As you may remember, many animals were displaced by Hurricane Katrina in
September 2005, either
from their homes or shelters. Animal rescue groups from around the country
traveled to Louisiana to help these animals. While I have volunteered at
animal shelters, I had never done "animal rescue" work before and this was my
first foray into it. While very rewarding, it is also very stressful, and people
who do this all the time (generally as volunteers while holding down paying jobs
in other fields) are the unsung heroes of our society.
Lorraine May, executive director of the Denver-based
Misha May Foundation
(named for her dog Misha), decided she was going to go down to Louisiana and
bring back animals to Denver, so they could receive medical treatment and find
homes. This was a courageous decision on her part because the Misha May
Foundation is a very small organization with limited funds that doesn’t even
have a facility yet or any paid staff. Everyone is a volunteer, including
Lorraine. She runs the Misha May Foundation out of her home in Denver, which is
also the headquarters for her holistic dog training business. This gives you
some idea of the passionate commitment she has to helping animals.
We have known Lorraine for several years--I studied Reiki for Animals and
took my Reiki Master/Teacher training with her, we took our dog to her training
classes and are members of the Misha May Foundation. So when I heard about her
trip to Louisiana, I offered to post information on my website, knowing that
Lorraine cannot get her own Foundation website updated quickly. She doesn’t have
IT staff (or any staff) and sometimes has to wait weeks for a volunteer to have
time to work on her website. Since I am also an IT professional, I do the
Optimum Choices website and can easily update it.
Lorraine drove down with 5 other volunteers to Louisiana on Saturday,
September 17, 2005 with 3 donated horse trailers. On Sunday afternoon, they loaded up
the trailers with approximately 50 dogs and cats, plus 2 rats from a shelter at
a farmer’s market. Due to the brutal heat in Louisiana (100 degrees), they had
to wait until evening to drive, or the animals would perish in the non-air
conditioned trailers. They waited until 7 pm Sunday night to leave and drove
straight through the night and all day Monday, reaching Denver around 8 pm
Monday night. The media had been alerted to their mission but unfortunately
Lorraine and the trailers didn’t arrive at 5 pm when expected, due to the delay
in leaving Louisiana. So the media, which had been camped out at her house to
film the drama of the animals arriving, were all gone when the animals finally
arrived.
Lorraine’s trailer was first to arrive and she stepped out of the truck with
a small pitiful looking dog cradled in her arms. She choked up with tears as she
introduced the dog: "This is Katrina" and everyone had tears in their eyes at
the sight of the little dog. More volunteers than dogs swarmed around the
trailer to welcome the dogs and walk them. Since I wasn’t needed there, I
wandered over to the garage where the cats and rats had been unloaded (they came
in on the second trailer). The rats were in a cage with an empty water bottle
lying on top, so I filled it and gave them a drink, since no one was paying
attention to them. But don't feel sorry for them--they were the first animals
adopted and went home to their new home that night. Eva, the main cat volunteer,
had been busy scrubbing and assembling cat cages before the animals arrived. The
cats were now safely stowed in their clean cages in the garage but there was a
rank scent in the garage from their filthy fur--one cat was so dirty that its
fur looked wet. Who knows what that cat went through before it was rescued?
Still, that cat was extremely friendly, rubbing against the bars of its cage,
asking for petting.
When the third trailer arrived later, there were fewer volunteers available
so I helped unload dogs and took a dachshund mix to walk. By now there was
"controlled chaos" in Lorraine’s backyard. People were milling around with dogs,
waiting for the vet and her vet techs to examine and vaccinate each dog. Kris
Ahlgrim, DVM, of
GoldenView Veterinary Hospital, had volunteered to examine,
test and vaccinate the animals brought back by Lorraine. She arrived with her
army of vet techs Monday evening and worked for several hours to process all the
dogs. There wasn't time to do the cats as well that night. As the dogs finished
being examined, they were then stowed in crates in the backyard to spend the
night. It was a bit of an adventure simply to find a clean crate of the
appropriate size for each dog from the stack of donated crates out on the
driveway, some of them disassembled.
