Katrina Creatures & Critters

Bless You Boys!

2010-01-25T14:02:00.000-08:00

Last night as I drove home from an NFC championship party, I had to turn my radio down and roll my windows down to listen to the noise all around me, the sound of a million, or so it seemed, horns honking, all around me, from Airline Hwy to Jefferson Hwy, from the Superdome to River Ridge and way beyond and everyone in this city knew just what those horns meant. That has happened only one other time that I can remember, with those numbers behind it, with that many participating, and it was on my drive back into the city, on the "legal" drive back anyhow, when they allowed us back in for a peek, after Katrina struck, it seemed like every single car between Beumont, Texas and New Orleans was honking for the Entergy trucks that were headed our way, into New Orleans, the fleets that were headed that way to restore something, anything, because at the time, something was all that most had to hang onto to. I have to say that last nights' honks were so much sweeter than that last go round, almost 5 years ago, much sweeter.

Coach Peyton's speech was very fitting, that building used to have holes and it used to be wet, but it's not now, not anymore. For me, of course I want the Saint's to win that Superbowl, but if they don't, they still did what they needed to do, they won in that building, in this city, among their fans, fans that probably needed more than any others in the world...they can't take away what happened there in the past, what happened here in the past, but in 60 minutes of on the clock time, and after one hell of a season, they've reminded us once again, that we do live in the greatest city in the world!

Bless You Boys!!

ARNO puts the rescue in Animal Rescue

2009-12-22T10:14:00.000-08:00

Casa and her pups at ARNO

Most pleas for help that I send out have to do with a specific animal, but today, it’s just a plea for help, help for Animal Rescue New Orleans (ARNO), a plea for you to consider helping, in anyway that you can. ARNO needs volunteers, ARNO needs money, ARNO needs blankets, dog beds, cat food, kitten food, ARNO needs help to be able to continue what it does best: RESPOND.

Last night as I sat with Liberty and contemplated an evening of feral canine rehab since we had a good nighttime dog crew, I was suddenly called away by Jen H. to head out and see if we couldn’t help a feral cat caretaker catch a cat who had suddenly gone “neurologic” Well, after grabbing my keys, a flashlight and the net, we determined on the drive over that it was a cat who this caretaker had been feeding for years, before and after Hurricane Katrina and now tonight, out of the blew, he was stumbling, fell over and was now running across a shopping mall parking lot near his home, dodging all the Christmas shoppers and their cars. Surely, we would arrive too late for this cat but we sped ahead anyway. When we arrived, there he was, running in the back of the mall lot, the caretaker and her friend in tears trying to catch him. What happened next was just another ARNO night as I watched Jen creep up upon this frightened animal and on her first attempt, successfully net the cat. And so it goes, another night of ARNO work, at the shelter, away from the shelter, responding to an emergency call that noone else will, but our night was hardly over as we raced to the emergency veterinarian clinic for a diagnosis and more importantly to the caretaker, a prognosis. It was to be this cat’s night as we were told that his bloodwork looked good and his lack of wounds pointed to a disease that could be causing the blood behind his eyes, the same blood that was now making him nearly blind, Toxoplasmosis.
So Raphael awaits the rest of life now at ARNO, for ten days at least, as we are under orders to go through the motions of a rabies quarantine, just in case, he is being treated with medication to put the Toxo in remission and then his caretaker will find a place in her home for a feral that is already letting us pet him. The caretaker was able to save her beloved cat, one she has known for six or seven years, a remarkably long time in feral cat years, and ARNO, out $255.00 for the exam and bloodwork, was able to give that caretaker something she needed for Christmas, peace of mind in finding someone, anyone, ARNO, to just respond.

Casa, she was one where ARNO, just responded. There was a skinny dog, or so we were told, one who was nursing what they believed was 3 puppies, newborns or no older than 10 days. Well, what makes this one an emergency ARNO asked? The building, the one she lived under, gave birth under, and came home every night to after hunting for scraps so that she could nurse, that building was to be torn down in about 3 days. No, animal control won’t help us they said, “we don’t go under buildings” is what they were told, the workers near that building who tried to look out for the mama dog. So, ARNO was contacted and ARNO responded. After an initial survey of the building, underneath, and its canine residents, an ARNO volunteer set a plan in motion to trap the mother and then waited and waited and waited. Turns out she was a good mother and although she was now sealed into her home, she wouldn’t leave the puppies and enter the trap. So ARNO responded, and we crawled, on our bellies, underneath that building and while one of us shown the light and watched to be certain that the mother wouldn’t attack, the other volunteer stole two of those puppies and that response, it worked. Within minutes, we had the mother dog, her two stolen puppies and one more belly crawl assured us that third beautiful baby. So now Casa, named for the juvenile court system’s building she was living under, and of course meaning “home” sits at ARNO, receiving much love and attention, and hot dogs too, and watches her babies grow and play and be loved as much and now she hopes for others to respond as well. Casa waits for a home, a home for her puppies, for more volunteers to arrive at ARNO so that others can continue to respond to those calls, for money to be donated to buy the food, the bedding, the heartworm treatment it turns out she needs.

Please, respond to our plea for help, respond to ARNO so that ARNO can continue responding when, wherever, and for whomever it is needed...it’s what ARNO does better than anyone else.
ARNO’s no-kill shelter is located at 271 Plauche Street in Harahan, LA 70123. You can donate on line at www.animalrescueneworleans.org Thank you for caring.

Happy Holidays!

My First Feral Friend

2009-08-07T11:52:00.000-07:00

We are approaching the 4 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and how my life has changed! As Feral K9 Coordinator for Animal Rescue New Orleans (ARNO) I often think how drastically my life has changed since the storm and without a doubt, the most obvious change involves my work with dogs....from a person who didn’t own a dog to one who eats, breathes and sleeps DOG, specifically, the feral ones, the ones who are controlled by fear, the ones who need patience, patience and more patience. Until them, I never understood what true patience is.
And, while considering anything I do or achieve with feral dogs, I have to consider my foundation....Hope. Hope, now Bella, was my introduction to this work and the funniest thing to me now is that back then, I thought two months was a lifetime. Little did I really know!
Lise Mc

"Hope Springs Eternal"Originally posted January, 2006

"Hope" as she was named by her rescuer, is a very special dog. When her local "guardian angel" found her it had been two months since Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast Region. When she was found one November morning, "Hope" appeared to be the only living creature amongst the ruins of Lakewood South, one of the more decimated areas of New Orleans. The desolate wasteland that used to be a thriving community neighborhood, abutted the 17th Street Canal at the Metairie/New Orleans line........the area, still without electricity, had taken a direct hit when the levee was breached and subsequently, very few, if any animals were rescued from the subdivision. We are hopeful that most of the residents were able to evacuate, with their pets, prior to Katrina.

The occasional construction/clean-up worker would attempt to befriend her during the first two months following the flooding, all to no avail. And so, over the period of time, she would receive pizza handouts from the workers......they always looked out for her, no matter that she was unapproachable. When a local feeder/rescuer came upon her in early November, 2005, it was clear that this dog was not only starved for nourishment, she was starved for human attention and whatever trauma she suffered before, during and after the storm, was preventing her from reforming a bond with any human. With that in mind, the local set up a proper food/water station and began what would become an eight-week journey......a journey full of setbacks and breakthroughs, full of tears of both joy and frustration, full of lessons taught and lessons learned......all stepping stones and road-blocks along the journey which ended with a very special friendship between dog and girl.

It took two very long months of daily visits and chats (some, ignored on the dog’s part) and coaxing and sometimes just sitting and watching and letting "Hope" do the watching too. Over time, that milk-bone didn’t look quite so ominous, as long as it was offered to the ground first; then, the hand attached to the milk-bone looked like it might be okay to take a treat from.......and finally, on Christmas Day of all days, that hand looked like it might be nice if it scratched behind those tired, but ever-alert ears.......Aahh! yes, and wow, that felt so good, a belly rub might be in order!!

"Hope" was leashed by her rescuer, without a struggle, on December 30, 2005, in the very same spot in which the two had met eight weeks earlier. The differences that time had brought were visible and audible.......birds were chirping on this sunny day and Joe, the neighborhood security patrol, watched with his jaw open wide and a lone house worker grinned with delight because finally, she would be safe. The rescuer’s only regret was that the kindly gentleman who gladly shared his water-logged, sun-dried remnants of his front and side yard of 5636 Cherlyn Drive, was not there that day to see his timid tenant finally take that walk like all carefree dogs do. I know that during her four months in exile, "Hope" did take some comfort in his daily comings and goings and this rescuer believes that the hospitality he showed to her, instead of attempts to catch or run her off, made all the difference in the world in her progression back to Trust.

As her rescuer, feeder, guardian, and most of all, friend, I named this girl Hope because even with no trust in her eyes, it was clear to see that she never gave up hope. I came to realize that she stayed put for so long because she was ever-hopeful that her family would find her....eventually that hope changed direction, it was never lost, but she somehow managed to redirect that hope and let other humans in and hope for more than she had been. She is a delight to be around......she loves and is loved and she so thoroughly experiences joy as I visit her now, at her temporary home at Celebration Station, Metairie, LA.

So, now, at what is surely the end of our journey together, it is I, her rescuer, that is "hopeful"I hope she finds her family, but, if not her former, than one who will love her just as much......I hope she never again has to find her way back to the loving, exuberant, and playful creature she truly is. Selfishly, I hope she never completely forgets me, but, because I love her, I hope she forgets me as much as she needs to in order to find her forever family and happiness with them.

I’ll never forget, Hope........

Walking the Fence

2009-06-10T09:49:00.000-07:00

“Pal, get your butt in here, right now!” That’s what I used to yell out just to get him to come down off the fence outside the tiny apartment we shared, but secretly, I always laughed and I admired his skill and grace at navigating that fence as if he were a world-class gymnast instead of just an ordinary cat.

Palomine was the personification of his name, he was my Pal and he was all mine. Back in 1991, At the ripe old age of 24 I decided that I would have a pet, my first pet, well, really, he decided he would have me. I helped Pal into this world and had to ultimately tie off his umbilical cord as a stray cat gave birth to him and his four siblings in my front room, both she and I were novices and obviously didn’t know what we were doing. They all survived and went on to other homes, all except the little one with the “quarter” on his chin, the tiny black perfect circle under his mouth that would grow as he grew and max out at the size of a quarter....I’ve got your quarter! the silly game he and I would often play as I bit and grabbed that circle. Pal and I soon became best friends and I must have been in a Honeymooners phase at the time because Palomine was named for Art Carney’s bellowing Ralphie, oh palomine.

Pal was my first pet, the first creature that was my responsibility and although I’m sure I made mistakes along the way, Pal was always there to hang out with, to comfort me when I was down, to just be there. When Pal was about two years old, I endured the first real break-up in my life and he was there to lick my tears from my cheeks until I laughed, he was there when I moved into my first apartment, my first “alone” apartment, one without roommates or boyfriends and it was just me and him, my fence-walking daredevil. Pal had his share of scrapes, twice he had to have surgery for neck injuries, once when he climbed under a car hood and once when the neighborhood cat beat him up. It was the second surgery that brought my Pal down from that fence and inside for good.

The years passed too slowly in many aspects, too quickly in others, and Pal was there for it all.
I thought my heart would break in two pieces the night I took him to be boarded for the week of my honeymoon, he and I had never been apart for so long and I recall the first thing I did upon my return was to go find my Pal. Pal was twelve years old before he finally made a new friend, a friend with whiskers and four paws just like him, a second cat for my household and even after that long of him being the little king, he took it in stride and soon he became best friends with yet a third cat, Sugar who arrived when Pal was fourteen years old. Although I’ve acquired other cats and now a dog from my post-Katrina rescue experiences, Pal never quite bonded with anyone else like he did with Sugar, a cat that I call the evil twin....Pal was a black and white tuxedo and a good cat, Sugar was solid white with an all black tail and quite Pal’s opposite, the little mean man in the house. But they loved each other and isn’t that what matters?

After Pal turned 17 last Spring, I started seeing signs, signs that meant he was nearing the time when he would be ready to move on. Although he has suffered vestibular incidents shortly before Katrina, and his eyes became a tad cloudy, Pal always bounced back, always seemed to rally for another day and always wanted more than his fare share of food, he was such a glutton, for everything. I mentally calculated that quality of life equation last year and for Pal it was food, his Sugar, and outdoors in the large screened enclosure which my cats have access to through their bedroom window. Pal was old, sure, and my husband used to make fun of the little old cat, but Pal was still kicking, still living life, still my Palomine. But I knew we were on borrowed time.

Palomine left this world for another at approximately 7:30 p.m. on the evening of Tuesday, June 9, 2009, much the same way he came into it, with my help. Pal’s quality of life equation was coming up zero in the past few days and it was fast, faster than I would have imagined it and that’s all I could do because Pal was my first. Several weeks ago, I had noticed Pal’s wobbliness, his distance from Sugar as he sat alone in the enclosure most days, but he still charged over to be the first at the food, especially canned food and he still seemed to enjoy basking in the sunlight, but I knew it wouldn’t be long. Only days ago, I noticed Pal was no longer making trips to the enclosure and was instead opting to stay on the couch all day and then the final quality of life, the thing he seemed to always live most for in this world, canned food, was gone. Before he licked a few tiny pieces of some food yesterday morning, I looked into my Palomine’s eyes and he was no longer there. I have always heard people say “you’ll know” or “they’ll give you that look” and what I saw from my best friend wasn’t a look as much as it was no longer a look, my Pal was no longer there and in my heart, I knew it was time. Although I cried the entire way to the emergency clinic, when it came time, I think I was there as much as I could be for my buddy. Did I want to be there until he went to sleep? Because he might do this and his body might do that.....no, I wanted to be there until the end, the very end, how could I not be, he had been there with me all these years and now, it was my turn to comfort him. In the end, I don’t know how much comfort I was to him, he was barely there, but in that tiny moment of clarity, in that final moment when I stole his quarter for one last time, I have to believe that being there mattered.

So now all I am left with is the grief, but how could I have imagined that this grief would be so different, so filling, so almost, satisfying? As a rescuer, I have faced grief many times, grief when we lost one, grief when we couldn’t save one, grief when we couldn’t catch one, couldn’t find a home for one, sometimes, endless grief, and surely, this grief I prepared myself for would be unbearable, all other griefs magnified, wouldn’t it be? It wasn’t and it isn’t, it’s a grief that I wouldn’t trade for all the happiness in the world, because this grief is so intertwined in happiness that it can’t be separated from it. On the return drive to the shelter, this time as I cradled my Palomine wrapped in his blanket, I still cried, but I remember laughing too at parts of the conversation, how could that be? I think that the grief that I often face as a rescuer is always intertwined with the feeling of failure, my own, never theirs, at being unable to do more and so that grief is hollow. When I was able to help my Palomine at the moment he needed it most, that completed the eighteen years of a journey, one that was a happy journey, even if that journey did eventually have to end. If all those other griefs were feelings of hollowness, this was the first filling grief, the first grief that I know I will have to and can face again when the time comes.

Right before Pal’s final moments last night, the vet tech said something to me that today as I reflect upon it, the thought makes me smile....she told me that he would be right there forever as she patted my left shoulder......could that be true, would Pal now and forever be my own personal guardian angel? Well, if that’s true, what about that Rainbow Bridge I’ve always heard so much about? How could he possibly be on the other side of the bridge and on my shoulder too? Now, I can’t do anything but laugh because if anyone can do it, it’s my Palomine.....navigating that fence just like the perfect feline gymnast he always was. And while I want to yell at him so badly “Pal, get your butt in here” I know I can’t, but I know that my friend will walk this fence perfectly and I guess I should have known that my Pal would have the last word on that matter.

Bean, a Feral Cat

2009-05-20T11:30:00.001-07:00

Bean is black as night with two golden coins for eyes, droopy eyes but beautiful nevertheless. Bean is shiny and polished, Bean is swift and sneaky and Bean is sleek and cheeky….it was his cheeks that I first fell in love with. I trapped Bean on S. Miro Street, that same desolate street where I first met Boy and Rocca, that same desolate street in New Orleans where I have come to know a feral dog pack, a cat-killing pack that passes through every couple of months…last month, I had lunch with them and then they were gone. S. Miro Street is a desolate street that has known a lot of action in these past nearly three years and right now, it is Bean’s home.

Some days his tiny ears poke up past the rotted molding boards that still run through the otherwise gutted shack he claims, barely poke up but I see them and I stop. Some days he is lounging on the island-like rock that sits smack in the middle of the trash-strewn empty lot next door, the one with the slushy green moat that surrounds the rock island he lays on and his coat glistens as he soaks up the sun…and I stop. And on the days I don’t see Bean, I stop, because this is Bean’s home and this is where he and I have come to know each other.

Bean and I first met when he was a tiny 3 month old kitten with puffy cheeks and beautiful eyes of gold and I was admittedly torn about re-releasing him and when he ran straight out of the carrier and across the street to and into the rain gutter, I was certain that I had made a mistake. Two months passed and when I cradled a tortoise-shelled neighbor girl of Bean’s as she died in my arms, after having witnessed and ended a feral dog attack, I was once again certain that I had made a mistake. I was certain that I should have put Bean into a cage, another black cat, complete with a soft hammock, a clean litter box, eye-catching toys and clean food and water and I was certain I should have done that and that waited and hoped for the family I knew would someday arrive to finally, just arrive. But a month ago as I drove up and Bean emerged, and then three weeks, six days ago when I drove up and Bean peeked out and then three weeks, five days ago when I drove up and Bean peered out over the branches in the tree he was lounging a story or two up in, and then yesterday when I drove up, I knew in my gut, in my heart and in my brain, I had made no mistake……Bean was, and is right where he belongs, even today as I watch the torrential downpour out of my 28th floor window, I know that Bean was already and still is part of the nature I stole him away from in that trap that day and although I can work night and day to change that fact, why? Is that fair to Bean?

Bean loves his world on S. Miro Street, even the green moat that guards him on his sun-basking rock and I take HUGE satisfaction in having it made it a better world for him….I know that someday I may cradle his body as he passes but I also know that day may never come as well, it’s not my plan to write. So while Bean absorbs and makes more beautiful the world I returned him to, I sleep soundly at night knowing that Bean is right where he wants to be and right where I stole him from and right where I returned him to and because I did all that, I will never have the bittersweet pleasure of meeting Bean, Jr……and that, is the single reason why I chose to make Bean’s world better and why I chose to make Bean better suited for his and my world, not because the world needs another cat to call “pet” And because I did all this for Bean, for me, for the Bean, Jr. that won’t be and for the world around us all, when I needed, when ARNO needed, truly and oh so desperately needed an open cage for a tiny 4 ounce wisp of near-death, a little man we now call Miracle, a tiny kitten that was pulled, just last week, from behind the sheetrock of a newly renovated but still vacant house of Katrina, because I did all this for Bean, that cage was open for Miracle, a tiny creature who needs more from us than Bean ever needed. I love Bean and I suspect he loves me in his own way, even if it is for the food I supply to him, but more than that, we both have a healthy respect for each other and what we are.

In honor of CF-14 and in memory of Shannon

Finding Boy

2009-04-24T12:32:00.000-07:00

Hope is your survival
A captive path I lead

No matter where you go
I will find you
If it takes a long long time
No matter where you go
I will find you
If it takes a thousand years
Clannad

Get Involved

2009-04-01T10:21:00.001-07:00

Transforming

2009-03-30T10:00:00.001-07:00

FINDING A PLACE IN THIS WORLD

As ARNO's Feral K-9 Coordinator I get to take part in transforming feral dogs into trusting companions, it is by far the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life. ARNO was gifted with these pups in February, 2009 when all 5 of them were unceremoniously dumped into 2 carriers outside our front door. They were so feral that they would not make eye contact, they would hide in the back of their kennels, they deficated and urinated all over us the first time we picked them up.Now, about 6 weeks later, after using a "gentling" method to obtain their trust, and by also incorporating play with a balanced dog, these pups are now enjoying our company and practically begging for more of our attention. I love this job.

Above photographs of feral pups March 2009, Maggie Covert
Photographs below taken at halfway point by Laura Richard, February 2009

Check out the difference in the photographs halfway point to the photos taken after 6weeks....by incorporating play into the pack's rehabilitation, we are attempting to overcome the fact that ferals don't exhibit neotenic playfulness or behavior.....living on the streets forces them to learn to survive in spite of man, not with man and early adult behaviors are common among feral dogs and loosely formed feral dog packs We got stares and snapping turtles in the beginning, and when you have puppies rescued before they go feral, you generally and almost immediately have playful pups.....now, the blank stares and snapping has been replaced with cautious play and open mouthed smiles! These pups came straight from street to being dumped and were with mama dog until whomever trapped them...they exhibit amazing bite inhibition, something young pups do not.

Lise Mc
ARNO Feral K9 Coordinator

DogSpeak

2008-07-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

They are the left behind, unwittingly, unwillingly or without care, they are a mystery

They are the curiosity that bends with persistent hunger

They are the glimpse of another society

They are the mud under my fingernails, nails hidden in the everyday world of corporate law

They are the hole in my shirt, the rips in my jeans, the tear in my glove

They are the scratches on my face, the bruises on my legs, the rusted nail in my foot

They are the tools of my life, they are catch-poles, leads, choke chains, muzzles, stakes, bungee cords and bait

They are the crawlspace I navigate, where I lie under a rotted house, silent, as a lone junkie aimlessly wanders onto this deserted street

They are the rats, the snakes, the bugs and everything that crawls around me in the darkness

They are the machete I wield for vegetation that grows taller than me and the pocket-knife I hope to never wield

They are the rotten mold from washed-out front door to washed-out back door and every nook and cranny in between

They are the smell of death in so many vacancies and the picture of a life that used to be

They are the all night trapping session, two blocks from yet another murder
They are the ceiling I stare at when sleep won’t come

They are the maps I plot, every street, every bayou, every dead end, with points taken from photos, sightings and best guesses

They are the blowout on the interstate, the tire, sliced by a city of trash

They are the smell of hot dogs on my vegetarian fingers

They are the New York taxi whistle, and they come, now, but only if they are in the same section of this ravaged city that I am

They are frustration and anger, hindsight and if-only’s

They are determination and drive, they are my inability to give up or give in

They are the business suit covered in wet mud, burrs and thorns

They are the endless strategies and well-honed plans but they refuse to stay within the parameters

They are the traps set along the way when they won’t be found

They are the turning point of trust obtained in a place without boundaries, a place where it is theirs to give, not mine to take

They own the city but the streets have become my playground

They roam the night and the skin I walk in begins to feel like something other than human

They are the surveyors’ flags, the colored chalk, the paw-prints in the dirt

They lead and I follow, through, in, out, around and over ten miles square in any direction from their epicenter, ultimately covering 100 square miles of disaster ravaged Gentilly, Lakeview, Mid-City, Treme and the East

They are my most ambitious project, a year long plus, the alternative choice, to do nothing

They are my education in feralization, triangulation, domestication, the complete and total grasp of things beyond my control, nature, God’s will and life

They are my own magnificent obsession and I have become their most easily acquired possession

They are my success, they are my failure, my highest high, my lowest low

They are two bonded canines, two dogs who roam a city laid waste to Katrina, and I am their tracker, their stalker, their shadow, their menace and their friend

They have changed my life more than I have changed theirs

They are Rocca and Boy

Rocca’s trust came fairly early on, his would be much harder to work for. With claim to a large territory and no rules, no restrictions, it would be months in between their visits but as the walls of distrust were broken down, the visits were longer. When I first spotted Rocca in February of 2006, and then wrote about her and our then year long journey together, “Still Here, Still Counting on us in NOLA” nearly a year later, I did so with the mistaken assumption that the feral and huge male dog she traveled with was the pup I had first seen her with but it would be many months before I would be able to put all the puzzle pieces together. By the Spring of 2007 these two dogs and I interacted from afar, but there was nevertheless an interaction....they managed to make me feel safe in an otherwise unsafe way to spend my time in this city, alone and rescuing animals. Things changed however not long after that and it wasn’t until after I posted their story in February 2007 that I began to see this pair more clearly because the responses were amazingly unexpected.....turns out I wasn’t the only one in the city who knew this pair of dogs. Over the next few months, I compared notes, photos, sightings, all with other rescuers, feeders, people still working to reunite, people here in this city and people who had been here shortly after Katrina and we soon learned that the story behind the story of these two dogs was something surreal and something we would likely never truly know and it was the catalyst of my reaction, a reaction that would ultimately push me to limits I might never have known I had.

