
For the next couple of days, the Poodle mostly slept. Then Mary, who was touched by the little dog from the moment she met her, took her home to Minnesota and named her Marina.
Today, Marina is very much at home with Mary and two other canines. She has gained weight, her fur has grown back, and she looks like a Poodle again. An average day for her starts with a walk in the neighborhood. She’s a playful dog, her new owner reports. “When we get back,” Mary said, “she is usually so charged up that we play with her pile of toys until she is good and tired. She loves to play with toys—especially squeaky toys—but she’ll play with anything she can find, like dirty socks.” Then Marina often goes to work with Mary at the Animal Ark shelter. “I love to bring her to work with me so we can work on meeting new people and new dogs. She is still a bit fearful of new people and other dogs.”
At home, though, Marina is queen of the household and rules over her canine housemates. “She makes it known that she is in charge,” Mary said. “But she loves them and they love her.” Every day, Mary said, Marina makes her laugh. “I am amazed every day that she has blossomed into a healthy, happy, fully furred little girl. It’s truly a miracle. We don’t know what we ever did before she was in our lives. I love her so much, and I am so thankful I took her into foster care. She is one special gal, and I can see to the depth of her soul through those precious eyes.”
Marina struck Clay Myers the same way when she looked up at him on that hot afternoon as he rescued her. Afterward, he said he couldn’t get the look in her eyes off his mind. Even though she was scared, he saw a flicker of hope in her eyes. It was as if she knew he was there to save her. “She’s our poster child for Hurricane Katrina,” Clay said. “She’s a survivor.”
8
It Takes Two to Make a Miracle
THE HEROIC EFFORTS OF INDIVIDUALS and their connection to the animals of Katrina helped the sick, the injured, and the frightened recover. Some volunteers had veterinary or nursing experience. Others were animal handlers or had experience at animal shelters or rescue organizations. It all added up to a wealth of knowledge and expertise for those dealing with the displaced pets at base camp, whose lives had been turned upside down. The animals expressed their gratitude in nonverbal and sometimes playful ways.
One example is Tenderfoot, a seven-month-old black Lab who was always happy, despite his footpads being burned off by the toxic sludge. National Guard officers had looked after him for a couple of days. Then rescuer Beth Montes happened upon their checkpoint, which also served as a military camp, and they handed Tenderfoot over to her.
It was during one of Beth’s trips to the city to do house checks for pet owners that she stumbled upon Tenderfoot near the hard-hit Lakeview area of New Orleans, just below the worst levee break. “I was determined to get to two addresses,” she said. “They’d each left multiple cats and dogs in their homes.”
Beth drove her van into New Orleans from the west. “The city was deserted,” she said. “I still don’t know how I got in. I think I accidentally traveled down some side street from Metairie into New Orleans that wasn’t guarded. There was only a small military presence in that area of the city, and one other civilian vehicle besides me was searching for animals. The officers were friendly, were glad we were looking for animals, and tried to describe the best routes into this still partially flooded area. I eventually hooked up with the Louisiana SPCA [Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] folks, and we took their SUV.”
They drove to within about six blocks of the addresses. “It was clear nothing was left alive north of where we were,” she said. “The devastation was total. Houses had been under water over their roof peaks. On the way out, after this disheartening experience, I retrieved my big van and was slip-sliding my way down the deserted streets.”
That’s when Beth came upon the National Guard checkpoint. “I think it was at Canal Boulevard in the Lakeview area where a uniformed young man with a gun waved me down,” she said. “He asked me to drive over to their checkpoint, where he and his friends presented me with a black Lab pup.”
They had found the dog wandering the streets several days before and had been sharing their MREs—or military-issued Meals Ready to Eat—with him. Each shift of officers handed him off to the next shift. “They kept him inside their vehicles,” Beth said. “They were worried because the chemical burns on his feet and tummy were looking bad, and they didn’t have access to vet care or any way to get him out of the city. They asked if I would take him. Of course, I did.”
Beth put the pup on a back seat in her van, where “he immediately fell asleep. He was absolutely exhausted.”
