VANCOUVER SUN
Latest News

Anger mounts over Katrina's other victims

Many of those who've lost a pet (along with everything else) because of Katrina's wrath will suffer severe emotional trauma, including anxiety, guilt, anger and grief over having been unable to protect their beloved animals, she said.

"One can feel as though you're letting them down, you're betraying them, even though there was nothing you could do. They may not know for a long time or ever what's happened."

Shiri Joshua, a Toronto-area pet loss bereavement counsellor, said she heard a talk-radio host opining on the ridiculousness of worrying about "just pets" when human lives were at stake during the disaster -- and many callers agreed with him.

"It is not. It is not just a pet for these people," Joshua said. "Not for every pet owner, but for some pet owners, this is all they have."

UBC's Coren agrees pets play a significant role in many people's lives, and can even lead to better physical and mental health.

At least some of those plucking people from balconies and rooftops in the first days after Katrina's onslaught understood how vital it was not to separate people from their pets, despite official directives to the contrary, said Coren.

"I heard a wonderful story told about an army flight surgeon, where an elderly woman was being loaded onto a plane or helicopter, and she had a Yorkshire terrier and one of the troopers told her, 'You can't bring that.' And the woman started to cry.

"And the flight surgeon walked over and said: 'Give me that,' and the trooper said, 'Sir, we have orders not to bring on any dogs.'

"And the flight surgeon looked at the trooper and said: 'That's not a dog -- that's medicine."'
© The Vancouver Sun 2005

Anger mounts over Katrina's other victims
Scenes of animals being forcibly separated from their owners upset TV viewers

CREDIT: Stephen Gross, Associated Press
Veterinary technician Joan Butler holds Hurricane Katrina survivor Jenna, a West Highland terrier cross dog at an animal shelter in Anniston, Ala., after the dog was rescued from Gulfport, Miss. People watching TV images of abandoned pets stranded on the rooftops and porches of Katrina-battered New Orleans homes reacted with pity and anger as rescue boats passed them by, leaving them to an uncertain fate.

A New Orleans cop wrenches a fluffy white mop of a dog named Snowball from the arms of a little boy as he boards a bus to safety, leaving the child sobbing uncontrollably.

Three or four dogs bark and pace on a rooftop island surrounded by swirling fetid waters as a boat that might have been their salvation pulls away.

A soldier levels a rifle at a large, mangy canine ferociously guarding what was once his family's home to prevent rescue workers from getting inside.

"I didn't want to kill him," the burly soldier says afterwards through tears. "I had no choice."

As Canadians huddled around television sets to view the devastation of hurricane Katrina, it was the sight of helpless pets forcibly separated from their owners or abandoned to certain suffering and death that evoked more than perhaps anything else a collective sigh of pity, summed up in one long drawn-out word: "Ahhhhhhh."

What is it about animals, especially pets, that tugs so hard at so many people's heartstrings?

For Michael O'Sullivan, executive director of the Humane Society of Canada, the answer is simple:

"We really marvel at the kindness of spirit and the good nature that animals always have," O'Sullivan suggests.

"They're innocent, they're friendly -- they're almost always in a good mood and they're our companions and our protectors.

"And it breaks our heart when they leave us."

In Canada alone, there are more than 15 million pets -- from dogs, cats and horses to birds, fish and hamsters, he said. About six in every 10 Canadian households is home to a pet.

"So we're a nation of animal lovers," said O'Sullivan, noting that the Humane Society has received hundreds of phone calls and e-mails from people angry with the way authorities in New Orleans and other Katrina-battered communities dealt with the monster storm's four-legged victims.

"I think people intuitively feel sorry for older people, for animals and for children, and adults as well, of course. But the animals are so helpless. They're standing there waiting for someone to rescue them and they don't understand what's going on. They didn't have a choice about whether they would be left behind or not."

Most people consider pets a member of their family, and that's especially true of dogs, said Dr. Stanley Coren, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia who specializes in the human-animal bond.

Many people treat dogs and other pets as they do young children, going to great lengths to ensure their needs are met, he said.

"We are basically looking at them then as family members -- and a dependent family member -- And we've developed the same emotional empathy we have toward a young child, and that's part of the reason we get the kind of response that we get during situations when the animal is in threat.

"So that's why you're getting so much of this kind of passion."

Many Canadians have known the sorrow of losing a pet and they empathize with their neighbours to the south, added Pattie Whitehouse, co-ordinator of the Pacific Animal Therapy Society's pet loss support line, which counsels people who have lost a pet or are anticipating the loss of one through imminent death or separation.