Easter Sunday Miracles
It was like any other Sunday, traveling down S. Miro street looking for signs of life and there was really no thought process to the whistle but she heard it, they heard it and there they were, after more than two months of any sighting of them...had they been rescued, had they been killed or were they possibly holed up somewhere with a new litter? When I discovered that others in this city and beyond were familiar with this pair of dogs, we all feared for them when a photo taken in late January 2007 by a rescuer in Lakeview revealed what looked like a nursing dog...Rocca had pups somewhere, but where? I myself had seen her only one time after that photo was taken and it was on that day, a cold February morning on the very same street that Rocca had allowed me to touch her head. A year had passed since I first saw her, a pathetic and emaciated creature with her pup and they had been gnawing on a rotten, moldy pet food bag, an empty one and now here we were, a year later and finally, she trusted my hand would not inflict pain and I worked hard to contain my excitement so as not to lose that trust...and then she was gone. So months later on that Easter Sunday, when they appeared at my whistle, it was somewhat of a shock, and it was strange but now she wanted my attention, it was more than allowing it, she was soliciting it. What girl? Here you go, what’s a matter, you don’t want the food? What is it? What? And so I did what she wanted, she couldn’t talk and I hadn’t learned canine language but it was clear what she wanted and so we traveled the path together, she in front and then alongside my truck and me just going her way...she took me over a mile that day, into a part of the city I was then unfamiliar with and ultimately they would take me to places that aren’t on any map, but today there was a plan.

My life with Rocca and Boy, changed that Easter Sunday and although I will never know the reason she took me to her solitary pup, did she want her freedom back or did she want me to help the smaller version of her, I do know that she clearly and un-mistakably brought me into her world. Another zip code, another abandoned house, but underneath, a small puppy, hers...and possibly his. He followed us although I didn’t know it until he just appeared again, curled up, way back under the house, not to be bothered, not to be touched. I did what I’m fairly certain she wanted, I took the puppy and she was long ago adopted. Did she look for me that day? Did she just stumble upon a familiar face? Did she give the puppy up so it could be safe or so that she could roam again?

Becoming Canine
Although Rocca drastically changed the moment I took her pup away, she grew loving and affectionate, she was beyond my grasp because of him. Boy as I had named him, believing him to have been hers, was feral, was beyond feral...he was an elusive giant, a giant of a dog who hid in plain sight but who clearly was extremely bonded to Rocca. So where she went, he followed...at least I think he followed, he always just appeared and then would retreat under the house or building, whatever was close enough to shroud him from the world and me. I could have easily taken Rocca to be safe, just like I had with her pup, but what would happen to him? I knew enough to know that I would never see him again, I knew of his existence only because of her so for the time being she would have to remain on the streets, unsafe and so often unseen. As my bond with Rocca grew daily, I knew that they would eventually return to their nomadic life and so plans were made, traps were set, observation after observation was made and at a point in my life I never expected, I became a student again. The mission to take these dogs off the street became a full-blown study in canine behavior and I found myself knowledgeable of another world, another life and unlike any classroom I have ever been in, this education was hands-on....in order to get the dog, I had to learn the dog and in order to learn the dog, I had to be allowed into their pack.

Leader of the Pack
Between Easter Sunday of 2007 and the late summer, I learned, breathed, ate, slept and lived dog.....I watched, I waited, I studied, I read, I observed, I hung back, I joined in, I worked to become part of their inner circle. Nearly all my research had to be conducted in the field because there seemed to be very little research out there regarding feral dogs or dog packs and none existed regarding packs that inhabit a disaster-impacted region, so I dug in my heels and began the journey to becoming canine, behaving canine, making them believe that I was yielding to their language, their behavior, their world instead of forcing them to yield to mine. I struck gold when I was able to find one man, a scientist, a man by the name of TJ Daniels who is the Co-Director of the Vector Ecology Laboratory at New York City’s Jesuit University, Fordham University. When I found an article, or a snippet of an article he had written in the mid 1980's regarding feral dogs behavior, I wrote to him and begged him to sell me the article because although it could be purchased, I would have to enroll at Cornell University to gain access to it....I had two dogs to rescue, I was fairly certain that Cornell was not in my near-future. Dr. Daniels, with no other knowledge than my plea with a brief explanation as to why I wanted the article, was gracious enough to mail a package to me and in that package was pure gold....Dr. Daniels sent me a copy of every article he published during his graduate research and even after, at least a dozen articles on feral dogs, feral dog packs, feral dog behavior, feralization theories....I would soon immerse myself into a feral world in order to gain a better understanding of what I was trying to do. The days and nights I spent out there joining Boy and Rocca’s pack was a once in a lifetime experience but it was Dr. Daniel’s work and his publications regarding that work that allowed me to truly become somewhat knowledgeable about these creatures and for that I am eternally grateful.

Dog Days of Summer
And so I joined Rocca and Boy’s pack and learned not to worry as much about them....if they were in the area of the city that I was, my whistle would give away their location every time. Over time, Boy became less guarded and more curious until the day came where he came nose to nose with me as I sat in the grass....he was huge, he had always given clear warnings to me when I would try to coax him out from under whatever structure he was hidden, and so when he placed his snout next to my ear and I felt his hot breath as he stood taller than I sat, I was terrified of him, of what might happen, and more terrified of him knowing my terror....so I didn’t breathe. After deciding I was not dinner, he turned and walked away and only then did I regain movement, but what a charge of electricity went through me as well! Whatever the change, it was a change. He was behind me without a sound and then his giant face was near mine, sniffing for an indication that he should bite that face, but he didn’t. Over a matter of days, weeks, he would allow touch, human contact with his fur, his many scars that lined his face, his head, his ears...was he a fighter, bait or just her protector? This gigantic creature who had previously shown no desire to interact with me or any other human, had taken steps in a different direction and I wondered, can we go down this path or will the lack of boundaries prevent this journey? The city was theirs and ultimately, their actions with me was theirs to choose...would he, like Rocca, choose me, a human? Would he interact with a species that evidently had no control over him?

As the summer months became unbearable, I began to see the pair more often, not always in the same part of the city, almost as if they had a better read on my whereabouts then I had on theirs. The traps and poles had long been put away and instead my tools of choice were hot dogs, canned food, my whistle and my affection and they were working. Boy was beginning not only to enjoy my attention but to solicit it, if they came running when I whistled, it was Boy who eventually would be in the front, tail wagging and a huge grin-like expression...Boy’s expression was almost clown-like, he always seemed to be laughing at me and so I laughed at him and eventually it was as if we were all laughing together. But, I knew this would have to end and my plan to take them off these streets would have to come to fruition, but how? Their trust in me was undeniable, their affection for me was mutual as I came to love them but not like any other animals I had rescued, I began to love them and understand them for what they were, or so I thought at the time, but I still had so much to learn.

Labor of Love
When all my attempts to leash Rocca failed because of Boy’s possessive-like ownership of her, when all my attempts to lure them both into my vehicle with hot dogs, when all my attempts to trap them, one way or the other, had failed miserably, a decision had to be made because Rocca was once again, pregnant. It was late August, 2007 and she would be delivering soon enough. The decision to take her off the street and to ARNO was ultimately made by a vet student who did not care that they were bonded, did not care that Boy might disappear, did not care that I had not seen Boy for two days now, she wanted Rocca in now and again, I am eternally grateful for her decision, one I couldn’t make. Rocca delivered four pups by C-Section the week of Labor Day and we were told that had I left her out there to deliver as we waited for Boy to reappear, she and the pups would have died due to a breach presentation. So now I had Rocca and her precious pups, but as much as I loved Rocca, Boy was the one who had my heart. I had believed him to be Rocca’s feral pup and then believed him to be her mate, but it wasn’t until one of our last times together, all three of us, that I knew I would never know Boy’s story....as he groomed himself one lazy summer afternoon, I saw it or rather I didn’t see it....Boy was neutered, there was nothing there that could have meant he was the father of Rocca’s pup and more importantly, it was on that day, nearly a year and a half after first seeing Rocca and that pup, that I finally realized Rocca was not the only owned dog prior to Katrina...Boy was neutered so Boy was someone’s dog at some point. This realization hit me hard because Boy was human-aversive, human-avoiding, human -aggressive and I had worked for so many months to gain his trust and his companionship and now I learned he had been part of the human world after all.

One at a Time

2008-05-29T20:04:00.000-07:00

Today was one of the bad days, one of the days when you just wonder why you bother and it's near bedtime for me now, but thanks to an old friend, I won't go to bed wondering tonight.

"Wizard" at Animal Rescue New Orleans, September 2006

I was very down most of the day after getting the news that "Arlo" had been euthanized. Arlo was a cat I had never even known except for the few minutes I saw him last night after having been dropped off because he appeared ill. Arlo was a skinny orange and white nobody's cat that had wandered into the yard of a local hostel where some of ARNO's volunteers live while they are in New Orleans and Arlo didn't look good. After checking his symptoms on the internet, it was decided that Arlo should be brought to the after hours emergency vet for evaluation of possible poisoning. Today I got the news that Arlo had been poisoned and antifreeze was probably the weapon of choice.

The entire afternoon dragged on mercilessly and even after visiting the hostel this evening, it was clear that I will not find out who or what happened to this cat and so the rest of the evening was more of that down and out feeling of why bother, why do we do this when this is what we deal with?? I didn't imagine that I would find my answer tonight, but I did and the answer is that we do this one at a time, each one matters and we can't forget the ones that we succeed with and for, like my old buddy Wizard, my one-eyed purple stitched up beautifully white feral cat who was rescued in September, 2006 and brought to ARNO. I fell in love with Wizard back then and first told you about him on September 11, 2006 in "Why I help Animal Rescue New Orleans"

Tonight, while wondering why, I came across Wizard and it turns out Wizard has his very own Catster page, so I guess he's a blogger like me and there really is no story to this, no happy ending for Arlo, no satisfaction for me in finding the person who did this, there's just Wizard's Catster page, complete with pictures of him at home with his feline family and I guess for now, for tonight, his Catster page is enough for me to stop my wondering and go to bed.....One at a Time....that's all we can do and so tomorrow, I'll get up with a different perspective, I'll still be sorry that we couldn't help Arlo and that we even have to try, but I'll think about Wizard and all the other one-at-a-times out there.

Photos of "Wizard" in his family home, October 2007

Be sure to click on title hyperlink above, "One at a Time" to visit Wizard's blog page!

For Shannon

Reunited

2008-05-26T18:51:00.000-07:00

Photo Montage by Gerald Pool, ARNO
Photos by Lise McComiskey, ARNO

Nearly a year ago, in June 2007, I posted a story about Billy the Kid, in my story, "Moment of Grace" Billy is a feral dog very close to my heart and the story revealed my second-guessing seperating him from his brother Jesse to send him to his forever home in Colorado and the resolution that followed. Nearly nine months later in March 2008, Billy's brother, Jesse, found his own forever home....reunited with Billy in Boulder, CO. Marsha and Ray Steckling gave Billy a new life and wanted to do the same for his brother and for that I and ARNO are forever grateful.

Please click on the title above, Reunited, to see some of the touching photographs that Marsha, a professional photographer took of this reunion and please paste the website address listed below in your browser to see just how Marsha (and her sister Jeanne) are making a difference for Katrina animals nearly three years after the disaster.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/video_legacy/15916738/index.html

The Quiet Rescues

2008-04-21T20:46:00.001-07:00

Paul, Natalie and "Custer"

The ARNO family had a quiet rescue this week, one that comes without all the fanfare and drama that some rescues deliver (some of us just have to do things the hard way!) but it was a rescue that made me appreciate all the quiet rescues that we all help facilitate on a regular basis.

No more than two weeks ago, a large yellow dog was spotted roaming around the vicinity of where our shelter is, always spotted by others who reported back to us, businesses along the main highways and streets in what is basically an industrial area of the city. The dog had yet to be spotted by any of us until the middle of this
past week when yet another business owner spotted the dog and came to the shelter, grabbed Robin and a catch pole and headed out to find the dog had again vanished. I left the shelter early that night to ride around and sure enough, there he was cruising down the street but unwilling to stop for a whistle or an offering of
food. He was skittish and scared of human contact. So we set a trap that night near his path where he had been spotted and hoped...we caught a cat and just imagine the sight of two petite women (Laura and Nat) rolling a large dog trap back to the shelter (about two streets over) on a rolling pallet because there was no way they were going to release an intact cat!

So the next night I headed out, once more trying to determine the dogs whereabouts and once again here he or she comes, pretty much down the same path, cruising down the main street and crossing over at the major highway to hit the garbage dumpster at the steak restaurant.....again, not stopping when food was offered and only
speeding up to get away from a human.

Of course, all night I couldn't sleep and thought about the collar on the dog and thought about a plan and thought some more. The next day, Friday, I emailed Natalie at the shelter to let her know that with only 3 hours of daylight to work with between the time I got off of work and the time the dog would likely come through again, my plan was to stop only for bacon, get to the shelter, change into trapping
gear, drive a couple miles away, unlock some traps at another location, head to the firestation to obtain the help of the firefighters all in the nick of time so that when here comes the dog at about 8:30ish, bam, he goes right into my bacon lined trap and we call it a night.

Thank goodness some things don't go as planned and thank goodness sometimes you just need to be in the right place at the right time and be in the right frame of mind to do what we do best...rescue. Although I was prepared to stalk this dog (especially since he was in our territory and especially since he had a collar) I can't honestly
say I was looking forward to the hunt...this dog looked like a pet not a street dog and all day Friday I kept checking the updated weather forecasts, all saying thunderstorms likely for Friday night...add to that the window of time I knew I had to make things happen just to get everything in place and then hope the dog would
come through the same path at the same time..that's a lot to hope for.

When I arrived at the shelter yesterday, in the rain and after stopping at two places
to find bacon and darn well speeding the rest of the way because you know the sun was going down, I arrived to silence which was odd but I ran inside anyway, tossed the bacon in the microwave, changed my clothes and ran outside to find one of our teenage volunteers sitting there...."where is everybody?" I asked and was told that they went to get a dog by the tracks, one that is injured. Well my heart sunk
right there on the spot, but I ran it and got the greasy half cooked bacon and drove over to the lot I knew the dog would go through at this time of the afternoon....and there they were, Natalie, Paul and four of the muddiest dog legs I have ever seen. I couldn't see the dog, only the muddy legs but I knew if they were standing right next
to Paul and Nat's legs, even though the dog was out of view, if the legs weren't, I wasn't going to be losing any sleep that night and this dog was one for the "rescue" column. Well the happy ending for this story started with Custer, that's our newest dog, and his decision to walk straight up through our neck of the woods, right
past the shelter, on Friday afternoon, during daylight hours...and everything fell into place when Natalie happened to be looking outside our glass door and couldn't believe her eyes when here comes Mr. Elusive. My guess is that Custer was making all the plans for this rescue and all the traps and bacon and firefighters in the world
wasn't going to change this one. Natalie followed Custer, around the block and across that main street but first asked Paul to follow her in his truck and by the time it was all done, Paul and Natalie both had used good sense and sound judgment and when they saw a chance to allow the dog to corner himself by walking through a gated area to eat some cat food, they took it....they told me that once Custer knew he was cornered, he gave up and who could imagine that the dog who was giving everyone in the neighborhood the slip was such a sweetie?? All I know is that when I saw those muddy legs and then Natalie and Paul's faces, I was ecstatic and never happier to see two people than I was at that moment.

So this quiet rescue of Custer by two people who on any other given day of the week are two people that help at the shelter, made me realize just how special our ARNO team is and just how happy I am to be part of their team. Our small but dedicated group of local volunteers who help make this shelter run every day is a group of
individuals who not only care about the animals that they look after day and night, but they care about each other and do what it takes to make each other's tasks and efforts a little easier and sometimes, their efforts help someone else get a good night's sleep. So with that in mind, I am taking a minute to express my thanks at being part of and having around me a wonderful shelter team that starts but does
not end with our shelter director Robin. Some of our most special rescuers who help get whatever it takes to get things done at the shelter (and beyond) but may not always get all the fanfare of the not-so-quiet rescuers, are:

Natalie - Natalie is our on-site person who I know Robin counts on a lot. Natalie is a genuinely caring person, towards people and animals and on top of everything else she does, she is very special to me because she is Boy's "other" handler...if Boy took to her right off, she must be special, right? Thanks Natalie for rescuing Custer
and for loving Boy and for just being there at ARNO to help make what we do possible to keep doing.

Laura Richard - Laura is our local photographer who helps with Petfinder and other projects and aside from overall type of help at the shelter including animal care, Laura is one of the people who administers meds and more individualized care to the animals..she's pretty good with a needle too. Laura was the one who loved one of
my other special projects, Rocca Zu, Boy's running buddy for nearly the two years he was out there. Rocca was always a people person but when she came to the shelter, she truly blossomed under Laura's very loving care. Thanks Laura for loving Rocca Zu and also for just being there at ARNO to help make everything possible.

The cat team - Anastasia, Tom, Nicole and Beth and Chamaine This bunch are the ones who keep our cats cared for and very loved....our cats have just the perfect hammock, the perfect toy, and everything else they can hope for until they are adopted. While Anastasia, Tom, Nicole and Beth care for our cats at the shelter, Chamaine works hard to place our cats into loving homes. Thanks Cat Team for being
part of the local crew that helps make things possible for ARNO.

Mimi - everybody knows Melinda's baby Sarah but Melinda or Mimi as we call her is one of those quiet ones who can move mountains if she needs to. She is a tiny person but can do the work of many people and she often does. Mimi can handle some of the toughest dogs but one of my favorite images of her is when she was good and pregnant
and napping in a kennel with Buzzy, one of the Lunchbox Gang members. Thanks Mimi for sticking it out with ARNO for a long time now, and I am grateful that you are part of its foundation.

Kelly Faye - Kelly is a firefighter so you know she is a strong person but Kelly is very special because she has helped ARNO so much with its cats...she has fostered many of ARNO's tougher cat cases and some of its ferals that for whatever reasons had to be socialized. Kelly has bottle fed many litters and many solitary tiny and helpless kittens as well..and she has had to deal with the pain of the ones who just couldn't be saved, for those she is most special because she has been the meal, the warmth, the love that they never would have known but for her. Thanks Kelly for everything you do for ARNO.

Tanya O'Reilly - Tanya helps at the shelter several days each week and she also helps out behind the scenes...she is the one who brought the Bacon family to ARNO last Christmas and I know there are other things in the works that she is helping with as well. Tanya is also one of those people who spends time away from the shelter either feeding or working to trap stray dogs...she was involved with Bandit,
our former feral, long before he came to ARNO. Thanks Tanya for being part of ARNO's team and for helping the stray dogs too. ARNO also has some fairly new volunteers who have already started to become regulars who the core volunteers count on for their help and they are also just nice people to be around to make our efforts more
enjoyable. Three of these volunteers who come to mind are Nicole, Paul and Karl. Nicole helps out with our dogs and we definitely missed her when she recently was gone for a few days..thanks Nicole for helping ARNO. Paul is the other half of Custer's rescue team and is genuinely helpful to everyone at ARNO, Paul was one of about four of us who missed JazzFest last weekend and instead joined us at
ARNO to walk dogs after and during a rainfall that left thigh-high water in front of our shelter...thanks Paul for rescuing Custer and for being willing to help all of us at ARNO no matter what the task is or how dirty it might be (puppies!) Finally, Karl is also a volunteer who has been coming to ARNO for just a couple months but
already has become a regular that we count on to help get things done...Karl also helps with the dogs but is also pretty handy with the zipties..thanks Karl for helping out at ARNO!

So what started out to be possibly another tough rescue and one that time was going to be of the essence because of the busy highways this dog travelled, Custer's rescue by two of ARNO's volunteers who normally and routinely help at the shelter was appreciated not only by Custer for saving his life, but by me, one of those not-so-quiet rescuers who really really needed a good night's sleep last night instead of a night hyperfocused on a bacon lined trap.....I am so glad I get to spend my time with the quiet rescuers who are ARNO.

Keeping Promises

2008-03-06T20:24:00.000-08:00

Photo by Laura Richard

I am sitting here tonight working on the conclusion to the long, two year story of Rocca and Boy but now I have to take a break to watch the clock....

For the next 59 minutes, I can't work on my story because I am
sitting here watching the clock and I'm not a clock watcher, but
tonight, I can't do anything but watch the clock. I'm sitting here
with a rusty choke chain around my wrist as I type this and I am
counting down the minutes, only 58 left to go now, 58 minutes left
before I can take the rusty chain off my wrist and finally put it
away.

Rocca Zu's plane will be hitting the tarmac at Oakland International
Airport tonight at 8:49 Pacific Time, only 57 minutes more and when
Flight 285 finally pulls up to Terminal 1, I can finally put away
Rocca's rusted out collar, the one she was wearing the very first
time I spotted her over two years ago as she roamed the city, emaciated, and with the first pup I saw her with, one of at least
three litters I know she had while out there. During the time I
spent with her on the streets, trying to resocialize her and getting
to know her elusive running partner, Boy, I took that rusty collar of
hers and put it in my glove compartment and that was a litte over a
year ago. That collar meant everything to me because it meant that
Rocca was somebody's dog once and I knew that meant that I wasn't
going to quit until she got back home or if that wasn't possible,
until she was once again, somebody's dog....that collar was a promise
I had to keep.

Tonight, Rocca Zu is going home and she is going to be somebody's dog again. Adele, a volunteer from just outside of San Francisco adopted Rocca and so now in just 50 minutes, Rocca will finally be home and that means in just 48 minutes, I can put away that collar, a collar that is finally a promise kept.

Wind Beneath Our Lips Smiles

2008-03-04T20:02:00.000-08:00

Photo of Winston, one happy dude by Laura Richard

Surely during these past two years of tracking Rocca and Boy (and others) I have learned a lesson or two of that to come but, today, on the way back from the shelter at lunchtime, I got schooled again, and wouldn't you know it, by a dog!...go figure. Anyway, it had me cracking up laughing during the rest of the drive so I thought I would share it with you guys too.

When I got to the shelter to visit Boy I immediately noticed a flower bouquet with a huge It's a Boy balloon and I thought oh no, have I been so engrossed in my mission with Boy that I missed somebody being pregnant let alone now having delivered the baby??? I frantically tapped on Robin's glass and yelled so she could hear me in her office and asked her who had a baby.....she turned around from the computer and said you did, we did...what?? Go read the card.....Gerald, you sweet goofball, you had me there! Gerald sent all of us, ARNO's "Team Boy" a beautiful bouquet to congratulate us on our Boy. G, that was such a nice thing to do and I'm glad that I didn't miss someone's blessed event and that instead I just always have to have the punch line explained to me! So after my lunch visit with Boy, I am headed back to work and there he is, right in front of me, a big white-yellow dog who is roped down pretty good so that he is able to stand in the back of a pick up truck without being tossed about but able to move around. So I stay behind him thinking, okay, hope this goes well and he doesn't fall out and just as I am thinking about this, the dog stands up on his back legs, puts his front paws on top of the pickup cab, right in the middle standing behind the window to the cab, and begins to surf a ride down Jefferson Highway into New Orleans. The two guys in the truck were driving slowly enough so that he was safe, but with enough speed so that he could take in the wind as it flapped his ears behind him and he maneuvered even a turn in the highway like a pro surfer. As I pulled into the other lane so I could drive alongside him I looked over and the dog was of course smiling at me....I'm sure it was the wind under his lips but it was still a smile. And then I looked at the guys in the truck and just cracked up and they of course laughed too. As I eventually turned off, I checked my rearview mirror and he was still up there surfing and continuing to work his crowd.