The next day, all the animals were groomed at
An Average Pooch Pet Spa in
nearby Englewood, where one of the Misha May Foundation board members works.
Many of the dogs went to foster or adoptive homes. The dachshund I had been
walking was adopted by a man who agreed to take it even though it was infected
with heartworm (fortunately only 2 dogs were so infected). Lorraine had asked
for "cat people" to come Tuesday night so I arrived then with my friend
Fredda,
a cat lover, to cuddle cats and do whatever was needed. Kris Ahlgrim arrived
again, after a long day's work, with her army of vet techs to examine and
vaccinate the cats. The cats had now been bathed and the friendly cat with the
filthy fur from the night before turned out to be a beautiful,
classically-marked tabby cat named Boone. Lorraine was still busy dealing with
dogs in her yard so I handed each cat to the vet for examination. After a
beautiful but shy Siamese-mix was examined, I handed her to my friend for some
lap time. This cat, renamed "Gypsy" by Fredda, turned out to be a very sweet,
affectionate lap cat--she spent a couple of hours on my friend's lap and dug her
claws in, protesting, when I tried to dislodge her to return her to her cage.
All the cats were surprising sweet and affectionate, given what they had gone
through. Two of them went home that night to foster homes, including Destiny, a
sweet little cat with a broken leg who had been a stray alley cat in Louisiana.
I photographed all the cats so I could post their pictures on the Optimum
Choices website to help
get them adopted out.
The next day the cats were transferred to cages at An Average Pooch Pet Spa,
a more suitable location than Lorraine's garage, though not open enough hours
for potential adopters to easily visit them. Later, one of the cat fosters was
able to arrange donated kenneling for them at
Wheat Ridge Animal Hospital (WRAH),
a 24-hour emergency veterinary hospital. Two of them had been sick with diarrhea
since arriving here and needed medical care. Since I had an appointment near
where the cats were housed, I offered to transfer them to Wheat Ridge.
Originally I had not planned to help care for and adopt out animals but by now
I’d become attached to these cats. I transferred 7 cats there Friday, leaving
2 to go to an adoptathon Saturday. On Saturday, the 2 went to the adoptathon,
along with the 3 kittens.
Unfortunately, Saturday was the day everyone started getting sick. Many
animals coming from the hurricane area were in poor health after what they went
through and these cats were no exception. The 2 cats at the adoptathon starting
sniffling, so they were immediately taken to WRAH for treatment while the 3
kittens went home with their foster mom. In cats, sniffling doesn’t just mean a
little cold like it does with humans. When cats get an upper respiratory
infection (URI), it can be very severe and quite contagious. The cats are
normally put into isolation and given antibiotics to prevent pneumonia from
developing. Stress and frightening experiences like what these cats went through
can help trigger the development of URI. By the next week, WRAH had 5 of our 9
adult cats in isolation, with URI. That week, the foster mom also called us in a
panic because one of the kittens was sick and sniffling. We couldn’t burden WRAH
further with the kitten so Eva found another place,
CARE Animal Hospital in
Arvada, that offered us low-cost care for it and all three kittens were taken
there.
On Wednesday, WRAH contacted us because caring for 5 sick cats in isolation
was over taxing their resources and asked us to move the cats in the next couple
of days. Though this may sound like a cruel decision, one has to realize that
vet hospitals don’t have the resources to deal with a disaster the magnitude of
Katrina. Human hospitals at least can get government funding if they are public
or they have insurance reimbursements. But veterinary hospitals can’t afford
many charity cases. So, we began calling other hospitals as well as the Colorado
Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA), which had been receiving donations from
people for care of Katrina animals. I also sent out a desperate e-mail plea to
the Rocky Mountain Holistic Veterinary Medical Association (which I am a member
of), asking for help finding a place to care for these sick cats.
