- By Jeff Lydon
- Around Town
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Kennel Supervisor Sharon Palmer and SPCA Volunteer Tom Karl arrived Tuesday. They left in our SPCA van Saturday morning and drove straight through to Gonzales, Louisiana to pick up dogs at a temporary shelter established by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) at the Lamar Dixon Exposition Center.
Many of the dogs at the make-shift shelter survived on the streets or in abandoned homes after the Hurricane struck, scrounging in toxic environments without food or water, without protection or love, torn from the lives they’d led as family pets. Some were barely alive when rescued.
Now, finding their way to the Tompkins County SPCA – the only shelter in the United States that neither kills adoptable animals nor turns away any cat or dog – at least a few of these orphaned animals have a new lease on life.
The dogs will be kept until December 1 and posted on petfinder.com on the off chance that any owners come forward who can identify and reclaim their lost pets. But after this long since the ebbing of the flood waters, the chances of that are slim. Many former residents of Gulf areas hit by Katrina will not be in a position to care for an animal in the foreseeable future. Some of the dogs rescued by our partners at HSUS were likely strays already, and a few, sadly, were probably owned by hurricane victims who lost their lives in the storm. But their histories will remain a mystery for most.
“These animals will require complete medial work-ups, and a great deal of extra care, including temporary isolation and extended sheltering,” said SPCA Executive Director Jeff Lydon. “It will be costly, and we need all the help we can get, now like never before; now is the time to adopt, and now is the time to give.”
The Tompkins County SPCA expects to take in more animal victims of Katrina in the near future.
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