So maybe the dog is right and maybe it's not always about where you start or the destination you think you might be headed too....while you focus on your missions, don't forget that the wind in your hair, the blue sky around you, the sun on your face, and the smiles directed your way.... all that is free and pretty good stuff.

And even though I have been pretty focused, I haven't missed all the good stuff...........like the guy in California who knows just how to share your
complete happiness as well as your sorrows, or the girls in Oregon who seemingly drop everything to get thousands of tennis balls wrapped and tagged and sent this way for a doggie parade, or the lady in Texas who watches and waits, at night, to try and figure out just how that stubborn chow Cora is getting from one side of the fence to the other and makes you laugh until you cry while reading her letter about catching that dog in the act and how she looked like a bear as she climbed that fence. Besides all the hard work and efforts that each and every one associated with this group puts in to make things happen, each one of you bring a unique, often
quirky,always endearing quality to life along this mission of ARNO's and those unique qualities each of you bring to this group hasn't been lost on me. I love Laura B. sunny disposition and I love Chris B.'s energy to turn over every stone to put families and pets back together. I love Laura R.'s "hippy" ways....she's 25 or so and signs off with Peace and Love and her favorite band are the Monkees! I love Kelly Fay because she introduced me to hummus, a paste I would never even think about getting near and now because of her, I have a $6.00 a month addication to Mona's hummus...more good stuff along the way. I love Melinda's sailor mouth and even though it probably won't be good if her Beast's first words are foul, I have to admit that I secretly hope it is because I half want to see what a lady-like Melinda would be like (just kidding, don't hurt me Melinda!) I love Shelley J.'s hair....on her 11th trip here this past time, I found the nerve to tell her that I can always tell how hard she has been working at ARNO and for how long by how messy her hair is....a week into the job and she has hair in all directions which of course makes me love her all the more. I love Natalie's tendancy to hug me and without even knowing if it's because she thinks I need one or because she needs one but I don't much care because I have become a hugging type person in the past two years, and dirty kennel-cleaning, dog-walking smelly hugs are the best!

I love Charno because she is the only adult I know with pigtails and even though she recently opted for a glamorous cut which makes her look fabulous, I have sort of been missing the pigtails. I love Darla because everytime she comes to NOLA, she brings cake and good cookies and not much else to survive on from what I can see.

I love Auntie Karen's packages....a box from Auntie Karen is like getting the secret decoder package that Ralphie keeps hoping arrives in "A Christmas Story" only Auntie Karen's packages have good stuff in them instead of a decoder which reveals that you should eat your Ovaltine, her packages have treats for four leggeds and two leggeds, good stuff.....Ryan's grilled vegetables, GOOD STUFF!.......Tanya's ability to make me laugh as she refers to puppy paper with profanities, Anastasia's willingness to come to the shelter on days off just to check that all cats got litter pans and nobody was missed.....Aleta and John's endless talents from jewelry making to photography to finding the perfect materials for cat hammocks.....Jeanne's desire to become a Fat City bartender who sleeps in her car just so she can come back and help ARNO....good stuff, and Sweet Old Bob because he is really Sweet and funny as hell Old Bob.....all of this is what I consider the good stuff along the way, along my focused missions and ARNO's focused missions.

And of course there's Robin....the only shelter director I can imagine that is okay with me being me even on a bad day, and welcomes we whether I am there to clean poop or, as was the case recently, if I am there to "knock her out" as I told her when I
arrived when she made me very angry....when I told her I only came that night to punch her in the face, poof, the anger was gone and we both laughed so hard at the idea of her calling my husband to tell him she had a busted mouth...she lets our unique qualities be our own, good, bad or ugly and that skill is always good stuff.

So there it is, some of it anyway, doggie lessons 101....that dog was soaking it up today and even Boy-focused, ARNO focused, mission focused or not these past few years, I haven't missed soaking up some of it myself, I just forget sometimes to give you a wind-under- my-lips smile at you as you pass.

It's all about the journey.

"The Best Damn Dog Tracker in New Orleans"

2008-02-19T13:19:00.000-08:00

Photo of me and "Boy" by Natalie Flood, ARNO Volunteer
Click on title above for full story, written by Pam Freni,
"The Best Damn Dog Tracker in New Orleans" published Feb. 15, 2008 on Best Friends Website

Buzzy and Me

2008-02-19T12:58:00.000-08:00

Photo by Laura Richard

Me and "Buzzy" at Barkus parade 2008. Buzzy, just one of the loves of my life, is one of the "Lunchbox Gang" the crew that I socialized in place for three months before their capture in Spring, 2007

"The Present"

2007-12-21T08:53:00.001-08:00

created by Mike Payne

Charlie's Ark "The Present" was sent to me by a very dear friend who lives in the UK and who wanted to share the touching story of The Present with her friends here in the United States. I have decided to share Charlie's Ark "The Present" with you because it is a beautiful presentation that has so much meaning especially at this time of year... when we give from the heart, we do understand that it is truly better to give than to receive.

Merry Christmas Mandy, thank you for sharing Mike's powerful message with the rest of the world.

Life and Death, Angel's Wings and everything in Between

2007-11-28T05:42:00.000-08:00

Originally posted Christmas of 2006

"One man's life touches so many others, when he's not there it leaves an awfully big hole" Clarence the Angel in “It’s a Wonderful Life”

Last night, as I slowly began to settle in for this Christmas Eve night, I was, for the very first time breaking with tradition, a Christmas Eve tradition which I have kept for the past twenty-five years. This year, I made the decision to forego my annual viewing of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the Frank Capra classic, a movie like no other and a movie which I have loved for more than those twenty-five years, each year, more than the last. And so, addiction being addiction, albeit it one to a warm fuzzy ending, after twenty-five years, I couldn’t just quit this habit cold turkey; truth be told, I did have the television on in the next room and my husband grew tired of yelling at me over the audio-only version. How do you completely toss out a time-honored tradition when it is one that just feels so darned good? Well, I couldn’t, and so, as in every year before, my ears were finely tuned to the next line, every line of the movie and I know them so well, but this year, as I said the lines nearly as perfectly as Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed did, the video portion of the evening’s entertainment was not the black and white film starring two Hollywood icons. No, the video portion this year, and it was in high-definition and in living color too, the video portion of It’s a Wonderful Life was the year-long reel-to-reel playing in my head....the movie? It’s a Wonderful Life, of course! It is a wonderful life, only, it’s my wonderful life.If you have seen this holiday classic once, or if you have watched it over and over and over again like me, then surely you must know why it is so beloved. But, if you haven’t, I will tell you that the movie, at its very core, drives home the message that each one of us matters to the world around us, regardless of whether or not we know it. Because each one of us influences the lives of others, and often in ways that we will never know, our own life’s success, any honorable and “good” man’s life success, is ultimately measured by all the lives we enrich, others’ lives, and not by the dollars which we collect in our bank accounts. Money, it turned out in the movie, really couldn’t bring Jimmy Stewart’s character, George Bailey, happiness, nevertheless, it was George’s wealth that did eventually change his perspective...his wealth of friendships. It is after years of living honorably and seemingly getting nowhere, that George finally questions his own existence, a question which many of us have grappled with at some point in our own lives, and only with the assistance of an angel, Clarence, does George come to realize that his really was a wonderful life. In his darkest hour, as he contemplates his life and possible death if he doesn’t screw that up too, he commits one more selfless act when he saves a man from drowning. Little did he know that the man he saved was really Clarence, sent to show George just why it is that his life matters so much. And of course, good triumphs and Clarence is able to earn his wings when George realizes that no matter what the future holds for him, he wants that future, he wants his life, for he has indeed had a wonderful life. If I live to be a hundred, I will always get that feeling in the pit of my stomach, I will always get goose-bumps on my skin, and I will always wipe away more than one tear, when as George’s life crisis is nearing a resolution, his brother Harry offers a toast to, “the richest man in town”.......George may not have amassed a fortune, instead he acquired a lifetime of friends because of how he effected their lives. It’s corny, It’s sappy, and it’s a happy ending; it’s the way life is meant to be and I must have always known that somehow, after all, I have seen the movie a few times. But, it’s this new version, my version of It’s a Wonderful Life that holds my interest this Christmas Eve.....who did I make a difference for this past year? Did I miss the little opportunities that don’t always announce themselves with bells and whistles? Did I fail miserably having made no difference at all, to anyone, this past year? Although it was never my intention to share any of the three following stories that are central to my version, as I keep hitting the rewind button of this past year, these are the three stories, the three people who are the only ones who can tell this version of Life and Death, Angels’ Wings and Everything in Between, because these are the three people that play on the screen of my mind of my wonderful life.Tony, I like to think, is someone who I made a difference for this past year, albeit a very small difference, a difference nevertheless It was last spring, nearly eight months into the long-term animal rescue efforts of which I was still taking part in, that I came across a scruffy man and his beagle. He was standing near an intersection, holding a sign, a sign I couldn’t bring myself to read because I was sure of what his message was: this man was homeless and I will not deny that the extra tug at my heart that day came because the homeless man shared his begging space with a small dog, a beagle. I have always believed that any homeless person who is traveling with or caring for an animal, has just got to have the biggest heart if he or she is willing to share such a meager life with another creature. So yes, I will admit that my U-turn that day was guaranteed by the sight of that beagle huddled up against that man. But, what unfolded that day was more than that, for the man I returned to offer money to, and for me as well.By the time I was able to complete the u-turn and return to the spot in which I had spotted the pair, both the man and his dog were gone. Fortunately, I saw them traveling along the highway and was able to catch up to them both as they turned into a parking lot of a small convenience store and headed toward the back. Tony, as it turned out, is a fifty-four year old Vietnam Veteran who has been homeless for twenty years. The beagle, obviously much younger, was a dog he came across, and rescued, following Katrina. I listened to his story about saving the dog and upon closer examination of the beagle, I was certain that this dog had no prior family and that the very best place for him was in fact with Tony, a man who so clearly loved him. Tony and I talked for some time that afternoon and although he never lifted his head completely enough to look me in the eyes, I think I saw him smile a time or two, and I am positive that I saw tears when I was able to give him the one thing he told me he was saving up his cash to buy: a tent. The bridge under which he and his pup slept at night was a great spot, he told me, but when it rained, the walls did leak and so he was going to buy a tent someday but he could only save a dollar or two at a time. I didn’t need any sign from up above, I didn’t need any bell to go off, I knew in an instant just why it was that I had come across Tony that day, a very unusual day for me because I was driving my husband’s truck instead of my own. So as I walked around the back of the truck and lifted the hatch, I’m not exactly sure what Tony expected when I told him that I had something for him, but I swear he nearly fainted on the spot when I pulled out and handed to him a brand new Coleman tent, my husband’s newest camping gear. After a few moments of wiping his face, he slowly walked over to me and told me that if he wasn’t so filthy, he would shake my hand and give me a proper thank you. It was my turn to fight back the tears and to fight back the enormous lump in my throat when I held out my hand and told him that I would be honored to shake his hand but no thanks were needed for the tent.........Tony took my hand and told me that the proper thanks he needed to give me were not for the tent. Although the tent was the best thing he could have ever imagined being given, he told me that the proper thanks he needed to give, the thanks that he felt a duty to give, were for my conversation, it had been so long since Tony had enjoyed a conversation.Bryan, I hope and pray, is a young man who will one day, someday, remember me and the time we spent together, but only for a brief second of time it will take for him to make the right call about a stranger he meets, a stranger who is different than he isIt was sometime near the end of summer, maybe around Labor Day, that I became aware of people, real live people, who had moved onto, or back onto S. Miro Street. S. Miro Street, as you may recall, is a street on which I spend much of my time trapping and feeding and trapping some more, but it is a deserted street, a lonely street, near the Charity Hospital off of Tulane Avenue in New Orleans. It had been so many months of time on S. Miro Street and then one day, a family appeared, an older black woman, a young black woman, and two children.Bryan was only twelve but already as tall as any adult and after noticing that he was the one watching me every evening, with an obvious look of “what the heck is she doing on my street?” I decided to just tell him, tell his mother and aunt and sister, and so I did. I introduced myself, told them what I was doing, why I was doing it and sure enough, it was Bryan who threw out question after question. “What do you do with the cats after you trap them?” “Why can’t you release the babies?” “What if you catch a dog or a racoon?”And so it went, for nearly six weeks. Bryan would meet me every night it seemed to help lay out traps, to take some packs of wet food on the nights we spotted baby kittens but were not quick enough to catch, to talk about his sixth grade class at Sophie B. Wright, to talk about Katrina and his friends he missed. Bryan and I never once talked about black or white, young or old, rich or poor, we just talked and his mom would wave to me every now and then and then one day they were gone. I pulled up one evening and a man was almost finished loading a U-Haul trailer with items he carried from the house in which I knew Bryan and his family lived. Finally, I got to meet Bryan’s father, a man who drove an 18 wheeler for a living and wasn’t home as much as he would like, but he was moving his family closer to him so that would change. I would miss Bryan but I knew that this was a good thing for him and for his family. I wondered if Bryan would miss his trapping adventures and it wasn’t long before I got my answer.It was nearly a month after Bryan and his family moved away, a sunny Saturday morning, during a solitary trapping session on S. Miro Street, I got word from Bryan, sort of. I was hunkered down on the side of a vacant glass factory warehouse, waiting silently for that tabby cat to make his appearance right into my trap, when a pickup truck driven by a middle-aged black man pulled up and ruined that trapping session, for the morning anyway. As I got up and walked over, ready to yet again explain who I was, just what I was doing there, and finally offer my rear bumper as all the credentials one would need (my Animal Rescue New Orleans bumper sticker, of course) I was slightly taken aback when this man, a man I had never met before, never seen before, rolled down his window and yelled out that he had something for me. This is going to be good, I thought, or really bad. When it became clear to the man that I intended to walk no further, he stepped out of his truck and completed the distance between us. “Hold out your hand” he commanded and what else could I do? As I held out my hand, determined that it would not shake, he held out his, and in my hand he placed 3 small sealed packets of Meow Mix, wet cat food. I looked at him, half expecting him to say that he saw them fall out of my truck, but instead, he told me that they were from Bryan, and he pointed to the house where Bryan used to live. He told me that Bryan told him to keep an eye out for that “crazy white lady” but then he leaned in toward me and told me that Bryan told him that he had a secret, he said Bryan told him I really wasn’t crazy at all, I was a hero. As I looked down at my hand, through the tears that I didn’t even try to hold back, the man told me that Bryan wanted him to be sure to get these packets to me and that I would know exactly what to do with them. I sure do know what to do with them Bryan, I’m going to save them for the next person who gives me a chance, the next person who doesn’t care that I am different, the next person who, like you did, judges me by my insides instead of the color of my outside. If the day ever comes that Bryan questions his own existence, if his Angel is determined to earn his own wings, he had better allow Bryan to revisit our time together, because Bryan made a difference for me, and I can only hope that ultimately, I made a difference for him.I am a person, still making every effort to keep this newly found heart open to the world and all, and who it has to offer, but I know that I have made a difference to me, the person I am, different than who I wasThe third person of my replayed movie of my mind, is me. And while Tony and Bryan required background information so that you might fully understand why they appear in my version of It’s a Wonderful Life, I will not. You already know me through my writings here and you know to an extent, who I am. But, you never knew who I was, as I didn’t begin sharing my thoughts with the rest of the world until I made that decision last Christmas that my heart was different and different it would stay. So, instead of background information, I will share with you a very brief but oh so significant exchange that recently took place between myself and someone who knows me well, my husband.On a recent evening, my husband and I were talking about another individual, someone who we both know through one of our employment situations. We were speaking about this individual when my husband suddenly made a comment about this person that caused me to have flashbacks and feelings of deja vu: my husband commented upon this person’s negativity and that he is just a negative person. I immediately lost all train of thought regarding our conversation and instead had all these memories come flooding back....you see, my husband has always told me how negative a person I am, but in that instant, I realized I hadn’t heard him say that recently. So, I stopped him mid sentence and I asked him for the reason....why didn’t he say that anymore to me? I asked him why he stopped telling me that I was one of the most negative people he knew........he laughed before he answered. My husband, my husband of seven years, a person who does know me well, better than most you would think, laughed and then looked at me and said “Because you’re not like that anymore, that’s not who you are anymore.”So this Christmas Eve, I will not be looking for Clarence to show me just how wonderful life really is, but I suspect he will have every opportunity to earn his wings right here in New Orleans, so many are still hurting so much.... I lost a friend this year who needed Clarence badly. Please God, send an army of Clarences to this city, only not to me. You see God, this year, after nearly forty of them, I no longer question my existence, in fact, it is one of the very few things that I am certain of and although it is difficult to define in concrete terms the answer to that question that many of us eventually face, for me, I do in fact have my answer and no longer question why I am here.I know why I am here and because of that, I face the world so differently than I did a year ago. Whereas I have always had a strength of my convictions to change the world, what I lacked in the past was the clarity of vision as to why to change that world, and as I have learned this past year, that clarity can only be obtained as part of an on-the-job training. It was my own conscious decision this time last year, when I resolved to open my heart to others, when I traded my tunnel vision for a pair of rose-colored glasses, it was that decision that, although unbeknownst to me at the time, was my fork in the road, and as I look back at the path, I can clearly see that I didn’t change direction, rather, the direction I took changed me. Shakespeare himself decided the world was his oyster, and I have never doubted that the world is in fact, my oyster. However, I also never counted on the strength of the heart being the strength that would dwarf all my convictions: to paraphrase Ghandi, Why change the world when I can be the change in the world? Until I opened my heart, I didn’t understand that the world is not here for me, I am here for the world, and that is the answer which Clarence might have helped me see with my eyes, but this Christmas I feel it with my heart. Why accept the world as my oyster, if instead, I can be its pearl? Clarence, if you are watching, keep going buddy, someone else earned his wings on me, and if you see him, tell him I said Thank You, and oh yes, Merry Christmas.

Bully Breeds

2007-10-04T14:59:00.000-07:00

"I like that shade of orange on you, it goes well with your skin tone and your hair" she said that morning, and as I looked down at the shrimp-colored blazer, I smiled because, well because the color did look good on me. Today was a sunny day, and now it felt that way.

Was it squash? Maybe some sort of casserole? It was pumpkin, spiced pumpkin, the kind that you find in a pie and it was gloppy and goopy and it smelled bad right there on my shoulder. I hadn’t seen it coming, why would I? It was never intended for me, still, it hit me before it even got close to HIS target, the sniveling weak kid that he constantly picked on. Funny, pumpkin is orange colored isn’t it? Why was the only color I saw then, red?

"Do you have anything sharp in your pockets?" he asked and as I looked down through my tears, I could see that the orange blazer had no pockets. On the ride there, I wondered if I had made a mistake in not telling them about the machete in my truck, the one I carry to cut down vegetation on my dog-tracking efforts in post-Katrina New Orleans. I decided against it but with every effort to keep my voice from shaking, I heard the words "Can you check my bag? I sometimes carry a pocket-knife for protection and I don’t want to be in any more trouble once we get there" It was so dark outside the windows, was the tint that dark? I wondered if the world could see me in the back of that car?

I don’t even remember his name, only that he was the wormy kid, the one that Tommy Lathn mercilessly tortured and tormented. He was starting to cry, quietly, like he always did, he knew he was going to bleed today and he was trying to shrug it off, but, like he always did, he couldn’t, and so he cried, and he waited.....

I heard the commotion but my mind didn’t register what it was because I was watching the drunk out of the corner of my eye as I waited to be "intaked" that night, intaked into the jail, the prison, the penal system, Orleans Parish Prison, OPP. Your body reacts sometimes before your mind has time to tell it not to and so I turned but only for an instant because an instant was all I needed to see what I knew I wasn’t supposed to be seeing and so I turned back, yeah, that quick, but not quick enough.

He was half-way to rounding the corner of the cafeteria table, he was going to get him no matter what and if the pumpkin pie didn’t get there, than there were other ways to make that little kid cry today, only he never saw me in the way of his mission

He was about seven or eight feet tall and he was berating the man in front of him, the one shaking out his socks and shoes, for what I don’t know, nor did I care. The words he uttered weren’t enough I suppose, they didn’t quite evoke the humiliation factor that he was going for and so in the instant I saw it, all within the instant, he reached over and in one sleek movement, snapped him up by his waistband and hurled him to the brick floor below. And so I turned quickly away, but not quickly enough.

He didn’t even notice me, why would he? He was intent on making that kid cry more and cry harder and so he shrugged me off as I got closer, like an insect, just like an afterthought, but he should have thought about it first

It was an instant and it was a lifetime. As my legs buckled out from under me, presumably the result of the other prisoner’s flailing legs or arms, it seemed as if my knees hit the bricks at the same time my face hit the pavement but I don’t think that is possible, but, the thud of my heart in my chest and then the same thud in my mouth wasn’t possible either. With my hands still cuffed behind my back, I closed my eyes on the way down this surreal fall. Had I tried to get up? I don’t think I could have, I had nothing to brace myself with but I must have made the effort because the boot snapped my head back down as I watched the man with the socks and shoes through my tears and mouthed to him "shut up, just shut up" He would have to stop kicking him then wouldn’t he? He couldn’t step on his back anymore, "Get up you piece of shit" if he just shut up, right? "Just shut up, just shut up" I could hear it myself now so I know it was more than my words mouthed in silence and I couldn’t see him anymore because the salt of the tears forced me to squint so all I could see was the orange OPP jumpsuit so close, nearly touching my orange blazer, but I could feel his breath on my face, inches from mine as he incredibly defied the person who continued to kicked him in the groin "Get the fuck up you shitty mother-fucking piece of shit" And all the man with the shoes and socks would say, would keep saying was "You like that, do you?" and he was kicked and stomped I could barely make out the words but he refused to give up, he refused to shut up as I pleaded with him, silently, quietly and then only in my head to just shut up, but he wouldn’t he wouldn’t give up.....yes, the tall officer liked it, he liked it a hell of a lot, and so the kicks continued until a pinch snapped my eyes open and then instantly I was up in the air, moving, cartwheeling. Someone had grabbed me under the arm and in a whirl I was planted back on earth, pavement, bricks, the filthy prison floor. My eyes faced forward without fail but I heard it as he kicked him down the corridor and I still hear it, in my sleep..... when I sleep.

He never saw it coming, why would he? I was quicker than he was or than he expected me to be and as my hand clasped around his throat and the back of his head hit the cafeteria wall, his eyes told the story of a deer caught in the headlights, and for a moment, it was silent except for the wormy kid’s crying. But then it was all a roar as the sound of bone crunching on bone as my clenched up fist skidded off the end of his nose, and as my heart made the leap from my chest to my mouth, "son-of-a-bitch" could be heard streaming from somewhere in my gut, "you rotten son-of-a-bitch, you are never going to lay another finger on him, you got that you piece of shit" and the blood was hot and it was bright and it was about as pretty as the buds on my mother’s prized rosebushes. I was in a world of hurt and I knew it as the cafeteria monitor’s talons wrapped around my shirt collar and I swallowed the tears that were about to burst from my brain any moment "Do not cry, do not cry, do not cry" if Tommy Lathan sees me crying he beat me, and that’s not happening for all the trouble I’ve gotten myself into now. And so, it was silent, but only for a moment and then the roar was back, slow at first, quick and then quicker and as I was dragged off to face the principal, my fourth-grade teacher and eventually my parents, all I could hear was the roar, all I could smell was the roar, all I could taste was the roar and it was deafening and it was silent and it was maddening and it was validating and it was my roar "Lise, Lise, Lise, Lise, Lise, Lise, Lise....." and the forks, the knives, the spoons, every tool they had at their disposal, all banging on those lunch tables in unison, and it was unreal that it was mine, my chant, my name, my victory and I knew there was going to be hell to pay but for this one moment in time, I could have cared less because as those tears finally fell and those war chants grew dimmer and dimmer, I knew, noone was going to pick on the wormy kid again.