She made it out of the city and back to base camp with Tenderfoot. Soon, word spread around camp that a dog with no paw pads had arrived. Volunteers and staff embraced Tenderfoot and joined in to help bring him back to health. Volunteer holistic veterinarian and Buddhist nun Pema Mallu had set up temporary critical care in our office. This allowed each of us to take turns helping veterinary technician Nydia Alexander, also a Buddhist nun and a nurse in an Arizona hospital, take care of Tenderfoot while we ran in and out of the office doing our respective jobs. Nydia treated Tenderfoot and wrapped his paws in gauze. “All four pads were gone,” she said. “He had burns on his belly, and all four feet were like raw hamburger. I used homeopathic calendula ointment, which is excellent for wounds like burns.” Through it all, the pup never let out one whimper, even though his wounds were no doubt painful.
To keep him free from infection, the doctor ordered that Tenderfoot’s feet not touch the ground. For bathroom breaks, Nydia carried him outside to a grassy area where no other dogs had walked. Then he was set down. Those of us in the office started taking turns with him. We had to be careful how we lifted him, making sure we didn’t touch the wounds on the side of his body.
On the way in and out of the office, Tenderfoot relaxed and enjoyed the ride, wagging his tail the entire time. It was as if he knew that that’s what he needed to do to get well again. When people in the yard approached, he’d wag his tail madly and lick their hands.
When Mike McCleese, a volunteer from Cincinnati, met the puppy, it was love at first sight and he applied to foster him. When he left base camp, he took Tenderfoot home to live with his two other Labs. Mike renamed him. “There’s something about him that touches my heart. He’s got a good soul, and he’s laid back. That’s why I call him Big Easy.”
Mike’s dogs, however, didn’t take to their new housemate. Mike, who works at home and runs a landscape design business called A Guy and His Dog Landscaping, was disappointed. On a trip to his Vermont cabin—a second home for Mike and his dogs—he stopped near Erie, Pennsylvania, to visit fellow volunteer Mary Ellen Daub, whom he’d met at Camp Tylertown. She, too, had spent time with Tenderfoot. So, when Mike told her that his dogs weren’t accepting Tenderfoot after more than a month, Mary Ellen jumped at the chance to adopt him.
Today, Tenderfoot lives with a handful of other dogs, has a dog door to run inside and outside at will, and is enjoying life. His wounds have healed completely, and he doesn’t appear to have any side effects from his ordeal. Mary Ellen said he still has his puppy-like moments, typical be
havior for young Labs. “He chews some,” she said, “but he’s a good boy. We’re happy to have him.”
For Scotty, a spiky-haired terrier mutt, it was two caregivers in particular who helped him overcome a severe case of heartworm disease so that he could go home to his original family a year later. Just after Christmas 2006, volunteer Darla Wolak drove Scotty to the house he’d hidden under just before the storm hit. “A few blocks from the house, he recognized the smell,” Darla said. Once there, “he ran to his owner.”
Bill Waiters and his family had been ordered to leave their home a day before the levees broke and the massive flooding started. They put Scotty in the back of their pickup and headed down the street. Scotty, who’s quick and fiercely independent, jumped out of the truck and ran under their house. They turned around and went back for him, but Scotty thought they were playing chase with him, so he ran all around, in, and under the house. When the Waiters were ordered to leave again, they drove out of their neighborhood while Scotty stayed under the house.
Three months later, neighbors reported seeing a terrier running in the area. By that time, Best Friends and Animal Rescue New Orleans had set up the joint triage and feeding center at Celebration Station in Metairie. A feeding station where volunteers would leave bowls of food and water happened to be located across the street from Scotty’s home. Darla believes that’s how Scotty survived on the street.
Darla, who volunteered at Celebration Station, took the call about Scotty and responded by rescuing him from under the house. She wrote two notes and posted them on the house so that his family would know where he was. Then she took him to the center.
It was there that Laurel Ley, another volunteer, took Scotty under her care. He slept with her every night, and he played in the common area at Celebration Station when Laurel was downstairs working. “My heart fell for Scotty the first time I saw him in the medical unit at Celebration Station,” Laurel said. She described him as “a loving, loyal, sweet dog. When we would go out, he’d carry his favorite toy with him—to go potty, to go outside, to go get food. The way he looked at you, your heart had to melt. Of course, Scotty perfected that look over time and used it ruthlessly.”