It turned out that the CVMA did not have a process in place to help small
organizations like Misha May. They were set up to work with larger organizations
such as the Denver Dumb Friends League and Colorado Humane Society that have
facilities. Their best option for us at the time was to surrender our sick cats
to the Colorado Humane Society, who would then care for them and own them. This
option was not palatable to Lorraine May, who preferred to keep the animals
within her own organization, so she could ensure they received good medical care
and were adopted out to loving homes, rather than euthanized to make room for
healthier animals. It’s an unfortunate fact that many shelters have to euthanize
animals to make room for new ones coming in. Any shelter or organization that
doesn't "euthanize for space", as it is called, must turn away animals instead.
So while a so-called "no kill" shelter may not kill animals directly, they will
be forced to turn away animals that then go to "open admission" shelters where
they must kill animals to make room for more. Such are the facts in a society
where millions of unwanted dogs and cats are born every year.
The CVMA told us they could not provide us with any funds immediately for
medical care but we could apply for funds later and if any were "left over", we
could receive assistance. This was somewhat aggravating because every person in
the Denver metro area who wanted to help local Katrina animals was being told by
vets and organizations to donate their money to the CVMA. Yet we could not
access those funds even though we were rescuing Katrina animals. Meanwhile, we had sick cats needing immediate care.
So, we continued calling veterinary hospitals to see if anyone could donate
care. Eva saved the day by obtaining an offer from her veterinarian, Julie Kelly
at Aspenwood Animal Hospital in Denver, to take 4 cats. It was time to start
driving cats around again--I went to WRAH and loaded up the 4 sickest cats, to
take them to their new hospital home. This time, there was a symphony of
sneezing and howling in the back seat of my car from the sick crew. Fortunately
cat #5, Boone, the beautiful tabby, had come out of isolation and was back in
the kennel at WRAH.
Then medical crisis #2 hit. The sick kitten at CARE Animal Hospital was worse
and needed to be put in an oxygen chamber, which they did not have at their facility. WRAH
could not afford to donate care for it but they had an available oxygen chamber
so I drove up to CARE, picked up the kitten and transported it to WRAH for
treatment. Animal Hospital Center, a 24-hour emergency hospital in Highlands
Ranch, had called back earlier in the day, offering to donate care for one of
the cats in isolation (Boone, who no longer needed treatment). I now called them
to see if they could provide oxygen for a sick kitten instead. They agreed and I
scheduled to take the kitten there the next morning. Meanwhile, the CVMA had
called Lorraine and said they would be setting up a process in the future whereby private vets
could apply to them for reimbursement for care provided to Katrina animals--good
news for us!
The next morning, the little kitten was loaded up again in my car, for the
long trip to Highlands Ranch from Wheat Ridge. Though sneezing, it seemed much
better. We drove through rush hour traffic there and when we were 5 minutes
away, a vet called to say their oxygen chamber was in use and could I bring the
"other cat". I explained that the other cat was well and asked if I could bring
the kitten anyway and maybe it wouldn’t need oxygen, just isolation. They said
"yes, but if it gets worse and needs oxygen, we’ll have to euthanize it so it
doesn’t suffer". Egads! I called WRAH to find out more about the kitten's
treatment and was told that the kitten had not been on oxygen overnight. Whew! So
I continued to the Highlands Ranch hospital and the kitten was accepted there
for treatment in their isolation ward. I left instructions that if it needed
oxygen, they were to call me and I would try to transfer it to another hospital.
The next day I called and the kitten was doing well--another crisis averted.
Later that Friday, I received a call from
Alameda East Veterinary Hospital
(the 24-hour vet hospital featured on Animal Planet) and they offered to take
one of our cats. Apparently they had a process worked out already with CVMA to
provide treatment for Katrina animals and were treating a Katrina dog for
pneumonia. I said "thanks, but I have the sick cats placed now in hospitals". By
now, poor Eva was so stressed out from dealing with providing for the medical
and housing needs of all these cats, while working a demanding full-time job,
that she had to take a break from working with the cats. I was also stressed out
but more able to cope with it because my computer job was part-time, while I did
our own business, Optimum Choices, the remainder of the time. So at least I was
in less danger of being fired than Eva. I had no idea that animal rescue work
took so much time until I plunged into it with these cats.