They say that there are only a few defining moments in a person’s life, the few instances that without a thought, without a hesitation, without a plan, a process, a blueprint, wrong or right, a person’s life is changed, the person for that matter is changed. Recently, I have thought about one of my moments, one of my defining and life-changing moments, I think about it when sleep won’t come. Tommy Lathan was the fourth-grade bully of Wolcott Street School, a lifetime ago, but some people stay with you and Tommy has ultimately been one of those people. He wreaked havoc wherever and whenever he wanted and for the most part, I escaped his tirades. Until I had seen enough, heard enough, been there for enough and I didn’t like pumpkin pie, not on my shoulder anyway. The funny thing is, I don’t remember the punishment, the world of hurt, I only remember the details of Tommy’s life that I soon learned and the details weren’t pretty. Tommy was your typical neglected and abused child and because of his crummy life, he was making everyone else’s life crummy. Maybe he forgot his pain by inflicting his own pain but at any rate my task was clear, I was to make friends with the fourth-grade bully and post-haste and so I did and Tommy and I came to an understanding, for awhile anyway. I don’t remember the specific details I only remember that eventually, Tommy went back to his bullying ways, that’s what bullys do, only he never missed a target again, or at least he never missed a target near me again. But truthfully, it wasn’t Tommy that stuck with me that day, it was the roar, and not the roar of the blood and the bone and the profanities I heard come up from my gut, it was instead the roar of right, the roar of agreement, the roar of get him, for doing the right thing and no matter how much trouble I got into, I knew that defending a wormy weakly kid against the fourth-grade bully had to be the right thing even if the pumpkin pie started it.

So now, thirty years later, I am the wormy weakly kid and my bully? the system. The ineffective NOPD, the New Orleans Police Department who in their noble efforts to fight a post-Katrina crime wave in this city have put nobility aside and instead work on their stats. Every article I have read, I have scoured, following my September 20, 2007 arrest for failure to provide proof of insurance, failure to provide proof of registration and failure to provide a driver’s license, how could I? when I wasn’t allowed to remove my hands from the steering wheel, all those articles showcasing what it’s like to be "locked-up" in New Orleans seems to point to a police force who are working toward numbers and sacrificing good arrests along the way. So looking back I no longer feel that wave of shock, shock that emanates from a handcuffed citizen who only moments before was looking for a lost dog, a dog that she had breathed, slept and dreamed for three full weeks since first losing him, emanates as she tells the officers over and over that noone else is hiding in her vehicle, emanate as she begs the officer to just look at her "Lost Dog" poster, emanates as she sobs in the back of the squad car, cuffed from behind because they had no cage, emanates as she tells herself to suck it up because where she is going is a place that will not tolerate wormy weakly kids, a jail, Orleans Parish Prison, OPP, or one of the worst jails in this country and emanate as she mutters "I just want my dog back" the whole ride there.....that shock no longer emanate from me and instead there is an icy coldness. And that coldness brings with it the full acceptance of my responsibility to carry everything I was asked for that night, everything that was in fact in my vehicle, only not in my dash box, the broken dash box, I reject the notion that a police "force" has blanket authority to make arrests to get those stats up and to make those arrests however they sit fit.

So while I have spent the past few weeks sleepless and worn out, and yes, afraid, no longer afraid of the criminals who do in fact continue to plague this already downtrodden city, but newly afraid of "the man" the men in blue, the ones who I thought were duty-bound to protect and serve...me, I have also spent time revisiting that cafeteria of my childhood and I can still hear those chants, "Lise, Lise, Lise, Lise, Lise...." and I know that the only difference that time has made is that it won’t be a fist that I wield this time, instead I am armed only with the knowledge that as an American citizen in addition to positive rights, I also have negative rights as well, I have the right to be left alone, the right to remain un-oppressed. So, I await my November court date with very little sleep, with the deep down knowledge that this is not over, and still with the unshakeable belief that someone just has to stand up for the wormy, weakly kid....in all of us.

Katrina Creatures & Critters: Katrina's Legacy

2007-08-29T08:09:00.000-07:00

Click on the title of this post, Katrina Creatures & Critters: Katrina's Legacy

2007-08-29T08:02:00.000-07:00

Thank You, Michael Vick

2007-08-20T13:50:00.001-07:00

Whereas many of us, you know, the animal people, we understand the levels of cruelty that truly exist in the world, particularly as it rears its ugly head in the animal world, we also understand that every battle against such cruelty has been uphill, every victory has been so difficult to achieve. We live in a world where so many see the obvious cruelty in starving a dog but don't know, don't care or don't have the time to worry about the seals who are clubbed for their fur, ultimately to be used as a fashion accessory, a world which might love their own precious cats but doesn't see the inhumanity in seeking to eradicate ferals in their neighborhood and these juxtapositions that seem to exist never cease to amaze me, but the Michael Vick case has managed to amaze me even more so.

Finally, the levels of cruelty, inhumanity, depravity, viciousness, brutality and heinous acts that all of us know exists and goes on everyday as humans neglect, outright hurt, or look the other way as animals become their victims, finally, all of these horrible characteristics have been delivered, up close and personal, to the world and more importantly, mainstream America, and delivered in what so many thought to be a beautifully wrapped package....Michael Vick. Now, finally, mainstream America has the opportunity to just get it.....the levels of cruelty, inhumanity, depravity, viciousness, brutality and heinous acts aren't really just a problem for those animal people to fight and they aren't really just things that go on in the darkest corners of the ghettos, slums, projects, you know, the bad part of town. No, now, and finally, mainstream America gets to see what we already knew, that these horrible crimes, these horrible acts and these horrible ways of thinking are everywhere and that includes mainstream America in all its middle-class, two door garage neighborhoods. There might not be a Bad Newz Kennels on your block, but if you pay attention, you can bet that somewhere and anywhere and everywhere on your own block, there are in fact shades of gray which exist as to what each and every one us considers cruelty and inhumanity to be. Now and finally, mainstream America has the opportunity to just get it..... a man with a gift, a gift that allows him to sign his name to a piece of paper and to collect $130 million dollars to show up on Sundays and throw a ball down the field, a gift that makes so many corporate pots of gold his for the taking and in exchange for only his name, a man with gift trades it all away, all of it except for that gift, which ironically remains, he trades it all away and just so that he can watch living breathing creatures who have no choice, creatures he has made life and death decisions for, watch them as they draw blood and end life.
And the shiny bow on top of that pretty little gift package?....the man with such a gift, the one who is willing to trade all of his pots of gold away, needed more than that blood and that death, he had to have more of it, and so manufactured it, death that is, and he took his own primal and perverse satisfaction in finding novel ways to manufacture that death......a man with such a gift had to have more than an injection or even a bullet, he needed electricity and nooses and blunt trauma, and those are only the highs, rather the lows, of depravity and cruelty and inhumanity that we know about.

Now and finally, and thanks to that gift-wrapped package, there seems to be, and historically so, a consensus, a universal thinking as to what mainstream America will not turn their heads from and not turn their channels from and what they will not tolerate and accept and will not allow, and now and finally, it does my own heart some good to see that mainstream America seems to have drawn its line in the sand, seems to have said, "Enough" There can be no mistaking the irony of the setting in which that line in the sand was drawn........mainstream America seems to have found and stated its universal "Enough" even at the expense of losing one of the most beautifully wrapped gift-packages it has, even at the expense of altering the course of one its most enduring past-times, Sunday with the NFL ...........so, for what this gift-wrapped package has delivered to mainstream America, and ultimately, for what that package has delivered for us, you know, the ones who have been trying to get mainstream America to just get it, I want to say, Thank You, Michael Vick....I think that they finally get it.

New Orleans, 2007

2007-08-02T10:38:00.000-07:00

"Not too Far from Here"
Pam Leavy's video footage of New Orleans and surrounding parishes between January 2007 and June 2007

3,200 Animals Helped by ARNO

2007-07-30T15:15:00.000-07:00

Moment of Grace

2007-06-20T13:41:00.001-07:00

The soul never thinks without a picture
Aristotle

Photograph by Marsha Steckling

Billy was one I agonized over
I agonized the first time I saw him frolicking with his brothers across the street from where Magnolia Sammy lived...would they hurt Sammy? This was, after all, a very much and still abandoned area of New Orleans and how would these dogs, a feral trio, have any way of knowing just how much effort I had put into Magnolia Sammy’s careSo, I agonized when I reported them and asked the local animal control to trap them and I agonized some more until ARNO’s Executive Director personally requested that the trio be released to ARNO if and when it was determined that no further progress could be made with these feral dogs. And I again agonized when Billy and his brothers Jesse and James joined us at ARNO last November because they hid from us and the world around them, all three, crammed skillfully into one Igloo doghouse to avoid the big bad world around them.

And so the time passed and the three brothers progressed, Jesse more than the others and unfortunately we lost James while he was undergoing treatment for heartworms and then there was Billy or Billy the Kid. Billy was the nervous one, the shy one, the frightful one who clutched your leg with both front paws as you tried to take him for an afternoon walk.
Billy is the only dog who can run across the street while crawling on his belly, maybe he thought if he crouched down really low, nothing could get him. It is probably all these qualities in Billy that were the reason I love him, he is vulnerability and sweetness and complete innocence and anyone who met Billy could see he was special.

And so that time finally came, the day someone else would meet Billy and fall head over heels in love with this child-like creature, a day that I often thought would never come. Yes, I agonized over that as well, what if Jesse goes first? Jesse is what others might perceive as a more adjusted, a more normal dog and I worried that noone would ever see the Billy we see, the Billy we love if Jesse was adopted first because Jesse is Billy’s brother and their bond is a joy to watch but also my own personal albatross. Billy and Jesse, as feral dogs born on the streets of New Orleans after Katrina, would never be those small fluffy litter-mates that are separated every day, in every corner of the world, as new puppies are adopted into loving homes.....Billy and Jesse were each other’s safety zone for nearly two years and together, they could face anything, together, they faced everything. And so I carried that albatross around my neck, never once imagining that someone, somebody would love Billy for just exactly who he was and I’ll never understand why that never occurred to me because those of us who knew Billy better than anyone loved him because he was Billy. And so the day came when someone else did too.

Maybe it is because she is a professional photographer, or maybe it is because she loves him just as much as we do, or maybe it is because the eyes are truly the windows to the soul, that my favorite photograph of Billy was taken by a woman who came to help us for a week in May, she came from Colorado and she must have fallen hard. And so when I heard the news a month later that she wanted Billy, she wanted us to send him home to Colorado, I wondered how I could make the world see Billy’s soul in that photo, make them see the Billy we knew. But then I realized I didn’t know if Billy or any animal has a soul and so I decided to find out.

And so the days passed and I spent as much time as I could with Billy and Jesse but could not find a way to explain Billy’s soul and soon put the thought away. I played with both brothers, I walked them, I sat with them, I watched them run across the small hills in the canine pool area and I agonized again, I agonized because Billy was free and happy and fun and dog-like when he was chasing Jesse or running away from Jesse, and how they liked to run. Would Billy ever be this creature we loved, this child-like boy who came alive when Jesse was near? I agonized and played and agonized some more and on our last night together, Jesse and Billy played until they dropped right there in the dirt they had dug holes in for hours and although I took many photos that night, the images of their last frolic together is burned into my memory forever

And so the morning finally came and after one last and very long walk together, I made up some excuse for Tom, ARNO’s on-site and long-term volunteer, to put Jesse back into his kennel but the truth was that I didn’t want to put Jesse away and look at his face and then walk away from only Jesse, no Jesse and Billy. And so I sat next to Billy in the pre-dawn darkness and hugged him and cried and was finally convinced by Tom’s words that this is why we do this and Billy had a family waiting for him, so I had better get going. And so, after Tom said goodbye to Billy, Billy said goodbye to ARNO, his home for the past nine months. And it was so hard to say goodbye to him at the airport, it was so hard not to change my mind and let him stay, not with a family the way he should spend his life, but here with Jesse so that once a day he could come out and be with Jesse and be that “normal” dog who plays and jumps and runs and loves life, but I sent him on his way, and only because I knew that the person on the other end already loved Billy, he was already a loved dog and I held onto that love as the hope that Billy would eventually be that normal dog there, too.

As I left ARNO later that afternoon, I felt hopeful, we had gotten word that Billy was with his family on the way from the airport to his new home, his new life, and he was sniffing her fingers, his new mom’s hand, and I was hopeful that he remembered her and that she loved him. And as I drove through the pouring rain toward New Orleans, toward other dogs, other Billy’s, I was hopeful but melancholy, happy but sad and then it was all washed away in one single moment, one single moment of Grace.

As I drove through the downpour, it began to slow and there it was directly and gloriously in front of my eyes and I knew in an instant, it was his, it was Billy’s. Stretched magnificently across the horizon in front of my eyes, not somewhere off in the distance out of the corner of my eyes, but right there, big and bright and beautiful, it was a rainbow. And there was no thought process, it was so much quicker than that, it was an instantaneous recognition of that rainbow that bluebirds fly over, so why oh why can’t I, oh why oh why can’t Billy? And so I knew that I would no longer agonize about Billy being a normal dog, because right there in front of me was the message I had really needed to receive, Billy flew over that rainbow, he had landed, he had made it, and he was the dog he was meant to be, the Billy I loved, the Billy we loved, the Billy that she will now love.

But this moment, this rainbow, this message was not cause for the tears that rolled freely down my face because it was the moment that the albatross was lifted from my neck for Billy, this moment, this rainbow, this message was cause for tears and goose-bumps and hairs that stood up on my neck and deeper breathing, this rainbow was cause for all of this because it was the moment in my life that rang clear for me, a moment that was significant because if my recognition of that rainbow was as instant as it had been, then there could be only one explanation. The person who for most of her life never questioned whether God exists, and for most of her younger life believed that God in fact did not exist, now, immediately recognizes when her questions, her prayers, her worries are being answered. Whereas I was always a doubter, a non-believer, a non-religious person, I can no longer deny that I am a very spiritual person. I may not go to church, but I see God’s church all around me, everyday.

I don’t believe that I found God in the past two years, God was always there. I don’t believe that these animals I have worked with were messengers sent from God either. What I do believe is that my efforts to help the animals in post-Katrina New Orleans has brought me full circle.
And so when I go back and read my own writings from these past two years, I see the transformation in my words, I can see when the questioning began for me, I can see when the realization of purpose took place, the realization that I have a purpose and what I believe is that in all my years in many chosen vocations, office manger, student, paralegal, in all those years and during all that work, work that I enjoy immensely, I never began questioning, I never began reflecting, and subsequently, I never began writing about those thoughts, those reflections, those self-searching moments....but now I do. And so I believe that while these animals, these creatures, no, they have not been my own personal line to a higher power, they are innocent creatures who I have helped, but it was during those two years, that time in my life when I was giving my heart and soul to helping those creatures, that I was also opening my heart to others.
I was opening my heart to children, to elderly, to homeless, to poor, to people so unlike who I was or who I appeared to be to others who only looked at me but without an open heart may not have truly seen me. And so I believe that a deeper message was received when I saw that rainbow, I saw that rainbow and instantly knew what it was and now I know that while I spent a week or so trying to determine if animals have souls, it wasn’t until that rainbow that I truly understood, finally, that I have a soul.

And so I have no information, no research, no deep thoughts on whether animals and my beloved Billy has a soul, but then, that moment of Grace, that realization of my own soul, where did that journey begin? I only have to look into the eyes in that photo, my new favorite photo of Billy, Billy at his home, and I know that I already have the answer that I couldn’t find.
Photograph by Marsha Steckling

God, grant me.......

2007-06-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

F i n d i n g S e r e n i t y

I had been on this street a thousand and one times since Katrina but I had never seen her before, she appeared and I still have no idea from where or even which direction. She foraged in the shells of an empty lot, looking for food or so I thought. I quietly placed my trapping gear into my truck so that she would not be startled but even the sound of an approaching vehicle was too overwhelming and I was able to see only that she, he, was a shepherd, a German Shepherd and “it” was frightened. Immediately, and nearly reflex-like, I followed slowly behind as my mind began the plans for what lied ahead. Would she take food or would she run? Would she allow me to approach her or would she warn against it? Would she be able to be quickly trapped or would she prove to be elusive and in need of patience?

For nearly thirty minutes I tried everything possible to get her to take any of the small “pre-bait” portions of food I placed around the Tulane/Gravier section of New Orleans, all in locations that she had wandered through as I followed her haphazard movements along what seemed to be a path she was completely unfamiliar with. She had the look of the newly lost, the recently dumped, confused, disoriented, scared and nose to the ground. Each time I placed food down, she either ignored it or ran away if she spotted me, this was beginning to look hopeless....how could I help her if I couldn’t get her to stay in one area, even for food? As my mind subconsciously rewrote those plans, I climbed back into the truck to start the drive home, knowing that I would be back in less than an hour but also knowing that the odds were not good that I would easily find her. I wondered, what are the odds of trapping her if I can’t find her again? As I neared the end of the street, S. Miro Street, the street I have driven one thousand and one times, I caught a glimpse of her heading back toward me as she trotted along the sidewalk on Tulane Avenue and again, almost as if reflex, I threw my truck into reverse so she wouldn’t see me and run, and planned one final food drop......surely, she would have to cross directly over this food and this is where I would return with a trap.

God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change.....

Although it must have been a sound first before anything else, in the seconds it unfolded it was a feeling first as my heart sunk in my chest and then a processed thought as my mind registered it and finally, a sound, this one audible and registered and I will never forget that sequence with its’ time-lapse quality and I will never forget what flesh and bone sounds like as an automobile speeds into a life. I know that I will often recall the sound of skin as it is dragged across asphalt, the thud of a body as it finally comes to rest only ten feet in front of me and I will do my best to never again wonder about a place, a destination that must be important, too important for a human being who just ended a life to postpone his arrival there because he is checking to see if anything can be done to help her, or at least getting out of his car, or possibly just stopping for a brief second......wherever that important place is, it’s nowhere I want to go.

the Courage to Change the things I can.....................
She couldn’t possibly be alive, I saw her as she cartwheeled underneath the metal that dragged her down but, and again almost as if reflex, I ran the ten feet and was shocked to see she was still breathing...barely. Prayer is evidently more reflexive than tears as all emotion placed themselves on hold...but I remember the prayers and I remember trying to broker a deal with God to help me pick her up without causing more pain and I remember the deal where I asked for green lights and no potholes and I particularly remember the deal where I begged to please just let me find a veterinarian who hadn’t gone home yet on a Friday evening and who would be willing to help end her pain. The crunch, the drag, the thud, I knew she couldn’t be saved but all my deals were for the end of her pain and ironically, what I remember the most is that I never offered anything in return so I guess that makes me a pretty poor deal broker, doesn’t it?

And the Wisdom to know the Difference

They weren’t really deals if nothing was offered in return, they were truly, prayers. Prayers are made to a higher power, to God and every prayer I uttered was for her, so that she could find peace without more pain. I think my prayers were heard because along the fifteen minute drive to the veterinarian clinic, somewhere around twelve minutes into her dying, her pain ended and my began. I drove with only my left hand so that my right hand could hold a bloody paw, a paw that let me know she was still alive and I knew she was still alive, barely, until those gasps that came all in a row and quickly and then her paw in my hand let me know that her pain was over, Thank God. My prayers stopped at that point and the emotions checked began as I drove the rest of the way to the clinic through blurred clumps of mascara. She, yes she, was about six to seven years old, she was without identification, no tags, no chip but someone, somewhere used to be hers and they left their mark with a spay scar. She left her mark on the back seat of my truck where her life bled out from her broken body, and her blood was red like yours and mine and her blood was warm like yours and mine and her blood was real, just like yours, mine and that human on his way to an important place. She left her mark elsewhere as well.

ACCEPTANCE

The Serenity Prayer is relevant for anyone who struggles and I struggle often. My struggle is not with the courage part or the part about changing things, and its not the Wisdom part either.....my struggle is with accepting the things I cannot change and so Serenity has been a lifelong unattainable. I have never been able to do enough, help as many as I should, be good enough at, and that is par for the course with any individual who works to help others....rescue, relief, shelter, workers in fields or industries where another’s pain and suffering is always right around the corner. With no skills or ability at accepting that I cannot change everything, Serenity or inner peace with myself has always escaped me, consistently and constantly replaced by plans.

Serenity, or at least the head of the path toward that end finally found me, I didn’t find it, she found me. She looked and felt and lived and breathed and died as a German Shepherd, a shepherd who I call Serenity and what she brought to me is what I have been unable to find on my own, Acceptance. It took some time even after Serenity found me, it took until three o’clock the next morning when I found myself just sitting in the park on my street, looking at that weird dust that seemed to be floating in the even weirder fuzzy circle which encircled a full moon.
As I sat there just transfixed with a strange looking moon, my tears had stopped hours before, a strange thought occurred to me, one which I had never contemplated before and that was the realization that plans have always substituted for acceptance but ultimately, it is not my plans that are the Master Plan, that was written by another.

Maybe it wasn’t the plan for me to “save” the shepherd that had appeared out of nowhere, maybe I was there for something else. No, I really can’t save them all, I can’t do everything, be everywhere and I can’t end all the suffering in this world, and if I can truly accept that, maybe I can understand what my real role in the shepherd’s world was.....maybe it was my job to help her die instead. Serenity found me, I hope in some small way, in the back of my truck, with her bloody paw in my hand, I hope Serenity finally found some peace.

Socialization of a Feral Dog Pack

2007-05-31T09:18:00.000-07:00

Socialization, Capture and Rehabilitation of a Feral Dog Pack
in Post-Katrina New Orleans

For Shannon

A Dog Named James....I left him to ARNO

2007-04-05T17:03:00.000-07:00

ARNO's Shelter Director, Robin Beaulieu, "Mr. Shivers"
and a Dog named James

photo by Jackie Quick

A few weeks ago, I was asked by one of our more dedicated volunteers, Auntie Karen, to put down into words what working with ARNO has meant to me and since I am not one to shirk a writing challenge, I agreed. When I tried to put a multitude of feelings into words, it was surprisingly difficult and so I put the task on the back burner and nearly forgot it, nearly.
Until James. Yesterday morning, I was hit square in the face with just what ARNO, working with, alongside and for ARNO has meant to me, and the reason is a dog named James.

James was only about four months old when I spotted him last summer, along with his two brothers, frolicking happily on the front yard, the yard directly across from where I cared for Magnolia Sammy and that was going to be a problem. Yes, I was going to have to bust up this happy-go-lucky family because after everything I had invested into Sammy and his feline friends, how on earth was I going to let these feral dogs, these wild creatures, take that all away? So, I did the unthinkable, I snitched on them, I gave up their location to the local animal control and within days, all three were taken from their own little paradise.

In my own opinion, one can’t be an “animal person” and be a “dog person” or a “cat person”.....if you care about other living, breathing creatures, that feeling extends to all God’s creatures and although my protective side is what forced me to confront this situation head on, admittedly, there was a comfort zone. ARNO’s Executive Director lived up to every expectation I had of her when she personally contacted the shelter which these three dogs now called home and stated unequivocally that if and when the trio would reach a point where nothing further could be offered and adoption chances might be slim, then she wanted ARNO to be contacted and the organization would accept these three dogs. I don’t know that I have ever properly thanked Charlotte Bass-Lilly for that huge undertaking....feral dogs, true feral dogs, born under the house at which they frolicked that day, is not an easy responsibility to face and I know that as much as she did it for the dogs she works to save, she did it for me, ARNO did it for me.

