Katrina & Pets

I made the mistake today of going back online and looking at some Katrina photographs. There are so many subjects within those pictures that you could write a hundred stories about a hundred different subjects. I want to write about the animals I saw in the pictures.

I know the human loss was horrible. I have cried many tears for all the families who lost someone. I go to church with a lady who moved here after her only blood relative was killed during Katrina, her only child, a son. I can remember hearing the stories about the people who would not leave because they wouldn’t leave their pets behind. I heard many nasty remarks about how “stupid” that was of them to die rather than leave a dog or a cat.

Some of those pictures I looked at were no doubt reunions between human and pet. The looks on the peoples' faces spoke volumes. Some of the pictures were people in boats holding tightly to their dogs. A few were people in waist high water carrying their pets. Most of them though were of abandoned pets, their eyes crying for help, for food and "their person".

I thought long and hard back during and right after Katrina about this. There have been times I have sit and talked with a friend about, "Well, if that happened to me, this is what I would do". Most of the time though, I don't think we're sure what we would do in certain situations unless we are put in those positions. Leaving my pets behind is not one of them. Under no circumstances would I leave my precious friends behind.

My little dog, my three cats, my rats, they are faithful and have such a pure unconditional love for me how could I ever look them in their little trusting eyes and walk away? What would I have? I would be alive. My body would be warm and my heart would be beating. I would continue breathing and going through all the motions, but my mind would never be the same knowing that I walked away and left my babies to die horribly, alone and scared.

I am a former cop. I thought a lot back then about the things I “knew” I would do if such and such happened on my job, and the things I just didn’t have a clue what I would really do unless I was put in the situation. This dilema however is one of those things people refer to as a “no brainer”.

Leaving my pets behind or staying and possibly dying with them…..?
That one is a “no brainer".