Monday I was driving to work, thinking everything was taken care of when the
new foster mom for the kittens called to report that one of the 2 remaining
kittens was sick. It was sniffling, breathing through its mouth and lethargic.
Thank goodness for all my calls to hospitals last week--I had an ace up my
sleeve this time. I called Alameda East Hospital and they agreed to take the
kitten for treatment. It turned out this kitten was less ill than the
first--they gave it antibiotics and sent it back home. Then a couple of days
later, the third kitten also became sick and like the second was given
antibiotics and sent home.
We now had some holistic help for our cats:
Susan Crawford, a talented
chiropractor who works with animals (doing energy work, cranial sacral and
chiropractic) had called on Friday offering to work on our sick cats as well as
making a substantial donation of money to the Misha May Foundation for medical
expenses. I assume she had heard about our needs from my e-mail plea to the vet
association. Her offer was a welcome change from calling vet hospitals and
hearing "no, we don’t have an isolation ward" or "no, we have no room in our
isolation ward". Although I do Reiki energy work on animals, I was so busy
ferrying around cats and calling vet hospitals, as well as dealing with
potential adopters and foster homes, that I couldn’t do much more than provide
the vet hospitals with our holistic algae product,
BioPreparation
(donated by Optimum Choices and BioAge), and
hope they might use it to help the sick cats get better.
On Monday, Susan reported that she had worked on the 4 cats at Aspenwood and
made plans to see the sick kitten as well. Additionally, she agreed to pick up
the homeopathic remedies recommended by my vet (classical homeopathic vet
Jan Facinelli) and provide it for the cats. Also, she contacted
Donna
Starita, a vet in Oregon who
specializes in long-distance work and enlisted her help in treating our
cats. It can take weeks for
cats to recover from URI, even with the best of medical care, so the addition of
these holistic therapies was most welcome. The Misha May Foundation has always
sought to integrate holistic and traditional medical treatments in caring for
its animals. Dr. Facinelli later explained that
the homeopathic remedies aconite and arnica are indicated for all animals
rescued in this fashion. Giving them a dose as they arrive in Denver could help
prevent them from getting sick later, especially with the added stress of
vaccinations upon arrival.
By mid-October, the 4 cats at Aspenwood finally recovered enough to move into
adoptive or foster homes. It took us until the end of October to find foster
homes for all of them. By mid-November, we found adoptive homes for all the
adult cats. It took us until mid-December to place the last 2 remaining kittens. Like many
Katrina animals, they had parasites and that discouraged potential adopters from
considering them. As it turned out, the foster parents fell in love with them
and ended up keeping them, giving them a full household of 4 cats.
You might ask, why would Lorraine May take on such a huge task, of bringing
all these animals back, when she doesn’t have a facility and she didn’t have all
the funds, volunteers and medical care in place beforehand. Why not let some
larger organization handle this instead? Well, the alternative was to let the
animals stay down in Louisiana and die. All you have to do is look at the
e-mails that were sent out by animal shelter and rescue workers in the Katrina area to understand why
Lorraine was impelled into action. As an example, on October 3 I received a forwarded e-mail
requesting ground transport for 80 dogs and 50 cats in southeastern Louisiana that would be euthanized if
not moved out immediately. Their scheduled air transport failed to take place
so now they were stuck where they were. As of November, there were still animals
needing help in Louisiana. Rescue workers down there told tales of starving dogs
forming packs and killing stray cats to survive.
While the conditions Lorraine could provide (non air conditioned horse
trailers and doing animal triage upon arrival in her backyard) were not ideal
for these animals, the alternative was to let them die in Louisiana. There
simply wasn't time to get the perfect facilities in place if these animals were
to be saved. Lorraine also thought it would be easier to obtain medical help
through the CVMA, not realizing that they were not prepared to work with small
organizations like Misha May. Lorraine went down to Louisiana in early October on a second trip to bring back more animals. This time she
rented air conditioned cargo vans and housed the animals the first week at a
storage facility next to Alameda
East Veterinary Hospital, who donated medical care for several of the dogs.