And so they arrived, last fall, after spending the time at the local shelter, the time in rehab, the time allotted when space is scarce and funds even scarcer, they came to ARNO, all three, all feral but beautiful creatures, and they hid. The trio was given their own run and because most of my time is spent away from the facility, I only saw glimpses of them, well, two of them anyway.
I saw the black and white one and I saw the leader, the alpha, if you could call him alpha, the brown one with the freckly face, and I tried but a minute here and a minute there, that’s not enough with feral dogs....and so I left them, I left them to ARNO.

As fall turned into winter, the trio became more visible, they were now each in their own kennel and what made me notice them more than anything was the fact that finally, the third one, the one I knew to exist but never saw, he had a face, finally, and it was just as beautiful as his brothers. The third one, the most timid of the bunch, was beautiful brown all over, like the color of honey, and he had the most soulful deep brown eyes which never left sight of you if you were near him. Although I was thrilled to finally see the third dog who I knew to exist, I had seen him playing way back when, before I gave them up, I worried....did I do the wrong thing? And then the thought was gone, I know, after enough of these on the streets, still lurking, still popping up when and where I least expect to see them, sometimes five miles from where I saw them last, I know, I did the right thing and as I observed Jackie walk him or his brothers as time went by, I knew, I had done the right thing and so would leave them and all the others, any others, the ones brought in and the ones I didn’t bring in or turn in, I left them, I left them to ARNO.

Christmas passed and I watched as three young girls, teenagers, pre-teens really, they climbed in and out of the trio’s kennels. Three young ladies who ARNO is lucky enough to have as part of its family, Victoria, Kaitlyn and Taylor, all spending their Saturday morning in the individual kennels of Jessie, the leader of this pack, Billy the Kid, the black and white ball of nerves, and James, the honey-colored meek one of the bunch. These girls would just love these three “wild” dogs and I would hear an occasional squeal from their area and then I heard one really big squeal one of those Saturday mornings...... “James licked her, he licked her!” I am still not sure which one of those three young ladies was graced with a kiss from James that day, I only know that from the delight I could hear emanating from somewhere over there that finally, the meek one, James, he had truly opened up, and so I left them that day, just another Saturday, I left them to ARNO.

It wasn’t until after Cora, Mia Corazon, my beautiful chow, it was after she became the newest addition to ARNO just recently, that I began consciously spending more time with the dogs at ARNO and getting to know their individual personalities. Cora was a windfall for me, a cat trapping enthusiast, and so my time now had to be spread around, getting to know the canines of ARNO’s world and I will tell you that is a job all by itself. Recently, when Tom, our long-term out-of-town volunteer, made the long-haul to Arizona with forty or so felines, I showed up at ARNO, one Saturday, but one Saturday evening this time and somehow, my sense of guilt wouldn’t let me head home knowing that Jackie and Robin, our shelter director, a/k/a “solver of every problem” had to finish up the day’s chores and walk all the dogs without that third set of hands, Tom’s. So, instead of leaving them to ARNO, I stayed and I helped walk those dogs, and how I crawled out of bed the next day is still a mystery to me......those dogs, whether they love the open air and the freedom of a walk, or, as in the case of Billy the Kid, their feralness takes over and they just run, with you flailing behind them, those dogs work every muscle you didn’t know you had. But it was an invigorating kind of hurt the next day and I do like a challenge, so I went back, I went back to ARNO and I walked Billy the Kid again, and again and each day brought new progress, in my eyes anyway, and progress is an addictive thing and so I came back, I came back to ARNO.

Although Jessie has gone into a wonderful foster home, James and Billy are still with ARNO and earlier this week I caught on to something, something the real experts at ARNO probably already knew......when I sat with James in my lap, scratching his ears, whispering secrets in those ears and all the while watching to see if his tail would uncurl from that terrified coil, I noticed Billy the Kid, he actually wagged his tail and it wasn’t coiled up. You see, I forgot to latch his kennel after his walk and he saw me as I made efforts with his brother James, and so he came forward and he acted like a real live dog, a happy dog, as he licked my hand first and then sniffed James’ face and I saw it, that happy dog light in James’ soulful eyes....they would always be brothers no matter what, no matter where they were and no matter who they loved, they truly loved each other, their brothers. The next evening, after thinking that I might possibly be crazy, I decided to walk James and Billy together and oh what a wonderful walk we had!

I can’t begin to properly put into words just what I saw on that walk, just three nights ago, so I will not even attempt to do so......it was magical and those are the moments that you live for and the ones that come not nearly as often as you know that they should. Magical is an addictive thing too, and as I came running behind these two joyful creatures that night, I managed to blurt out questions and orders all at the same time: “Did you see that? They skipped, I’m certain of it!” “ Jackie, Tom, did you see them? They wagged their tails.....wagged, wagged them, I swear it!” And finally, “Okay, guys, now even when I ‘m not here, you walk them together, okay, they loved it!” Looking back, I think that the smiles on the faces that night were as much about me as they were about Billy and James.......Jackie, Tom, Robin, they know what each of these creatures has inside of them and I think they enjoyed the sight of me learning as well.....they know each one’s likes, dislikes, each one’s scars from street fights, each one’s favorite chew treat and each one’s comb or brush that gets just the right spot........I envy these miracle workers, but, as one who spends so much time outside, I think that my special reward is never losing the total awestruck amazement as each and everyone of those miracles unfold, as each one sheds a little more of their street life and learns to tolerate, accept and eventually look for what these miracle workers called ARNO offers to each and every single one....love.

Sometimes the plans we lay, the dreams we build, the hopes we imagine, sometimes they aren’t to be, and James, the meek one, the honey-colored soulful boy that existed as part of my memory for too long, only to emerge as one of those miracles, he left ARNO, but not as we had hoped he would, not with a family......James left ARNO on the morning of April 4, 2007 when he lost the battle of heart worm treatment and suddenly, unexpectedly and tragically died from a side-effect, a known risk of heart worm treatment, the worms themselves. When heart worms die they basically become embolisms which can lead to complications of blocked vessels, clotting and death. I am not a veterinarian and don’t know enough about heart worms or the treatment to make any factual statements but I know many people who have put their dogs into treatment and those dogs survived. James did not and that is the risk of the treatment, you don’t know who and you don’t know when. James was alive one minute and gone the next and his life was way too short, I know because I remember that first sighting when they were puppies and I know the possibilities that we all hoped for, still hope for with Billy and Jessie, and I am so sad that James is gone before the miracle was complete.

I will miss James, I already miss James and all those possibilities and I have cried many times since I first got the news yesterday, but I have also searched my heart to figure out why it is that upon first hearing the news, the very first initial shock, why it was that my strongest emotion was one that brought a smile to my face first, before the tears came.....I didn’t have to search to far.....I smiled for James, I smiled about James and I will always smile when I think of James because James left from the same place that I resigned his fate would take him last fall when I spotted him and his brothers....James left his brothers, he left his family, he left from ARNO, and he left them behind, he left them to ARNO.

A Dog named James is why ARNO is special to me..........James was special to it, them. ARNO is special to me because ARNO is not an it, it is not an organization, it is a couple of miracle workers here, a few dedicated die hards over there, and an amazing level of energy and can do dedication and driven determination all in between. ARNO is special to me because its Executive Director accepted the challenge of three feral, born feral, true feral dogs, accepted them on their behalf and accept them on mine. ARNO is special to me because its’ dedicated volunteers, the ones who give their blood, sweat, tears, and then some, the Jackie’s, the Tom’s, the Anabel’s, the Isabelle’s, the Anastasia’s, the Joe Nobodies.....they are all the most amazing somebodies, and they welcome each James, each Billy, each Jessie and they just work their magic, no matter how long it takes, no matter that money is what will be needed for each one and who has money? ARNO is special to me because they don’t have the funding to pull them in fast, intake them, route them, hold them and then.....well, then.... that is the thing with ARNO, the then at the end of the road. It comes, it always comes, the then, the what now, the what do we do now for this one or that one........it’s always an unknown but yet a known at ARNO, the then will just be, will surely be, will only be, a happy ending for the single, solitary, one at a time creature that ARNO is dedicated to saving, each one, one at a time, slowly, short-term, long-term, always different, but always permanently, each one is going to have his or her happy ending. Sometimes, though, those miracle workers, fate intervenes and I remember that they are humans, humans who love all the James that come to them.

ARNO is special and I knew that when I had to tell Robin, the Shelter Director to slow down and tell me again who, what happened, and I had to make out through her sobs that James was gone. I wish I could take the pain Robin felt away, but, somewhere deep inside, her pain is why ARNO is special......Robin loves each one and not one more than the other, and although that is pretty miraculous in itself, Robin is just a human and she hurts too. ARNO is special because of Robin, its Shelter Director, a person in pain, who thought about the pain I would feel and who had to be the one to deliver the news and to be so sorry about the pain......and I smile because I know I left James and his brothers, I left them to ARNO.

ARNO is special because Jackie, the resident dog guru, do it all, fix it all, and always with a smile....... he couldn’t look me in the eyes or not so easily, when I drove up to ARNO yesterday to walk Billy......ARNO is special because Jackie loves each one, he does it with knee–pads sometimes because they wear him out, but he loves each one and he still manages to see the other side, the ones like me who get attached or feel responsible or whatever it is, he knew I was either hurting or going to hurt and I could see that was hard for him....and I smile because I know I left James and his brothers, I left them to ARNO.

ARNO is special because of Melinda, one of those right hand man/woman miracle workers........I don’t know all of Melinda’s duties, I just know she helps Robin and she helps Jackie and she helps whomever or whatever get done and she helps make those miracles happen too.....Melinda is good at the slow ones, like Nick, a dog with another story for another day, but a miracle nonetheless. ARNO is special because Melinda, I was told, took James and buried him......Melinda is special because James was special and I smile because I know I left James and his brothers, I left them to ARNO.

There are so many, one like Darla, she lives somewhere else, I don’t know, but I know she took the time to make me feel better today when I had so many questions and part of the feeling better part was knowing that Darla cared enough about James to honor his memory with the truth and facts and without sugarcoating it.......I feel better knowing that Darla was one of the last humans that James spent time with. So many, but too few ......all with names that should go here but for a lack of time, for blurred vision as I type through tears, and for the animals who yes, still await help.....a small puppy pack that I am certain is the next generation in James’ family is waiting for my help......these miracle workers, no, these humans, they are the reasons that ARNO is special and as long as there are those who understand that and continue to support ARNO, I know that more miracles are around the corner, maybe frolicking right this very minute and when I spot them, I know I will hesitate for that one moment and wonder what I should do, but it will only be for that one moment because I will think of James and I will know what I need to do, I will leave them to ARNO, ARNO with the young girls who see only the love that three wild dogs have to give, and to receive, the same young girls who give four-legged numbers their names, ARNO with the shelter director who has way to big of a heart to be a real director so the rest of us have to settle for miracles she concocts rather than directing, the ARNO with the Executive Director who has enough faith for all of us to keep this mission on track, the ARNO with the miracle workers who I have come to believe in and to love..... the same ARNO that I left James and his brothers to, the ARNO in the picture above, the one which James apparently came to love as well.

Make a Wish, Blow out the Candles

2007-03-22T09:14:00.000-07:00

“It was ten years ago last night when I first decided how I would spend this day, March 21, 2007. It was after the initial free fall, but before the first bounce was completed when I decided that it was going to have to be something big, something even more crazy than that night. It was my 30th birthday and I wanted to do something to make me feel alive, so, along with 4 other friends, friends with names I can't recall, we marked the occasion with a birthday bungee jump...well, I jumped, they watched. And then we returned from Florida and I returned to my independent and solitary lifestyle. There were very few things I needed back then and people, well I needed even fewer of them. But that was then and what I didn't count on was a disaster which altered my 10-year and 20-year plans, and what I didn't count on was you people to complicate those plans.”

The excerpt above is from a letter I sent two nights ago, March 20, 2007, to my fellow volunteers with Animal Rescue New Orleans, or ARNO. My letter was one of gratitude that had to be expressed to them because within a few short hours I would be reaching yet another milestone in my life.....I would turn 40 the very next day, and it was because of them that I would face that monumental day very differently than I had originally planned, on a crazy night, ten years ago, a lifetime and just yesterday.

Although my animal rescue efforts began 18 months ago in order to help the animals impacted by Katrina, there is no doubt in my mind that my work, specifically my work with ARNO, has forever changed the way that I am and the person that others know. Because ARNO continues to focus on the animals which remain on the streets of this region, including feeding when needed, trapping, rehabilitation and adoption, my own work with the group as a feeder/trapper has literally forced me to become a people person and my perspective, my outlook on life are so different because of it. And two nights ago, when I thought of the birthday still to come, I couldn’t help but think about the turn my life had taken: ten years ago, I needed adrenalin and action to feel alive, now, I need only the friendships I have been honored with, friendships because my life itself had become action. So as I sent my words of appreciation and crawled into bed, it was with a sense of peaceful satisfaction that I realized that I wouldn’t have to jump out of that airplane after all because the only thing that surpasses the rush of a manufactured adventure, is a shared adventure with a new friend.

"Carver Louis"

A GIFT FOR MEREDITH

I first met Carver Louis on the afternoon of my 40th birthday, right where I knew I would find him, curled up in the parking lot next to a youth center in a very poor section of this city, New Orleans. I went to this parking lot to find Carver Louis, well, I went to this parking lot to find a skinny white cat with gray patches because he was special and because he was waiting for me.

My 40th was filled with friends and happiness. My law firm friends threw a birthday “funeral” for me and I was overwhelmed at the efforts they went to in order to make me feel special. As you might expect, I received gifts, but what took me by surprise was just how many of those had the word “Friend” somewhere on the gift......angel, a flower pot, a conglomeration, all declaring friendship. You see I’m certain that my work in the animal world, my work with ARNO, has carried over into my real-life world, you know the one where I am forced to spend time so that I can pay the bills....and the payoff? More friends. My life is no longer filled with co-workers, bosses, secretaries, my life is filled and fulfilled with friends. My animal rescue friends left me in tears as I read there precious words of how they feel about me and my 40th is one I will cherish because of who it was shared with and not because of what I did to mark the day. When I looked back at the day last night, I knew that I was blessed because finally, people fill my life and I felt even more blessed because I made a new friend on this birthday, although, she doesn’t know it yet. Her name is Meredith and when I blew out the candles at the end of the day, the thing I wished for, the ONLY thing I wished for was that I could find a way to get a very special gift to Meredith, I wished for some way, somehow, please let me find a way for me to get Carver Louis to Meredith.

It was through two other friends, one in London, one in California, that I first learned about Meredith and how she wanted desperately to help a cat in New Orleans. Meredith, as it turned out, lives in St. Louis but she had been here, to my city, at some point in the recent past and although I was not sure what it was that she actually did while she was here, I learned that she was here as a volunteer, one of hundreds, thousands, that have graced this city with their selflessness and their time and their efforts to help it, us, recover from Katrina, the disaster like no other. I learned that while Meredith was here, she fell completely in love with a skinny white cat with gray patches who lived in the parking lot of the youth center she stayed at. I learned that Meredith fed this cat and because he was friendly, and because the neighborhood children were cruel to the cat, I learned that she contacted the local humane society/animal control with a request for this cat to be taken to safety. And then, as she had to, as they all have to, she returned to her life, far from this city, but somewhere along her trip back to normalcy, I learned that she got the call that regretfully informed her that no, there was no room for another stray cat.
You don’t really need the detailed specifics to figure out that a woman who cared enough to befriend and care for this lonely cat, as well as, make efforts to have him removed from this situation, was now willing to do anything to give this cat a home herself.

After his third can of food, all wolfed down in record speed, after I pulled him out of my truck which he willingly jumped in, I placed the skinny white cat with gray patches into a carrier and talked to people in the neighborhood.....I had no intention of stealing a beloved pet, but after those conversations, some of which contained the phrase “damn cat” I was confident that this little guy was nobody’s friend....nobody’s friend except for Meredith. It was halfway during the drive to ARNO that I named him Carver Louis.....Carver for the name of the center at which he has spent his entire life curled up in its parking lot, and Louis because I knew right then that no matter what I had to do, no matter who I had to beg, I would find a way to get him to St. Louis.....Carver Louis, you’re going to be with your friend, Meredith, and nobody is going to throw rocks at you again, I promise.

I have already mentioned that Meredith is my new friend, and hopefully, when she reads this, she will consider me her friend as well. Meredith was my friend before I met Carver Louis, before I even knew he existed, but she was nameless, she was one of many who I feel compelled to express thanks, awe, wonder, emotions I am not entirely sure of, but they are there and I don’t often get to express them because these nameless volunteers, these people that amazingly continue to pass in and out of this city in which time has seemingly stood still, these are my city’s heroes, its guardian angels, its reason for those of us who call this place home to continue to keep their precious gift to us alive, their gift of Hope.

I will do whatever I have to do so that Carver Louis can join Meredith in a place I’ve never been. Animal Rescue New Orleans, ARNO, has already taken that first step to make my wish a reality and given Carver his very own condo. I will check on Carver Louis late tonight at its shelter, after trapping, to make sure he is safe and warm in his bed, or maybe resting in the hammock he seemed to love so much yesterday and although I didn’t know it when I scooped him up, I guess I did know that ARNO would not let Carver Louis down and so he will take a trip to the veterinarian, likely his first, to be neutered, vaccinated, the works. I knew that ARNO would help this boy out, that is what they do.

If you would like to help my 40th Birthday wish come true, and help send a very special gift to Meredith, please visit www.animalrescueneworleans.org or go to the link to the right and make a donation today to Animal Rescue New Orleans, through PayPal. Be sure to mark the donation for Carver Louis, or Meredith and I know that ARNO will use every penny to care for Carver and then to send him to his forever, and rightful home with Meredith after every possibility is checked and rechecked to make sure that he is not missed by another.

And for Meredith.... I, nor my city, will ever be able to repay you for your efforts here, so I “Hope” that once I find a way to send you this special gift wrapped in a purring ball of fur, you will accept my thanks, and, my friendship too......and thank you for my 40th.....spending the day trying to help friends in California and London in their efforts to help you and a skinny white cat with gray patches, that trumps an airplane jump....on any birthday.

UPDATE ON LOUIS THE CAT

An update on Louis the Cat, from his first rescuer, Meredith

Hello All,

I am so sorry it has taken so long to get back to you. I am a busy student
and it is finals season, but my semester was turned around for the best
thanks to a wonderful new addition to my life.

Since he arrived in Saint Louis, Louis has had an amazing influence on all
those lucky enough to get to know him. He arrived on April 1st in a very
sickly state. He was skinny, smelly and sneezy. The smelly issue I cleared
up the next day by taking him to Groomingdales for a luxurious bath and
massage. I then brought him to the vet who diagnosed him with feline
herpes. He was put on an extreme round of medicine. I was told that he
would need to gain significant weight, get lots of sleep and tons of yummy
food in order to recover.

I changed my whole life and got literally no sleep for 2 weeks (thats why
I couldnt get back to you right away . . . forgive me, Carol). In between
classes, I kept rushing back to the apartment to care for Louis. I
discovered his love for gefilte fish and stonyfield yogurt. He got plenty
of steam showers, lots of attention and cuddly blankets to sleep in.
Right away he figured out which pillows were the most expensive and chose
those to sleep on. He has great taste.

After the first week, Louis was already in much better shape.
Unfortunately, my brother, who I currently reside with, was not. We
discovered that my brother is severely allergic to cats. Louis got a
hypo-allergenic bath and my brother got allergy medication, but his
allergy only got worse.

My boyfriend (who is slightly less allergic and is not allowed to have
pets in his apartment) took in Louis for a week while we figured out what
to do.

This is where the story gets good . . .

On April 13, my parents came to Saint Louis to visit me and my brother.
They always swore that they were not cat people. However, it was love at
first sight! The second my mom walked into my boyfriend's apartment, Louis
jumped into her arms and wouldn't let go. They became inseperable! My mom
thinks of Louis as her baby. My dad likes to play games with Louis and
spent an entire weekend on the floor chasing felt mice with my beautiful
cat.

To make a long story short . . . Louis is now living a life of luxury with
my parents in Westchester, New York. He has a giant house that he rules
over! He took total command over my 75 pound Collie dog, but they do take
naps together every afternoon.

Louis sleeps in between my parents in their bed every night and follows my
mom everywhere she goes. He especially likes being wrapped in warm towels
that come directly out of the dryer. He has two litter boxes (one on each
floor), tons of toys, a condo, a bed and a large window seat that he
perches on during the morning sunrise.

Louis is the best thing to have happened to my Mom! He gives her constant
company and in two weeks has brought her out of the slight depression she
was suffering. They especially love watching Jeopardy on the sofa at
night.

My dad rushes home from work every night to see Louis. This has brought my
parents much closer together. They spend their nights laughing at his
crazy antics together and their mornings trying to find him in his many
hiding spots.

Louis has gained 4 pounds, a loving home and confidence. I can't wait
until the semester is over so that I can go home and spend time with him.
He is such a dear!

Who would have thought that a wimpy, little stray cat in New Orleans could
have such a huge affect on so many people? Louis is a pleasure and a joy.
He is the best possible asset to my family!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!

I give my deepest gratitude to all of you wonderful souls who helped bring
Louis to my family. You have made such a difference in all of our lives.

I promise that Louis will forever have a happy home with all the love in
the world.

Love always,
Meredith

Would you Feed Her?

2007-03-09T15:04:00.000-08:00

Cora's story takes time to tell, but as you start to start to lose focus and your mind wanders, try to imagine reading it over eighteen months....it has been a long journey for us both.

Photograph taken by Jackie Quick

It is early November, 2005, when you first spot her, or when you make that u-turn because you think you spotted something. It is now a full two months since Katrina transformed this place into a wasteland and search and rescue for humans is long over, but these guys, the ones you have been trying to help, they are a different story. You have know way of knowing it now, but in time you will realize that there may have been as many as 600,000 of others just like her.... some were pets, many were on the streets of this city when the storm hit and when the levees broke, you just know that even after a couple of months, there are still a whole bunch out there.

So you make that turn when you spot it because as a resident, a survivor, a person with no job, no home, no city, this is how you pass the days, rescuing animals. Lamar-Dixon has shut down and the HSUS officially ended the efforts by October 1, but that’s not a problem yet because others have stepped up and for you, there are still places to take them, food to give them, people to help them. True, you have recently started to hear the rumors that you may be arrested for feeding an animal but so far you haven’t heard of any arrests and realistically, would anyone really do that? So back you go and there he or she, a large black fluff of something......it looks to be a dog, too big to be anything else, but eye contact doesn’t happen often. Wait, there she goes, it is a she, and a dog, and either she is pregnant or nursing, you think nursing, but no sign of any pups anywhere... and then she’s gone from sight. Which direction? Damn! All you can do is put down some food and water and hope she comes back. Wouldn’t you leave food for her?

It is a week before you can get back because that is how many are still waiting, so many addresses to check, so many stations to fill, but you make it back and she is nowhere to be seen but someone else has been here, there is a water dish cut from a milk jug and you can make out what appears to be red food coloring stains on the cement right next to it.....Gravy Train, it has to be, it’s the only one that is so brightly colored that it leaves stains. If it’s Gravy Train, that means the person who left the food must be working with the same group you are getting your dog and cat food from. Plus, when you look around in all directions, nobody is around, the houses across the street are still empty, the building you feed behind was a restaurant but not anymore. But, things must be starting to get a little better if we are crossing paths now, right? You leave some food on top of the stains since she is eating it. Wouldn’t you put some more food out for her?

For the next two weeks you go there every day, mainly because you want to see who is feeding this dog, but after about a week you start to go for the dog. Some days the water bowl has just an inch of red slushy liquid and you know that means the feeder didn’t make it back the day before, or maybe for a couple days, so you now start to look out for this dog too. And in the past two or three days, she has been there, laying across the paved lot because she knows you can’t get to her, there is too many obstacles....downed wires, piles of brick building now just rubble and that oddly twisted iron fence. You don’t want to run her off anyway so you fill bowls and just let her watch, always from far away. One night, you get lucky and cross paths with the feeder, a woman named Christine...she also lives here and since she is about to start back to work at Tulane, you tell her it won’t be a problem to feed the dog. You both decide to split the week so all the others get help too. I’m sure you would help us make sure she is fed, right?

Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and you are still at this and you find it hard to believe all the bickering that is going on between this group and that group and you try not to pay attention, besides, that is a good reason for you to continue your efforts independently as you have been doing. It is nice to have those computer folks, the cyber-space people who try to match up the ones that we still take out of here because this past Thanksgiving was one of your better ones.....you found Luka, well you found a dog who looked like he was just waiting to die on the side of the street, the vacant street. You got lucky on that one because those computer folks sent you a photo of a possible match....how many Shar Pei dogs could possibly be out there? and you knew it the instant you got the email of the photo, it was Luka, there was no way the dog you had fed for two weeks wasn’t Luka. But maybe it wasn’t Luka, after all, his lost poster had April 2005 as his lost date and Katrina was at the end of August, could it really be Luka or did you just want it to be Luka so badly? It was Luka and when Troy, his person called you the day after Thanksgiving to tell you that he came back from California and he listened to the rescue group who was holding Luka and he didn’t show recognition first and it didn’t matter a bit because Luka went nuts when Troy had gone into the room. Luka knew in an instant the smell, the voice, the face of the person who he last saw more than six months ago. Luka was home again and Luka’s amazing second chance against the odds only makes you work harder and faster to find more......yes, there were more.

You start to wrap up your trapping jobs by calling in help to speed the slow ones along. You can’t go back to work at the law firm in January without getting as many of them out and there are three in particular that you worry about, the Miniature Pinscher, the Shepherd and the Chow-like dog. So you call in the experts with the large group that is still here, in fact you don’t call them, you spot them on a side street not far from the Pinscher’s location so you head over and that’s how your relationship with the organized effort began......they took a couple carriers from you for the puppies they were pulling out from under the ruined house, and in return, they followed you over to the building which used to be a Rent-All, but now is just a safe haven for the Pinscher. Safe and dry because she can run really fast up that pile of bricks which used to be the back wall, much faster than you can and so you have to get help on this one. Good call, they trap her within days and not a moment too soon, the wrecking ball takes what is left of that building within the week National business...must have gotten insurance payout with no problem. Oh well, people will start coming back soon and today is a great day because now you only have two that really concern you. So you head to Lakewood South, the area with the multi-million dollar shacks.....the 17th Street Canal broke right into their backyards, not many animals at all, only one in fact that you have been working, the Shepherd and now you are into week 8 with only days to get her. First, you decide to fill the Chow dog’s food pan, she’s on the way and you want out of that area by dark if possible, the activity that has recently and slowly begun doesn’t look all that legitimate. At any rate, wherever there are really young prostitutes walking the main but empty street, you don’t want to be.

It’s February now, six months since Katrina hit and you have started to get that hopeless feeling.
You got that shepherd out for the New Year, it only took eight weeks, and even though no match could ever be made, she found a wonderful family, or the family found her through her story. Your shepherd gets a family who came looking just for her because they read what you wrote about her....oh, that is your newest way to let some of this out, writing. Not just writing, but sharing it with anyone who wants to stay involved with this ongoing mission, because they’re still out there. You start to write and it is a good way to release all the sadness, and joy, at what this city has become, at what seems like a never-ending tragedy for so many, humans and animals, it is just sad. Writing helps, and this is strange, some people seem to like your stories, strange. Within weeks, you start to feel your spirits lift because this writing has caused some strange things.....people start connected with you and it can’t be helped, you with them. All these years, most of them, you never were a people person, and to think it was because of the animals you are helping that now you think you might actually like people and you start to see that by working with others, you can get more.....but you still can’t get her, the chow. It’s a chow, you are sure, and you search over and over again through every database of Katrina pets you can find, and nothing. So you still bring her food and you adjust as first one building is torn down, and then another, you just adjust and you move her food station as many times as you have to all in the same area so that she can find it, and she does, you see her almost daily now, never close, but not on the run like she was. You would watch out for her wouldn’t you? You would probably ask anyone you see, but they would tell you the same thing, she’s nobody’s dog, she just lives on the street. So you would give her food, right?

As the summer months pass, you try to bring her food and water during the day because it’s going to be getting darker sooner and now you see squatters in the rotten houses, workers who have come to the city to make money during the rebuilding effort. Only the rebuilding effort hasn’t seem to go anywhere and not many are coming back, are they ever going to be back?
The squatters are mostly Hispanic and so you can’t speak to them even if you want to, probably better that way, a woman, alone, in an area where only rotten buildings and squatters who sit and watch, every day, as you leave her food. Thankfully, she has taken to hanging out in a wide grassy lot on the corner and so for months you have been able to keep a neat and dry station by filling a recycling bin and turning it on its side. You know just how much she needs but some days you spot her at the bin, peering into an empty spot where food should be, and you start to wonder if there are other dogs in the area......she is always alone, but since she won’t let you near her, and since the old man down the street told you that nobody can get near her, you have to think she must have at least a dog buddy, she can’t be that alone, right? The day you spot her on the main street, head buried in an empty fast food bag, you decide to leave a bit more food.....after this long, it would really hurt to see her body in the street but since she roams with not many to stop her, you are sure that is how you will find her one day. So you circle back, take the trash out of the street to deter her and then you fill her station.....wouldn’t you fill her station? She obviously is hungry and that old man told you that the only one who used to feed her sometimes never came back after Katrina. He also told you that the animal control had come out two or three times before the storm but that she is too smart and can’t be trapped. You already knew that when you tried in the spring, she wouldn’t go in no matter what you enticed her with, she was a smart one.

Another Christmas gone and you end January with a heavy heart.....the chow is pregnant and you want this to stop for her. You have found one other person who came back and now you know that this litter will be one of several. You think back to when you first spotted her and how you never saw those puppies but you have been told that one or two run the streets with a pack......she probably was never a pack dog because of her breed, she does look full-blooded, you decide this by zooming in on the digital shots you took....she doesn’t get close, but she doesn’t stay at the far edge of the lot either. You fill her station, you see her daily, you know she eats, you take shot afer shot and compare them to photos online but you know in your heart that the two people who gave you all the information they had were right about one thing, she’s nobody’s dog. You decide that you will feed her until you find her dead, but you can’t face more dogs, there are too many now that you just can’t catch, can’t track, can’t help, you need to get her before she has this litter. You’ll bring the trap back next time, she stays in this area now and she used to roam so much more, maybe this year, you can get her, you have to try. The rescue group you work with gives you a high-protein food to give her, she will need it if she has those puppies.

She’s gone, you haven’t seen her in over a week and you think maybe she didn’t make it, which is sad but she never let you into her world so it feels numb too, just one more you couldn’t help, this is never going to end. You can’t help but think that this might be for the best since supporters are fewer and fewer.....so many think this city is back on track, so many think no more animals need help, and there are those who think the ones which are left are strays anyway. As you think about this, she suddenly appears and she is full of milk.....new plan, find the pups. Today, you leave food and fresh water, and start to think of a plan....but you leave the high protein stuff and extra, what else can you do, what else would you do?

No pups, under every house you crawl and nothing so you stop to talk to the older man sitting on a porch down the block. You listen intently as he tells you that when he was taken out of the neighborhood by boat, after the levees broke, the chow, she had three or four pups then but they died in the water. You are amazed that he is teary eyed as he talks about the dog because you can only imagine what he faced himself. You follow him as he points out all her old pup-hiding spots and he confirms that she has been out there for years and animal control couldn’t get her.
He shows you the route she likes to take through his rear yard on her way to the empty grassy lot and so you get an idea....the pups can’t be far, because now you see her every day and shouldn’t she be nursing? He tells you he can’t find them either and what is really strange, he can’t hear them either? Shouldn’t he hear those pups? You know you won’t find them, that they are already dead but you try anyway, and then before you leave empty-handed, you put some food out for her as she watches you.

She isn’t around this morning, but a man is approaching, and he is waving to get your attention. You are not sure that he is talking about the chow, your chow, the one you have been feeding for so long, but he tells you that she will allow a man who lives in the back of that house over there to get close to her, but you know that can’t be and as you listen he all of a sudden shouts out because the man, that man, appears in the rear yard of the house. Yes, it is true, he can touch her, yes, it is no problem, if you want her, you can have her, no it is not his dog, but yes, yes, you can have her, and he will wait for you tomorrow morning to help you. As you drive off, he whistles and she appears, from nowhere, and you stare in utter amazement as this dog runs to greet him, her tail wagging, yes, her tail can really wag, and before you drive off, he gives you a thumbs up sign with one hand and scratches her belly with the other hand. Before you pull off completely, you pull off to the building from where the first man emerged; he stops the demolition work as you pull to the curb and he grins as you thank him profusely, and he knows that he has done a good thing today.

He is carrying her, you can’t believe your eyes, but he is carrying her like a baby to your truck and after she is tucked into the carrier, he tells you her story. His accent is thick but you have tuned out every other sound in the universe so you can know her better. Yes, he lived there before Katrina but he came back only six months ago and he was happy to see you pull up to feed her every day and about two months after he returned he thought maybe she would recognize him or maybe she would like his dog, Gaysto, a pit who was also left behind but who was now his. Two month he says, that is how long before she would trust him, but then she plays with Gaysto and she lets him pet her, but no he can’t take care of her properly, he is poor, he has no regular work, and he wants her to be happy. Where did she come from? She had a man who fed her but he died six months before the storm and then the lady who lived there, she threw her out, so she became the dog who roamed the neighborhood and beyond. He tells you that she got scraps, she got by, but she never came close and when the storm came, the lady moved away and never came back and she never left, only roamed. Why didn’t he tell you? He was so happy that you fed her but he thought you might take her to the “pound” and she might die, and when he could afford it, he would buy an extra pre-cooked chicken and now you know why every couple of weeks you would see the black tray on the ground. You fed her, he fed her, wouldn’t you feed her too? But now he wants more for her, and now you want more for her too.

You know it will be a slow process, she seems so scared, so you leave her to rest, until tomorrow, but then the call comes late that night. On her first leash walk she got away and you start to feel everything close in around you as you cry out and half-expect the next line to be “I’m joking” but that never comes and so you beg them not to chase her, you know how she can run, but she is on the run and they have to go and then you hear a dial tone. As the miles whiz past your thoughts race and you are going to the only place you know you should, to find him, and you pray over and over and over that he is there tonight. Although it seems like forever, within minutes, you have two thumbs up as he tries to keep up with your speedy English but yes, yes, of course, he will come.

You will never be the same and you know that you will no longer be able to do this, you can’t, you took her away, she had a meal, she had a territory, but you changed that and now as the others, all six of them, search through the “Batcher” a heavily wooded and swampy area which lies above the levee top right along the Mississippi River’s edge, and it runs forever, as long as the River, and you know that you will never see her again and you hate what you have done.
And when the others refuse to let you sleep in this area, a coyote haven as of late, you feel numb from the cold, yes it is cold tonight and you hope she is okay, and you feel numb because of how this one is going to end, and you agree to wait and hope she hunkers down and you will all try again at daybreak. Wait, can you leave some food for her, one last time? Her friend, the young man from Honduras, the one that you know must be special, he tells you no, no food, and because he knows her best, you listen......wouldn’t you?

He only gives one thumb up this morning but since it is before daybreak, you will take it and you prepare for the ride over, you, him, your husband again, all in the front of the pick-up truck, but you know you had better calm Gaysto, the pit down if he is going along for the ride. You give him a bone, and because he is so well trained, he takes the bone but then looks at Melvin, the man who he adores, and he gets the all clear to eat the treat. You hope, you hope so very hard and he tells you not to worry, because if he sees her, he will get her. He tells your husband he will do anything for “this lady” Because his English is broken, he emphasizes everything with his hands so you will know he will get her. All you can do is hope, so you do and then you feel yourself losing it after almost two hours back in the “Batcher” It is long past daybreak and you think she is gone forever and you are almost too far down in the sand-pit to hear it, but it is faint and then you hear it again, they are yelling for you to move, now, to hurry up and you run faster than you have ever run and you don’t know why you are running, you just know that you are supposed to. Your lungs are on fire as you see them, only your husband is waiting with the truck and you see the others racing down the levee in the school-bus the shelter uses for transport, and you try not to hope as your husband tells you that she has been spotted, very near the shelter where she broke free the night before.

You see her, you see her and you break down in racking sobs because you know he will keep his promise, he will see her and he will get her. Through your tears of exhaustion and joy, you tell your husband to wait, just wait, no, do not open the door and jump out. All of you and her are on the main highway, a US highway, and she is running down the road but you know how this will end so you tell him to wait and then you watch it and it is magic. You watch as the school-bus makes the wide turn and the young man jumps out with his Gaysto, and then you can’t hear him, but you know he is instructing Gaysto in Spanish and the dog knows every word, and then finally, Gaysto is off his leash and you watch as he becomes the speed of light heading toward her, it is almost over now. She must feel him bearing down on her and she turns and then it is finally over. You watch as the two race toward each other for one final romp together and for one last time, you watch this young man who has befriended this dog as he carries her to the kennel in the back of the truck. You have her again and you have a new friend too.

You think about the past week and you remember every detail so clearly and you anticipate the end of the work-day because you can’t wait to visit her. You know, all of you know by now just who you are working with and she sports a harness for walks now and you know that she will need time and effort but you know that this will be a good ending because extra safeguards are in place and you now know that is to be expected because of the breed: she is a full-blooded chow and she is magnificent. You are amazed each night as she shows new progress and you are thrilled at each new face she accepts and you know who they are because days ago, she accepted you first, you fed her for a long time, and so she accepts you, and now as she watches you interact with each one, one at a time, she accepts them in turn and she can wag that tail like no other dog. She will be okay, you know it, and you know that she has an entire team of dedicated individuals at this shelter who will help you see to that. She will love and she will be loved, forever, and you and the others will find that match for her, she is counting on that.

As you think about this last phase of your journey with this dog, you know why it is that you felt compelled to name her that first morning when you had her, before you lost her. You couldn’t explain why at the time, but you felt sure her name should be Corazon, or Cora for short, and now you understand. Mia Corazon, my heart..... she is all “heart” and she is what you just know must be the mirror image of your own heart, you have worked longer with her than any other out there, and you have put your heart into her care, and the others’ too. And somewhere in the middle of this past amazing week, as you did the one thing she has expected you to do this entire time, feed her, you know that you would have continued to feed her no matter what, be it risk to your own safety, threat of arrest for violations of some code unearthed by whomever, no matter if there was donated food or not, you would have bought it yourself, and you would have fed her feral or friend, and now as you look down into two pools of cocoa colored liquid velvet, you give thanks for whatever it was that guided you to keep feeding a dog that you were certain was feral, you give thanks for Melvin and Gaysto who offered her a second chance to trust, you give thanks for a man who saw this and did something about it, you give thanks for Christine, a woman who you met long ago, you give thanks for six wonderfully unique individuals who were willing to search for the needle in the haystack in the cold and in the dark so that your heart wouldn't have to break, and for a brief second you wonder if feeding her helped her to stay close and you wonder if it might have helped a tiny bit for Melvin to work with her, but you know that you don’t really care, you would have fed her anyway. But now you know, you know that you will never know the uniqueness of each one, none of them can be defined with a status and maybe the next one is a stray, maybe lost, maybe born on the street, maybe pampered in some prior life, but as you look back into those eyes and for the first time, she licks your hand, you know that whatever each story was, what matters is now, and that you are the one who crossed the path they are on, and so it is you who can ultimately change the ending.

Would you have fed her? Would you have stopped two months after the storm when the authorities issued a press release to do so? Sixteen months later, would you bring her food if it all looked the same around her world, if the houses were still boarded up, or falling off the foundation, still spray-painted with the statistics of life and death on her street? Would you give a second or third thought to the one phone call you would be allowed if they catch you and enforce the law you might be breaking, or would you think more about the pups who may have lived from prior litters and how this is a hard thing to fix, especially when you have to do it one at a time. And if you fed her too, and finally, finally, you got her too, would you think about all of it when you spot a skinny one traveling with one who is swollen with milk? Will you feed them too?

Food for thought, isn’t it?

Note:
I wish to express my gratitude to an organization which has earned my dedication, respect and my time, Animal Rescue New Orleans.
Because the leaders of this organization know that there are still more Coras out there, I was able to feed this girl, with their complete support, until she could finally be given the opportunity to have more than just a meal. Charlotte and Robin, thank you for everything you are doing.
With love, Lise

Tucker

2007-02-17T16:24:00.000-08:00

Photographed and loved while on this earth by Noelle Parker
June 2006 - February 2007

Character is not measured by how we stand up to those stronger than us, rather, by how we treat those who are weaker than us

Sonshine

2007-02-07T20:23:00.000-08:00

June 2006 - February 2007

Still Here in NOLA, Still Counting on Us

2007-02-02T13:46:00.000-08:00

"Rocca"

Rocca and Boy are two dogs that I have come to care about very much, and lately, I have begun to suspect that the feeling is mutual.

Rocca, Boy and I first met in Spring of 2006 when I was working near the abandoned Charity Hospital in New Orleans, filling a feeding station for some cats that were formerly cared for by a nurse who, along with most of the city, no longer lived here. The hospital and its’ feeding station, is smack in the middle of ARNO section 20, or the Tulane/Gravier portion of Mid-City New Orleans, a section I often post about and always with a sense of loneliness......this section was and is abandoned. The section, which lies between Tulane Avenue and the Interstate is described with Pre-Katrina data below:

"Tulane/Gravier is a predominately low-income area with majority of residents as renters of housing units (Census 2000). It's a mixed neighborhood of residential and commercial zoning that includes manufacturing plants and other industrial complexes, many defunct, others still thriving"

My own take on this section of the city, is that it was not a thriving hub of New Orleans prior to Katrina.......the section was home to the long-defunct, but still standing Jax Brewery, Dixie Brewery and several hotel/motels that rent space by the hour. The houses were homes to families who barely made ends meet, many of them part of the welfare system. Knowing this, it is no surprise to me that the area to this day remains a ghost town........how many of these residents got out, how many could get out, how many have no means to come back and worse, nothing to come back to?

It was on another lonely morning in ARNO section 20 last Spring, that I came across Rocca and Boy, both standing near the edge of S. Dorgenois near Tulane, both chewing on the same moldy, empty bag which at some point contained cat or dog food.....the bag was too weathered for me to know which. As I pulled up along side of them, the tiny fluff-ball of a pup tucked tail and immediately headed for the nearest house to hide under, but not so quickly that I missed the unmistakable rib cage that was clearly and prominently protruding on this poor pup.....there was no doubt in my mind, he was hungry. The mama, and it was clear she was his mama and still nursing a pup which should have long been weaned, she stood her ground and made it clear that I should not come any closer. At the time, this dog was very intimidating and seemed enormous to me and so I heeded her warning; nevertheless, I put down a huge pile of dry dog food and plenty of cans right there in the street since a proper station seemed out of the question. As I slowly drove away, I watched as they both wolfed down the food, but not before I noticed how happy the little pup seemed.....he must have jumped up and licked her face ten times before he settled down in the middle of the food pile. I noticed something else too...she had a collar, a silver chain choker type collar - I’m sure I missed it when facing her directly because I was too occupied with the sight of her teeth. I made a slow turn and drove back and then again until I was certain that the collar, unfortunately, had no tags to match.

Later that afternoon, I went back to look for the mama and her baby and was heartbroken when I found no sign of them. Not knowing what else to do, I went back to the spot where I had put down food, all gone by now, and set up a feeding station under the closest, but abandoned house. Over the next few days, I was disheartened to find that not one drop of food had been touched. As more of a cat "specialist" I didn’t know what to think.......don’t dogs have a home-base too, a zone which is all theirs and which they don’t wander too far from?? Over time, I have learned that particularly with pack dogs, this is not always, and not usually the case......they roam and when the area is so desolate and so void of humans, they own the areas they roam. In other words, they go where they please and when they please and they are nearly impossible to track......in a ghost town, anyway.

Although my attempt to track and catch this pair was unsuccessful, I still got to know these dogs. It was nearly a month after our first meeting that we met again, this time, in the Charity Hospital parking lot right next to the feeding station I tended to. I couldn’t help noticing that this morning, the pup looked much more filled out.....he frolicked all around his mama and I watched from the far side of the lot so as not to scare him and he no longer had protruding ribs, he actually looked healthy...and happy. I wanted to stay the entire day but too many stations and too many animals eventually forced me to move in and sure enough, the pup bolted to the other side of the lot and hid, but this time, the mama stayed but it was obvious that it was just to see what I had. When I laid the dog food down on the ground for her, she approached it after only one retreating step on my part......she was not interested in making friends with me, but she was not unsure of me either, she knew it was okay to eat what I offered. The pup, he waited until I drove to the other side of the lot before he trotted over for his meal.

Over the next few months, I would occasionally run into the mom and pup, always together, and always when they were not on my mind....they just seemed to be there on those days. As time passed, the pup grew until his size surpassed that of his mother’s and while she has the characteristics of a Rottweiler, he has the markings of a Great Dane....he is massive, he is, spectacular.........he doesn't like to have his photo taken. I was always happy to see the bonded pair and always surprised, that is until I began to finally understand what was really going on......I had not been tracking them, they had been tracking me.

About two months ago, I ran into the pair again, but this time it was in ARNO section 13...right across Tulane Avenue from ARNO section 20. I watched one evening as the two came running across an empty lot, a lot which used to sit under a restaurant, just one more place destroyed in Katrina. I watched in interest this night because I wondered, did they know the chow that I fed daily near this lot? The chow that was impossible to trap, but predictable and always waiting for dinner? Within minutes I got my answer......the mom and her son met the chow and her friend halfway across the lot. All butts were sniffed, all greetings exchanged ( I swear I saw a high-five in there!) and Friday night socializing began. It was amazing to watch and what amazed me more was that they knew I was there and none took any issue with that fact. Finally, a glimpse into the world of pack dogs, and finally, a realization that an actual relationship did and had existed between myself and the mom and pup, whether or not I knew it, what mattered was that they knew it. Things began to fall into place after this turning point......it is not uncommon for me to pull up in any area of Mid-City New Orleans, whether in Tulane/Gravier or Treme, right across the highway, and be greeted by mom, Rocca as I have named her, and her son, Boy. They like to run out and bark at the occasional passing vehicle, but when they recognize mine, Rocca actually greets me..... Boy sulks and retreats, but not entirely as he used to. Whereas Rocca actually wags her uncropped tail when our paths cross, Boy still exhibits fear and this is likely because he was born on the streets......Rocca has that collar, so she was at some point in time, involved with humans. Neither will let me get near enough to touch....yet, but I have time, that is the one thing I am sure I can give them.

Over the past few months, it has become crystal clear to me that Rocca and Boy have survived not by hit and miss, but rather because they tracked me and ultimately my feeding stations. The two watched from afar and learned my patterns, my behavior, my destinations and then they adapted and subsequently, survived. I am certain that this is the case because every single time we meet now, it is at a location where I have a feeding station, a location that offers them cover.........now I know that they were always there, always around, only now, they allow me to know it. Some nights I am startled by them as they leap off of a moldy bed in a darkened house they call home for the night, to bark greetings at me as I run from my truck through the yard up to the porch to fill yet another station or trap yet another cat. I have to admit, the first bark always takes me by surprise, but after I jump-start my heart, it’s actually nice knowing they are there with me.......these streets are eery one minute after sundown and it feels as if they are watching over me.