Between the two trips, Lorraine saved a total of 80 Katrina dogs and cats, an
impressive number for the small, all-volunteer Misha May Foundation.
The Katrina disaster was of such a magnitude, such an unprecedented scale,
that all sizes of organizations were needed to pitch in, to cope with all these
animals. Saying "oh, I'll just let the large animal organizations do it, like
Denver Dumb Friends League" is condemning animals to death. Just as there
were
huge numbers of displaced humans needing help, needing jobs and needing homes,
there were huge numbers of displaced animals needing medical care and homes. As
we saw down in Louisiana and Mississippi immediately after Katrina, our
infrastructure is not set up to deal with this kind of catastrophe and the same
thing is true nationwide—it is not easy for the cities around the country,
Denver included, to provide the resources that are needed to handle this influx
of displaced people and animals.
By mid-October, the media had moved on to other stories,
even though the Katrina needs had not gone away. Instead of front page stories
about Katrina victims, the front page featured stories in the local paper on
things like Creationists giving children a tour of the Museum of Natural
History with a biblical interpretation. While that is interesting, I find it
hard to understand how that merits more attention than the needs of Katrina
victims. I assume the news media feels they must move on to other stories.
Meanwhile, the Misha May Foundation still had dogs that need homes, as of
Christmastime.
Hurricane Katrina is a distant memory now but the need for adoptive homes for
dogs and cats never ends. In July 2006, one of the Katrina cats rescued by the
Misha May Foundation, Sparkle
(picture at right) lost his Denver home. His new
owner's living situation changed and she had to surrender Sparkle (renamed
Cajun), plus her other cat, Asher, to the Misha May Foundation. They went into
one foster home and then were transferred to another. Meanwhile, I posted Cajun
on our Optimum Choices website, highlighted them in our monthly e-newsletters
every month and distributed posters all over town. I also publicized Cajun's
plight whenever we did an animal event. Unfortunately,
with Hurricane Katrina being old news and having no facility where the cats
could be exhibited (such as an animal shelter), no one was interested in them.
Finally I posted Cajun on Craig's list but the only response was someone wanting
to know "what was wrong" with him that he hadn't been adopted yet. Well, the
only thing wrong with Cajun or Asher was that they were adult cats rather than
cute kittens, and there is always a surplus of adult cats up for adoption.
In August 2007, our elderly cat (23 years old) finally passed away from
kidney
failure. We had not wanted to bring in any more cats while she was alive as it
would be too stressful at such an advanced age. But now we could adopt more cats
and after more than a year of fruitless searching for a home for Cajun & Asher,
we adopted them ourselves. We had wanted to get a pair of sibling cats that
would be guaranteed to get along but sometimes one ends up with the animals that
most need a home rather than the ideal in one's head. Cajun & Asher (whom we
renamed "Iris") were purported to be buddies but it turned out that Iris wanted
little to do with Cajun and she would fight
every
time he tried to play. Being a young, playful orange kitty, we felt he needed a
buddy. So, after they were fully settled in our home (which took about a year
because they were traumatized from so many changes of home), we adopted an
8-month old orange cat in November 2008 to be a playmate for Cajun. That cat,
Simba, came from the Cat Care Society shelter where Margaret volunteers as an
adoption assistant. Cajun is happy to have a playmate now but with the
difference in their ages (Cajun will be 4 in March 2009), he often gets
overwhelmed by the boisterous youngster and fights instead of playing. We hope
Simba will mellow out as he ages and make a better companion for Cajun then.
Simba is a typical "wild and crazy" orange cat.
If anyone would like to donate money for ongoing (and unexpected) medical
care or carriers for animals, be a foster parent or adopt an animal, you can contact
The Misha May
Foundation. Information on adoption, including pictures of the animals
available for adoption, is
located here: Adoptions.
Nothing on this website has been evaluated by the FDA. This information
is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Please
see a qualified healthcare practitioner for any disease or illness.