Although I always love to see them both, and I feel safer with them patrolling these two sections that I work, often way too late for my own good, I want to give them a happy ending. I know that Rocca had a family and as hard as I have tried, I keep coming up with nothing....no leads, no family and no home. I want all of this for both of them.......Rocca, I believe, would not require that much work, she wags that tail and there is true excitement in her eyes every time we meet.......Boy, I know, will require time and patience.......that is, if I can ever manage to catch them. After all, they do own ARNO sections 13 and 20.....and apparently, they own me too.

Animal Rescue New Orleans has been the lifeline that Rocca and Boy have relied upon.....even as the dry dog food supply runs alarmingly low, Rocca and Boy do okay because they eat the cat food I put down instead.......we all improvise and make do with what we have, two-leggeds and four-leggeds alike.

Please make a donation today to Animal Rescue New Orleans at www.animalrescueneworleans.org ARNO relies upon people like you, people who want Rocca and Boy, and every other one who are still counting on us to make this barable until we can give each one of them their happy ending.

Life and Death, Angels’ Wings, and Everything in Between

2006-12-24T18:13:00.000-08:00

My Grown Up Christmas List

song performed by Kelly Clarkson

"One man's life touches so many others, when he's not there it leaves an awfully big hole" Clarence the Angel in “It’s a Wonderful Life”

Last night, as I slowly began to settle in for this Christmas Eve night, I was, for the very first time breaking with tradition, a Christmas Eve tradition which I have kept for the past twenty-five years. This year, I made the decision to forego my annual viewing of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the Frank Capra classic, a movie like no other and a movie which I have loved for more than those twenty-five years, each year, more than the last. And so, addiction being addiction, albeit it one to a warm fuzzy ending, after twenty-five years, I couldn’t just quit this habit cold turkey; truth be told, I did have the television on in the next room and my husband grew tired of yelling at me over the audio-only version. How do you completely toss out a time-honored tradition when it is one that just feels so darned good? Well, I couldn’t, and so, as in every year before, my ears were finely tuned to the next line, every line of the movie and I know them so well, but this year, as I said the lines nearly as perfectly as Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed did, the video portion of the evening’s entertainment was not the black and white film starring two Hollywood icons. No, the video portion this year, and it was in high-definition and in living color too, the video portion of It’s a Wonderful Life was the year-long reel-to-reel playing in my head....the movie? It’s a Wonderful Life, of course! It is a wonderful life, only, it’s my wonderful life.

If you have seen this holiday classic once, or if you have watched it over and over and over again like me, then surely you must know why it is so beloved. But, if you haven’t, I will tell you that the movie, at its very core, drives home the message that each one of us matters to the world around us, regardless of whether or not we know it. Because each one of us influences the lives of others, and often in ways that we will never know, our own life’s success, any honorable and “good” man’s life success, is ultimately measured by all the lives we enrich, others’ lives, and not by the dollars which we collect in our bank accounts. Money, it turned out in the movie, really couldn’t bring Jimmy Stewart’s character, George Bailey, happiness, nevertheless, it was George’s wealth that did eventually change his perspective...his wealth of friendships. It is after years of living honorably and seemingly getting nowhere, that George finally questions his own existence, a question which many of us have grappled with at some point in our own lives, and only with the assistance of an angel, Clarence, does George come to realize that his really was a wonderful life. In his darkest hour, as he contemplates his life and possible death if he doesn’t screw that up too, he commits one more selfless act when he saves a man from drowning. Little did he know that the man he saved was really Clarence, sent to show George just why it is that his life matters so much. And of course, good triumphs and Clarence is able to earn his wings when George realizes that no matter what the future holds for him, he wants that future, he wants his life, for he has indeed had a wonderful life. If I live to be a hundred, I will always get that feeling in the pit of my stomach, I will always get goose-bumps on my skin, and I will always wipe away more than one tear, when as George’s life crisis is nearing a resolution, his brother Harry offers a toast to, “the richest man in town”.......George may not have amassed a fortune, instead he acquired a lifetime of friends because of how he effected their lives. It’s corny, It’s sappy, and it’s a happy ending; it’s the way life is meant to be and I must have always known that somehow, after all, I have seen the movie a few times. But, it’s this new version, my version of It’s a Wonderful Life that holds my interest this Christmas Eve.....who did I make a difference for this past year? Did I miss the little opportunities that don’t always announce themselves with bells and whistles? Did I fail miserably having made no difference at all, to anyone, this past year? Although it was never my intention to share any of the three following stories that are central to my version, as I keep hitting the rewind button of this past year, these are the three stories, the three people who are the only ones who can tell this version of Life and Death, Angels’ Wings and Everything in Between, because these are the three people that play on the screen of my mind of my wonderful life.

Tony, I like to think, is someone who I made a difference for this past year, albeit a very small difference, a difference nevertheless

It was last spring, nearly eight months into the long-term animal rescue efforts of which I was still taking part in, that I came across a scruffy man and his beagle. He was standing near an intersection, holding a sign, a sign I couldn’t bring myself to read because I was sure of what his message was: this man was homeless and I will not deny that the extra tug at my heart that day came because the homeless man shared his begging space with a small dog, a beagle. I have always believed that any homeless person who is traveling with or caring for an animal, has just got to have the biggest heart if he or she is willing to share such a meager life with another creature. So yes, I will admit that my U-turn that day was guaranteed by the sight of that beagle huddled up against that man. But, what unfolded that day was more than that, for the man I returned to offer money to, and for me as well.

By the time I was able to complete the u-turn and return to the spot in which I had spotted the pair, both the man and his dog were gone. Fortunately, I saw them traveling along the highway and was able to catch up to them both as they turned into a parking lot of a small convenience store and headed toward the back. Tony, as it turned out, is a fifty-four year old Vietnam Veteran who has been homeless for twenty years. The beagle, obviously much younger, was a dog he came across, and rescued, following Katrina. I listened to his story about saving the dog and upon closer examination of the beagle, I was certain that this dog had no prior family and that the very best place for him was in fact with Tony, a man who so clearly loved him. Tony and I talked for some time that afternoon and although he never lifted his head completely enough to look me in the eyes, I think I saw him smile a time or two, and I am positive that I saw tears when I was able to give him the one thing he told me he was saving up his cash to buy: a tent. The bridge under which he and his pup slept at night was a great spot, he told me, but when it rained, the walls did leak and so he was going to buy a tent someday but he could only save a dollar or two at a time. I didn’t need any sign from up above, I didn’t need any bell to go off, I knew in an instant just why it was that I had come across Tony that day, a very unusual day for me because I was driving my husband’s truck instead of my own. So as I walked around the back of the truck and lifted the hatch, I’m not exactly sure what Tony expected when I told him that I had something for him, but I swear he nearly fainted on the spot when I pulled out and handed to him a brand new Coleman tent, my husband’s newest camping gear. After a few moments of wiping his face, he slowly walked over to me and told me that if he wasn’t so filthy, he would shake my hand and give me a proper thank you. It was my turn to fight back the tears and to fight back the enormous lump in my throat when I held out my hand and told him that I would be honored to shake his hand but no thanks were needed for the tent.........Tony took my hand and told me that the proper thanks he needed to give me were not for the tent. Although the tent was the best thing he could have ever imagined being given, he told me that the proper thanks he needed to give, the thanks that he felt a duty to give, were for my conversation, it had been so long since Tony had enjoyed a conversation.

Bryan, I hope and pray, is a young man who will one day, someday, remember me and the time we spent together, but only for a brief second of time it will take for him to make the right call about a stranger he meets, a stranger who is different than he is

It was sometime near the end of summer, maybe around Labor Day, that I became aware of people, real live people, who had moved onto, or back onto S. Miro Street. S. Miro Street, as you may recall, is a street on which I spend much of my time trapping and feeding and trapping some more, but it is a deserted street, a lonely street, near the Charity Hospital off of Tulane Avenue in New Orleans. It had been so many months of time on S. Miro Street and then one day, a family appeared, an older black woman, a young black woman, and two children.
Bryan was only twelve but already as tall as any adult and after noticing that he was the one watching me every evening, with an obvious look of “what the heck is she doing on my street?” I decided to just tell him, tell his mother and aunt and sister, and so I did. I introduced myself, told them what I was doing, why I was doing it and sure enough, it was Bryan who threw out question after question. “What do you do with the cats after you trap them?” “Why can’t you release the babies?” “What if you catch a dog or a racoon?”

And so it went, for nearly six weeks. Bryan would meet me every night it seemed to help lay out traps, to take some packs of wet food on the nights we spotted baby kittens but were not quick enough to catch, to talk about his sixth grade class at Sophie B. Wright, to talk about Katrina and his friends he missed. Bryan and I never once talked about black or white, young or old, rich or poor, we just talked and his mom would wave to me every now and then and then one day they were gone. I pulled up one evening and a man was almost finished loading a U-Haul trailer with items he carried from the house in which I knew Bryan and his family lived. Finally, I got to meet Bryan’s father, a man who drove an 18 wheeler for a living and wasn’t home as much as he would like, but he was moving his family closer to him so that would change. I would miss Bryan but I knew that this was a good thing for him and for his family. I wondered if Bryan would miss his trapping adventures and it wasn’t long before I got my answer.

It was nearly a month after Bryan and his family moved away, a sunny Saturday morning, during a solitary trapping session on S. Miro Street, I got word from Bryan, sort of. I was hunkered down on the side of a vacant glass factory warehouse, waiting silently for that tabby cat to make his appearance right into my trap, when a pickup truck driven by a middle-aged black man pulled up and ruined that trapping session, for the morning anyway. As I got up and walked over, ready to yet again explain who I was, just what I was doing there, and finally offer my rear bumper as all the credentials one would need (my Animal Rescue New Orleans bumper sticker, of course) I was slightly taken aback when this man, a man I had never met before, never seen before, rolled down his window and yelled out that he had something for me. This is going to be good, I thought, or really bad. When it became clear to the man that I intended to walk no further, he stepped out of his truck and completed the distance between us. “Hold out your hand” he commanded and what else could I do? As I held out my hand, determined that it would not shake, he held out his, and in my hand he placed 3 small sealed packets of Meow Mix, wet cat food. I looked at him, half expecting him to say that he saw them fall out of my truck, but instead, he told me that they were from Bryan, and he pointed to the house where Bryan used to live. He told me that Bryan told him to keep an eye out for that “crazy white lady” but then he leaned in toward me and told me that Bryan told him that he had a secret, he said Bryan told him I really wasn’t crazy at all, I was a hero. As I looked down at my hand, through the tears that I didn’t even try to hold back, the man told me that Bryan wanted him to be sure to get these packets to me and that I would know exactly what to do with them. I sure do know what to do with them Bryan, I’m going to save them for the next person who gives me a chance, the next person who doesn’t care that I am different, the next person who, like you did, judges me by my insides instead of the color of my outside. If the day ever comes that Bryan questions his own existence, if his Angel is determined to earn his own wings, he had better allow Bryan to revisit our time together, because Bryan made a difference for me, and I can only hope that ultimately, I made a difference for him.

I am a person, still making every effort to keep this newly found heart open to the world and all, and who it has to offer, but I know that I have made a difference to me, the person I am, different than who I was

The third person of my replayed movie of my mind, is me. And while Tony and Bryan required background information so that you might fully understand why they appear in my version of It’s a Wonderful Life, I will not. You already know me through my writings here and you know to an extent, who I am. But, you never knew who I was, as I didn’t begin sharing my thoughts with the rest of the world until I made that decision last Christmas that my heart was different and different it would stay. So, instead of background information, I will share with you a very brief but oh so significant exchange that recently took place between myself and someone who knows me well, my husband.

On a recent evening, my husband and I were talking about another individual, someone who we both know through one of our employment situations. We were speaking about this individual when my husband suddenly made a comment about this person that caused me to have flashbacks and feelings of deja vu: my husband commented upon this person’s negativity and that he is just a negative person. I immediately lost all train of thought regarding our conversation and instead had all these memories come flooding back....you see, my husband has always told me how negative a person I am, but in that instant, I realized I hadn’t heard him say that recently. So, I stopped him mid sentence and I asked him for the reason....why didn’t he say that anymore to me? I asked him why he stopped telling me that I was one of the most negative people he knew........he laughed before he answered. My husband, my husband of seven years, a person who does know me well, better than most you would think, laughed and then looked at me and said “Because you’re not like that anymore, that’s not who you are anymore.”

So this Christmas Eve, I will not be looking for Clarence to show me just how wonderful life really is, but I suspect he will have every opportunity to earn his wings right here in New Orleans, so many are still hurting so much.... I lost a friend this year who needed Clarence badly. Please God, send an army of Clarences to this city, only not to me. You see God, this year, after nearly forty of them, I no longer question my existence, in fact, it is one of the very few things that I am certain of and although it is difficult to define in concrete terms the answer to that question that many of us eventually face, for me, I do in fact have my answer and no longer question why I am here.

I know why I am here and because of that, I face the world so differently than I did a year ago. Whereas I have always had a strength of my convictions to change the world, what I lacked in the past was the clarity of vision as to why to change that world, and as I have learned this past year, that clarity can only be obtained as part of an on-the-job training. It was my own conscious decision this time last year, when I resolved to open my heart to others, when I traded my tunnel vision for a pair of rose-colored glasses, it was that decision that, although unbeknownst to me at the time, was my fork in the road, and as I look back at the path, I can clearly see that I didn’t change direction, rather, the direction I took changed me. Shakespeare himself decided the world was his oyster, and I have never doubted that the world is in fact, my oyster. However, I also never counted on the strength of the heart being the strength that would dwarf all my convictions: to paraphrase Ghandi, Why change the world when I can be the change in the world? Until I opened my heart, I didn’t understand that the world is not here for me, I am here for the world, and that is the answer which Clarence might have helped me see with my eyes, but this Christmas I feel it with my heart. Why accept the world as my oyster, if instead, I can be its pearl? Clarence, if you are watching, keep going buddy, someone else earned his wings on me, and if you see him, tell him I said Thank You, and oh yes, Merry Christmas.

Magnolia Sammy and other Creatures of My Imagination

2006-10-22T09:43:00.000-07:00

Animal Rescue is People Thing

I have often been asked as to why I help animals and each time I am asked this, I am always confused and unsure of not so much what I want to say, but rather, what the person asking the question really wants to hear. I often wonder why any other act of kindness I might direct toward a two legged creature is usually met with thanks, praise or just without question, without a need for a reason. Although I have been unable to figure this out, for the most part, it has never truly bothered me..that is until a recent incident finally forced me to bring this practice of prodding into my psyche, for just the thing that makes me tick, to a resolution, a resolution that I can live with, in fact a resolution that causes me to raise my chin just an inch or two higher, and to that, I am resolved. And so, with my chin up, I share that incident with any other inquiring minds as to what makes me do things I do.

“Magnolia Sammy” is a young and playful orange tabby who is full of energy and who zing-zangs around his outdoor home, one he shares with a few other felines in New Orleans, on a street heavily damaged by Katrina, Magnolia Street. Sammy’s home on Magnolia Street runs right through a neighborhood or New Orleans called “Milan” Milan is, or rather was, a neighborhood of low- to middle-class families, a high majority of who were renters (Claritas estimates 1999, Census 2000). Pre-Katrina, Milan was a predominantly black neighborhood with 73% black population, slightly higher than the 66% black population for the entire parish of Orleans, Louisiana. Additionally, 28.6% of Milan lived below the poverty status as reported in 2000, whereas 27.9% of the entire parish of Orleans was considered to be living below the poverty status during the same time period. If you consider the demographics of the pre-Katrina Milan population, you can easily determine what I know to be true......the Road Home program has not brought these people home.

Magnolia Street is one of my early evening feeding/trapping spots because Milan’s empty, open and ruined buildings that used to be homes, all abut another New Orleans neighborhood, Central City. There is no need for me to fine-detail Central City for you as Time Magazine did a fine job in its June 18, 2006 article, “ The Crime that Stunned New Orleans:
The brutal murder of five youths over the weekend was a grim reminder just how much crime is making a comeback after the post-Katrina lull” It is widely rumored that the “occupation” of New Orleans by the National Guard was a direct result of the quintuple homicide subject of Time’s article. Recently, on October 21, 2006, two New Orleans men, both 18, were fatally shot in Central City....at 3:55 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. For these reasons, I work Magnolia Street and other streets in this section quickly, as quickly as I can. It was one of these early evening trapping sessions on Magnolia Street that I once again received that question, the question, along with a puzzled look and was yet again asked to justify my efforts to help a living creature. Only this question didn’t confuse me, it angered me, and, it saddened me......the person asking the question this time, the preacher of the neighborhood church.

I was in the middle of setting a trap in hopes of catching at least one of those juvenile black cats that keep giving me the slip when from around the corner came two gentlemen and one woman, all carrying pamphlets. They introduced themselves as being members and the preacher of the local church in the neighborhood and told me that they were taking a walking tour of their neighborhood to welcome its parishioners back. Before I could offer any explanation as to why I was crouched down on the ground of one of their “neighbors” yards, rigging a trap as I peeked around the corner and down the alley between the house and the gutted out business next door, I was a little shocked when the preacher asked me if I just started work on my house or if I had been back for awhile. I immediately let him know that this was not my house, nor did I live here before Katrina and his reply was to laughingly acknowledge that it did seem unusual to come across a white woman on this block. He further acknowledged that he was just now getting back into the swing of things and getting to reacquaint himself with his “flock” and as his community’s leader, he felt obliged to ask me just what was I doing that afternoon, on that front yard, and so I told him the story, all three of them.

I first came to Magnolia Street in the ongoing animal rescue efforts in this city around July 15, 2006. I had gotten a request for help from another individual, this person helps in Plaquemines Parish to help the remaining animals, and she had received the initial request for help from Jane Garrison, one of the three founding members of Animal Rescue New Orleans, a non-profit organization which continues to work in devastated areas where animals still remain in need of help. Apparently, the woman who used to reside at this address on Magnolia Street, had evacuated to Texas and could not return yet, but was desperate for someone, anyone to look after her “babies” At the time, I did not spend an inordinate amount of time wondering as to why she couldn’t get back yet, so many are still waiting....waiting on money, waiting on so many things. So over the next few months, I tended to these babies, but in addition to provided food and water for them, I also began to implement a spay/neuter effort in this colony so that no new babies were produced in a neighborhood that was empty and ill equipped to support additional animal life.

As time passed, I would occasionally talk to a person who had moved back to their home around the block or down the street, and because it is such a sporadic progression, it has taken me these past months to put some sort of identity to the woman I have never met, never spoken to, but know her through her babies. From what I have gathered, the woman is an older woman who has had a hard time, which of course is redundant in this instance; in her case, a hard time is indicative of her entire life....she has cared for a son, an adult son, who has Down’s Syndrome.
That was the information that helped put into perspective for me just why this woman has not been able to return yet; it also explains the handicapped parking sign on the telephone pole in front of her house. Much of this information was given to me from a young black man who lives with his mother in the neighborhood and who was the one who confirmed for me in September of this year that they were still waiting on her Road Home paperwork to be completed....it is a long, tedious, painstaking and painful process that those effected the most, the working poor, have had to and continue to go through to just get back home.

After I told the preacher and the two church members what I consider to be a sad story, I told them that I hate that I can’t do more but that these cats, these babies, I must admit, do get extra special attention....I make sure that these particular animals do not wait a day or two, or three, for food refills, because somehow there is a connection and I do not want to let this woman down, it is the least I can do, and unfortunately, the most I can do for her.

And then it came, again, but this time from a preacher’s mouth and that look of disbelief and wonder was on a preacher’s face, as the leader of this re-acquaintance committee was the first to comment upon my story. The preacher without flinching, looked me square in the face and said this: “I want you to close your eyes for a moment and imagine something, I want you to imagine all the things you could do, all the things you could accomplish, if you cared about people instead of animals”

The silence that followed his question was deafening, in all 30 seconds it lasted because for the first time ever, I had no confusion, no misinterpretation and no wondering about how I should answer; for the first time ever, my response came with an amazing clarity, an amazing sense of sureness to the response, and an amazing sense that I was finally saying just what I needed to say. I looked the preacher square in his face, and also without flinching, told him that there was no need for me to close my eyes and imagine a thing because my eyes were wide open when I received a request for help, from a human, a request that sought to obtain help for yet another human, who had been contacted by yet another human in this equation, the human with the handicapped son, the human with no way home, the human who, even with the loss of her home and her life as she knew it, wanted more than anything to have her animals looked after until she is able to return to this city. I then told him that this is exactly what can be accomplished when you care about people, the people of his congregation, the people who he was re-acquainting himself with that day. And then before I got back to the really important matters to be handled at that house, I told him that since he raised the issue of imagination, I was going to respectfully share with him just what I do imagine, when I close my eyes. What follows is a perfected version of what I told him that day, I will never be able to recapture word for word, but these were the thoughts that came that day, that I expressed to him in some non-verbatim degree of what is now on paper:

• I imagine a day when compassion is inclusive rather than exclusive, when “All God’s Creatures” means all God’s creatures, not just the cuddly ones; just imagine what you could do if you care about All God’s Creatures

• I imagine a day when caring yields to compassion; when thoughts without action are only a dream and it is commonly accepted that good will has no effect without good acts;

• I imagine a day when compassion is no longer unique and is instead commonplace, when the sight of a white woman performing a task in the yard of a black family’s home is not automatic cause for concern to a passerby;

• I imagine a day when compassion is consistent rather than convenient, when serving a meal to a homeless man is no longer an obligatory act of Thanksgiving, and instead each and every day is considered cause for Thanks and reason enough to help those in need, any creature in need, any day of the year, if and when each opportunity to make a difference presents itself. A day when “the right thing to do” and “the right way to be” are obsolete phrases because there is just no other way to do it and just no other way to be

• I imagine a day when compassion is reserved for life rather than inanimate objects of our own lives, when it is collectively extended to the cat which sits on our car hood in the winter, instead of to the car that may be scratched.....cold steel metal, equipped with every top of the line amenity is still, cold steel metal

• I imagine a day when compassion is conscious and without conformity, when a Sunday “peace be with you” handshake is always a welcome, but nevertheless random act of kindness, and is never again, considered a quick fix for our actions or inactions, and never considered a sufficient substitution for daily, and deliberate act of kindness

• I imagine a day when compassion is expressed toward every parishioner of the church, that is God’s church, when an individual from an affluent, predominantly white neighborhood, tends to the pets of black woman, or any other thing that the woman who is miles away from her home feels she needs, and does so in that other predominantly black neighborhood without a second thought; and finally;

• I imagine a day when each “congregation” of every denomination proudly honors their respective churches, preachers, priests or reverends, but never forgets to honor God’s church. God’s church has no stained glass windows, no walls, no alter, no cathedral ceiling, but is beautiful nevertheless. God’s church is every color of the rainbow, and the rainbow as well. God’s church has boundaries without boundaries and include fluffy clouds, shooting stars, the green grass and trees, the bluest oceans, the darkest lakes, the tallest mountains, the deepest valleys, and that church has the largest congregation of any church of any denomination, a congregation which includes without exclusion every creature, All God’s Creatures, that inhabits that church, each and every day

As I waited for the indignation that I was sure I was about to hear, it never came. The preacher looked at me for a split second, smiled what appeared to be a genuine smile and told me that I had given him something to think about. Then he said “God will bless you child” to which I responded “He already has”

Footnote: Please understand this is in no way intended to be disrespectul about religion or any facet thereof, rather, it is more about my ultimate choice to be firm in my reasons for any actions or inactions I take, regardless of who is questioning my motives.

New Orleans has received enough help

2006-10-18T22:16:00.000-07:00

When is it time to say when in a "third-world" country?

I attended a feeder/trapper meeting at ARNO last night....the room was filled with positive energy and all of us, all 15 or so, shared ideas, encouraging words and our despair as well. These are the people who survived Katrina and over a year later are working themselves into an early grave.....Why? Because regardless of how many animals any one organization claims it rescued in New Orleans, those of us left behind to figure it out see the real picture everyday......the animals that got out were the lucky ones, but unfortunately, only a percentage of the real, true street animal population in this dead zone that was a city once upon a time.

The pictures that you see are all of ONE, one, 1, street, South Miro Street.
South Miro Street is part of a section called Tulane/Gravier, one of the poorest neighborhoods in this state....before....now, how can it be poor if there is noone there? All the pictures are new except for the one with the building side torn off but I can assure you that is frozen in time...I know because I took 2 baby kittens, about 5 weeks old from the side of the road where they were sitting, a quartet, as if waiting on a bus....those darn kittens

Tonight, I searched for an hour in the rain but the mother cat must have removed the other two...tomorrow is just another day...another day in this wrinkle in time.
Late in the evening I could only hear but not see another batch of kittens, these in Section 8NE...newborns. It killed me to leave from under that house, the same house where I buried a cat who died on S. Miro Street....bury the dead in the dead zone.....but two blocks down, Central City, crime zone. Do you think I could get a junkie, a hooker (very popular on Tulane Avenue now) or a gangster to help me trap?
I don't care what they do in their own time, if they could help me help these animals.

75% is the threshold...if you're not hitting it in spay/neuter, you are failing...there is no A for effort....so yes, we, I am failing every single day here because early this year, it must have been decided that these animals were not rescuable, not worth saving.....I guess nobody let us in on the acceptable losses formula and we may be down, but we are not so far down we don't just brush aside the fact that even if there are acceptable losses in the current population, that only assumes a stagnate one....these animals are having babies every day on these deserted streets...anyone know somebody who has a s/n mobile unit? I think there are some of us about ready to learn s/n surgeries ourselves...but we have no unit, and you don't think ARNO Section 20 has a closeby clinic, do you?

I'm not bitter, just sad, very sad because we were failed, but if we could do this, it wouldn't matter.....it breaks our hearts to be the ones who fail these animals
New Orleans, it used to be a fish bowl.....now, it's an island.

Why I Help Animal Rescue New Orleans (ARNO)

2006-09-11T20:08:00.000-07:00

Among so many other reasons, most of them having 4 legs, I want to share just one reason I choose to volunteer my time with ARNO, that rescue organization in New Orleans which seems to draw the most passionate of emotions from so many.....love them or hate them, ARNO is still at it, a year after Katrina and ARNO is far from perfect, but when it comes right down to the core of the matter, ARNO is in fact a HUMANE organization.

Let me introduce you to one of ARNO's recent acquisitions, Wizard. I don't know Wizard's entire biography, I only know that when I was at ARNO on Labor Day, he wasn't there and when I went to ARNO's warehouse the Friday after, he was. I noticed him immediately, how can you not...he is solid white with jagged purple thread stitches running across the space where his left eye used to be, and he was a hisser. I was told that he was trapped inadvertently by the LA/SPCA when they conducted a recent dog-trapping sweep in the Lakeview region of New Orleans....the same Lakeview that is posted on flickr with pictures of roaming animals....many cats and some dog..packs. I learned that Wizard had such a severe eye infection, it had to be removed and shortly after the surgery, Wizard decided to tear out his stitches so the purple set is his second try at healing. Just one more adjustment he has had to make for being in New Orleans.

Everyone who was at ARNO on the day I met Wizard told me that he was feral and to expect him to charge the kennel door and sure enough, as expected he did in fact give me plenty of attitude..that is until I hit the right sound for him....in his case, the motorboat sound that a mother cat makes with her kittens. Well as soon as he heard that, Wizard, still nameless at that point, immediately began meowing to me, stretched, climbed down from the top of his carrier perch and reached out his paw to tentatively touch my finger, just one finger I placed through the kennel bar...and he didn't use his claws, just his toe pad. That was it, the spell was cast and Wizard was aptly named.

Wizard is no loner cat like many feral tomcats truly are.....he watches me give treats to Socks, the tabby who rents out the condo next door and as I watch him, it is clear to me that he is not interested in the treats, he is interested in getting to know his neighbor. He perks right up and tries to talk to Socks, to the point of almost yelling because Socks is of course interested in the treats I have to give.....this week, I will try to get Socks to notice that Wizard would like some feline conversation.

Each one brings his or her own challenge and ultimately a huge reward with it.

So now, until his medical treatment is finished, until he has a handle on his depth perception, until he no longer has the very obvious hair-trigger startle response which he exhibits now at the sound of a distant bark (remember, he was in Lakeview and was probably always looking over his shoulder for those dog packs) and until ARNO finds just the right place for him to call his forever home, I will find a few minutes in my day, each day, or if not, at least every other day, and I will visit him and I will show Wizard that although the rest of his life will in fact be different than what he knew, it is okay, because it will be better.....it will have a full food and water bowl, all the time, not just when a car pulls up in an otherwise silent neighborhood to fill a bowl that emptied days ago; it will have a warm and DRY area that will be his, just his, and he won't have to keep one eye open while he sleeps, which is a good thing since he will need the eye he has left to bring the end of each day to a close, each end of each day for the rest of his life that hopefully will be much like each beginning of the day will start....with love.

I am certain that Wizard will cast his spell on that "forever person" just like he cast it on me, but until he manages to mix up just the right magic into his spell, please consider helping Wizard, or any other equally deserving creature that ARNO refuses to turn its back on, each creature that ARNO refuses to give up on because it costs too much....and donate to ARNO, www.animalrescueneworleans.org, so that this wonderful organization can continue providing that soft spot for these tired creatures to finally land on.

Thank you for your continued support to life in my city,

Lise McComiskey
New Orleans, La

Thanksgiving

2006-08-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

Tonight, on what is the first anniversary of Katrina, the storm that so drastically altered a city, my home, New Orleans, I was just happy to get home. It's 9:50 pm and I haven't eaten yet, I smell like Meow Mix, tuna flavor, and I have a heavily bloodied dishtowel wrapped around my foot......it's been a trying day.

When I began the day, I consciously wondered how I would "mark" the day....would I celebrate the good, would I reflect on the loss, would I attend a service, the second-line Jazz Funeral procession that passed down Poydras Street right in front of my 27th floor office??? Well, unfortunately, because so many were financially effected by Katrina, I spent the day running back and forth from court to court...lawsuits against insurance carriers as today is the deadline. There would be no special and specific commemoration for me, but I noticed just how irritable, how touchy, how moody, how melancholy I was all day long, and I took no joy when a toast was offered at my firm's 4:00 wine and cheese gathering as the toast spoke to new, bigger and better houses. They lost too, and they deserve those houses, but I couldn't think about that today because I have seen things that they haven't seen and I know things they don't know. I left the gathering shortly after that toast and was actually surprised that there were those who noticed and came to check on me and understood; we all knew Katrina differently and we all deal with her, daily, in whichever manner helps get us through the day.

After hours, throwing myself into ALL the known problem locations would keep my focus on the here and now and not allow my mind to dwell on the tragicness of it all.
But, of course, throwing one's self into something usually makes for chance of injuries, for me anyway. Sure enough, while attempting to move a feeding station because of human threats of harm....you would think such loss of life would make for a kinder, gentler population, but some can only focus on their loss, their life.....
was when something sharp and unknown went clear through my shoe and sliced my foot open. Fortunately, as I created a tournequet with a fishy smelling towel, I was able to calculate that if the profuse bleeding continued, I would be able to make it to the EMT station on the corner within 3 minutes...this rescue work really brings out the survivalist in you. Anyway, I did survive and made it home.

Home....I couldn't crawl into the bed without checking the nola forum for some happy thoughts, some good cheer....surely, somebody would be spreading happy thoughts somewhere in the world and that is what I would find and think about last and hopefully dream it to be. It wasn't meant to be, I was going to cry today, it was predetermined and although the funeral procession, the toast, the endless thoughts, the quick slice of my skin and the gushing, really gushing blood couldn't bring me to tears, the words I read tonight as my last thought for the day did.
My heart is in my throat as I type this now because I still find it difficult to believe how many people, real people, not the government, not celebrities, but real working, pay their taxes, with their own set of problems...people, in this particular instance, the people I have come to know and love in Cyberspace, the people who reach out to my city from far and wide, the UK, Ireland and everywhere in between, via their keyboard, and just care. It is a magical and incredible concept to me that so many people the world over, really care about this place, me and others here with me.....it matters not that my government, any government for that matter, has fallen short of any perceived duties, because I feel completely watched over and watched after...by people

Tonight, the words that did me in, were the expressions and outpouring of support from the UK, from Georgia, from New Jersey, from Metairie, Lousiana, from Lafalla...where is Lafalla?...from FEMA trailers and homes....all keeping their porchlights on tonight to remember, honor, mourn, celebrate and just care about those touched by Katrina, and some with no porchlights with lit candles instead....all lit for the entire night.....the Porchlight at the End of the Tunnel, my tunnel, my porchlight and yet so many were touched by it and in return, my life has been touched by so many. Each of you is a beacon, you need no porchlight, no candle to demonstrate that; you each are a brightening force for someone like me who needed good cheer and happy thoughts to get me to sleep.....thank you is inadequate and so instead I share the last thoughts and feelings of my day with those who care so much, those who should never have to experience this magical and incredible journey of a disaster, and I hope that those who should know, do know that I am Thankful for so much and that is so much more than any loss or tragedy that is mine.
Yet again, Katrina has brought the good things to my door and ironically enough, via people, through animal rescue and all it's exhaustion.....I was truly a people person after all and it took a disaster named Katrina to make me understand that.

So tonight, before I check my porchlight one last time, I am in my own heart having a Thanksgiving celebration for everything Katrina gave to me and more importantly, everyone that she brought to my door, in mind, spirit or body....again, Katrina, thank you for a new life, a new perspective on life and a new appreciation for ALL life, animal, human, black, white, poor, rich, intelligent, simple, old, young, male, female and anything that resembles life. And while there truly are so many to thank, there are some that require my specific and direct words of gratitude, for those are the one's who, for whatever reason, knowlingly or not, have effected me profoundly and somehow been part of the entire transformation process that this year has done to me, done for me.....those people must hear it, read it and know that my heart is grateful for who they are and for just being my porchlight this past year of darkness, and so these are my words to give:

Jane, thank you for showing me that mountains are no reason to change the direction of your path

Laura, thank you for showing me that it's not whether you burn a bridge along the way, it's whether you can at some point, stop, change direction and work on building that bridge...together

Anita, thank you for showing me that although there is merit to my opinion that cooler heads often prevail, if you are looking to change the world, you are going to need more than that.....you had better have a fire in your gut, too

Robin and Charlotte, thank you both for showing me that first impressions are false impressions....time is what reveals true nature and ALL OF US, including myself, are a work in progress, a developing story....I am thankful I stayed to read this one

Maria, thank you for showing me that it is my right and my duty to ask those questions out loud....the one's that stick around through the heat, are the one's that will help me reach any goal, even with debate and confrontation along the way.....status quo can never be an element of effective change and never again will I go along to get along, in any arena...thank you

Robin, Hector and Ashley, thank you for writing the happy ending that mattered most to me...my Hope for a good life for Bella. You will never truly know how badly I needed, I absolutely needed a good ending for that beautiful shepherd girl from Lakeview South and it amazes me to this day that it was more than a good ending, it was a fairy tell ending and Bella's "dance at the ball" with her own family, every day for the rest of her life, is without a doubt the spark, the catalyst, the one ingredient that began my journey back from the despair to being whole again, Bella is there and all three of you are there in my heart forever, and that alone is enough....thank you from the top, middle, bottom and sides of my heart and Bella, you go girl!

Marilyn, thank you for showing Robin, Hector and Ashley that you knew just the happy ending for them to read....and to write

ARNO feeders, thank you for your committment to see this through....I know your exhaustion, your frustration, your roller coaster ride as you have spent a year of your life as a watcher, a guardian, a bodyguard, a lookout.....your dedication to the animals you care for on those streets is what strength is......thank you for giving me standards to try to live up to and if they could, you know those little guys on the streets would thank all of you too

Out of town volunteers, there are no words, no true expressions of what I would say if I could......what is in a person that lets them, no makes them, leave their own lives behind, their families, their own problems and go to a corner of the globe that isn't theirs, until they make it theirs to share forever by being the outstretched hand, the life ring thrown to a drowing city?? heart, soul, spirit, all of those and something I can't quite put my finger on, but it is there in each and every one of them because not just anybody could do what they did......could I have? Will I be able to when my tragedy becomes someone else's tragedy, somewhere else??? Honestly, I don't know if that something I can't put my finger on is part of my DNA...I hope I never have to find out. Many thanks to every last and most important one of you, you changed my world, New Orleans, and that, I can tell you, is one heck of an accomplishment for your resume

My cyberspace friends, thank you for showing me that I will never be lonely, never be without friends, and never really have to travel to find them...they are a click away and so FlaPerson, pugma, Jelena, Kristysmom, Oscarmom, lovemypug, nolarescue2, mandibee, Annettedubb, bulldog9, the Stealthers, and so many others, you know who you are...and even you, HappyPower, you showed me what can really happen when people use their powers for good instead of evil....you are the network for good things here, and for me, and know that I will never forget it and never be able to repay it either

Amanda, a little girl across an ocean, thank you for showing me the true spirit of generosity of the heart....if I can feel it a world away, I know that Truffles knew how lucky and special he was....he was loved by you

Gary, thank you for showing me that it is okay to talk to strangers....some of them are people who haven't yet identified his or herself as a friend....thank you

Maya, Bonney, Becky, Diane....thank you all for things you have done here, things you continue to set in motion...your mission is not an easy one and not an easy one for many to understand...at first...but your tenacity and your focus is admirable and I am thankful that you were forces of calm, reason and solutions to a world gone mad this past year

Shannon, thank you for all you gave, which, was too much

Please know that if I left you off this list, it was only because where I used to be an animal person, I now am a people person who happens to care about and work to help animals....and you wouldn't believe how many friends I have! You all are my reason for Thanksgiving and you all are my porchlight...thank you.

In closing, I would like to share my thoughts and feelings which I documented last Christmas, entitled, "Katrina taught me the true meaning of Christmas"......Katrina is still teaching me and so Katrina, again, thank you.

Katrina taught me the true meaning of Christmas

A friend sent me an e-mail today with a posting by a young woman who rescued a kitten lying in the gutter and then she had rescued another. This woman and her family would not normally have done so she said, but after witnessing so many people who had come to her city to rescue, how could she not?

I think that this may be the best Christmas card I ever received and much for the same sentiment expressed by the woman who saved the kitten. You see the "friend" who sent me the e-mail, she lives on another continent and I don't know what she even looks like, but nevertheless, she is my friend. She, like so many others from all over the world, have done so much for me and my family, New Orleans, since August 29, 2005, that I know I will never be able to fully express the way I feel and the gratitude that will stay with me forever.

These past few months that I have spent in the animal rescue world was never a choice for me. Katrina chose my town and my place could be nowhere else but on the streets of that town, helping in anyway that I could, to get one more. With no real expertice, I knew my limitations and so often called upon others, others who could trap, others who could coax, others armed with a keyboard and compassion, others....... Before I knew what was happening, I had new friendships forged with the same vision and like spirits. Having never been willing to accept technology and the capability to track others down wherever they might be, I never owned a cell phone until after Katrina, so, as I walk through the doorway (no longer a door) at the end of another dog biscuit, cat food filled day, and my husband informs me with a sense of disbelief, that I have 25 voice mail messages waiting, I can only smile because yes, they found me.

Katrina has changed so many of us in so many different ways. The young lady who rescued that kitten admitted that she and her family would not have given it a second thought...before the storm; I will admit that although my compassion was spread far and wide before August 29, 2005, it was exclusive compassion, it was empathy in a bubble. Now, as I look back at every thing I have done, every person I have met in some capacity, I can only smile because my heart is not encased in a bubble anymore....my heart, as it turned out, had room for true empathy and sincere compassion, and not just for animals....my heart is big enough for humans as well.

And so, this Christmas, I will not dwell on what I couldn't afford to buy for others, because although Katrina took my job, and took my home, Katrina left something for me in return...a heart that finally, and truly understands the meaning of Christmas and even better, now knows that the "Spirit of Christmas" can be in my heart every day of the year. For that, I will be eternally grateful....thank you, Katrina.

And my New Year's resolution ?? .....my resolution will be to never forget the lessons learned from this experience....my life, as I know it now, will eventually change, but I resolve that my heart will not.

Do you know what it means to celebrate Independence Day instead of the 4th of July?

2006-07-06T06:05:00.000-07:00

Taylor Hicks - Do I Make You Proud

Dedicated to Pfc. Kristian Menchaca and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker,
and every New Orleanean who lost his or her life to Katrina

“To really celebrate Independence Day, Americans must rededicate themselves to the principles of 1776, and particularly to the absolute importance of individual rights – not the pseudo-rights imagined by proponents of the welfare state, but the genuine rights (properly understood) of individuals to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We must also rededicate ourselves to the Declaration’s standard for the legitimacy of government – a government that is limited to the safeguarding of these rights, not to their destruction – and, with this, an acceptance of the principle that outside this sphere of legitimacy, individuals have the freedom (and the responsibility) of governing themselves. As Thomas Jefferson put it in his 1826 letter, “let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”
© David N. Mayer 2005

As I think about my plans for this evening, the Faith Hill-Tim McGraw “Soul2Soul” Katrina Benefit Concert, I find that I have mixed feelings. Mixed feelings over a concert? Mixed feelings because of what it represents to me, as a benefit for my city of New Orleans, graciously given by this duo who have strong ties to the Gulf Coast, and who both have expressed their feelings regarding the governmental response, or lack of it, to Katrina and its endless after-effects. This concert, of which 100% of its’ proceeds will go directly to the people in this region, is an incredible gift and my tickets, well they were a gift as well. In addition to the singers’ desire to give to my city, they insisted that half of the floor tickets be distributed to volunteers who, as they so eloquently stated:
“... have worked tirelessly over the past nine months since Katrina first hit the region on August 29th, 2005.”

So, after ten long months at animal rescue in this city, finally, a perk has come my way.......or so goes the general response from nearly every person who I have excitedly shown my tickets. And therein is what is at the heart of my mixed feelings.......do we, New Orleans, truly deserve this gift, expected to raise over $ 1 million dollars for the devastated region, when we, my lost city, seemingly continues to wait for governmental actions? When did we, my community, decide that a hand-out is favorable over a hand-up? I am not sure when, but many of us did.

After ten long months of working in what will likely be the most important position I will ever hold, that of Volunteer, I am often frustrated, amazed, saddened, and, ashamed that more of my fellow New Orleaneans are not on that “payroll” with me. As an “insider” who experienced the worst disaster this country has ever known, along with its’ endless aftermath, I understand that the citizens of this community have had their lives turned upside down and that each and every day is a challenge which brings new challenges. Because I am an “insider” I feel that I can express my disappointment in many of those citizens’ failure to rise to one challenge in particular: the challenge to find the strength to fix more than their individual homes, settle more than their individual insurance claims, and design more than their individual kitchens.............the challenge to find the strength to play their parts in designing and rebuilding a community, a better community, a stronger community, their community.

While I feel that “government” could have and still can do better, I try not to forget the true role of our government and my true role in a community that, in the end, is one tiny cog in the wheel, otherwise known as the Greatest Country on Earth. Abraham Lincoln’s words, “.....and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth...” leave little room for doubt that the role of citizen of the United States of America is not a birthright, rather, it is privilege.....one with rights, and one with responsibilities. One has only to read the current headlines here in New Orleans to see that collectively and as a community, we are not living up to the responsibilities of citizenship. Following is but one example:

“Police panel, public yet to connect
Citizens don't show up with complaints”
Friday, June 30, 2006
By Michael Perlstein

One of the most significant headlines I have come across:

In New Orleans, Bush Urges Volunteerism
President Tours Recovery Projects on Coast
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 28, 2006

"If you are interested in helping the victims of Katrina, interested in helping them get back on their feet, come on down here," Bush said.

What about allowing, no demanding, that we, play a more active part in that rebuilding? Why is it that nearly all the people in my circle, inner and otherwise, are all busy fighting with insurance carriers, busy working to finish architectural plans, busy at whatever it’s going to take to get that FEMA trailer out of the front yard, but not so busy volunteering, not so busy attending meetings designed for them to really work toward reducing the sky-rocketing crime in this city, not so busy helping their “neighbor” .......not so busy because look at what we have gone through? When will we collectively disavow the label of victim and instead wholly embrace the badge of survivor?

Yes, Katrina took away so much of what we thought we had the right to....garbage removal, schools for our children, jobs, neighbors, the American Dream, and clearly, we all feel that unfair turn of events in one capacity or another. Surely though, she did not also take away our responsibilities as well? Sadly, I realize that for too long, and for too many in my city and I suspect many other cities, “rights” are what we know, what we learn as a child, and unfortunately, what we pass on to the next generation. I wonder, if a disaster the magnitude of Katrina couldn’t remove every level of apathy that lives in New Orleans, what than will it take to do just that?

New Orleans, don’t allow a storm to define who you are if you can instead be defined by your response to that storm. We can either help to rewrite this city’s history, or apathetically allow it to repeat it’s history, it’s our choice, each and every one of us. And because so much is at stake, we need to step out of our own homes and our own lives and fully appreciate that we are each part of a bigger picture, a city that endured nearly complete devastation.........blame Mayor Nagin or Governor Blanco if it makes you feel better, but understand that they are but two people, two sets of ideas, two staffs.....extraordinary disasters demand extraordinary recovery and that means we must each participate at a community level.

Because I know the pain that my fellow New Orleaneans endured, endure, and because my tears were shed for their lost homes, lost jobs, lost lives too, my heart will know joy when those FEMA trailers finally roll out, when their new house is rebuilt and I want more than anything for good things to come their way.....they need good things now so badly. But I want for those who I share this unique connection with to know that while I will smile with glee when you show me your new cabinets, there is something else I want you to show me........I want to see dirt under your nails, I want to see the scrapes and cuts you got while gutting the house of someone you may never meet, or show me the school you are helping to bring back to life......those are the things that will elicit true excitement from me, and if you give it a chance, they may do the same for you.

I love my city and the people who call it home and so as you read this, and if you are on this same journey, I hope that you and I will cross paths one day........maybe at the next benefit concert that comes to town. And you should know one final thing.....my feelings may seem harsh, but they are not directed at any one class, race, socioeconomic, religion or gender....they are directed only to any New Orleanean and EVERY New Orleanean who has not yet found a way to help rebuild the community, my community, our community, in addition to their own lives. And so, to my husband, I love you, but don’t wait up for me tonight.

UPDATE:
As amazed as I am by the need for me to post this update, I apparently do.
This post is not meant to "call out" others who don't participate in
animal rescue, rather, this post is meant to deliver a message to
ohers who choose not to participate in any recovery but their own.
If you believe that there are 225 things on the list that take priority
over animal rescue, I take no issue with that.......I take issue with
any and every New Orleanean who chooses to remain on the sidelines of
that list. If that makes me an opportunist, I welcome the label...you
see Opportunist sees the opportunity....and I find it unfortunate that
others don't see the "opportunity" on that "list" as well.
Please, for the sake of my city, of your city, before you allow my
outlook to invoke anger, read it again and understand that the only
"call out" from me is a call out for help, from every citizen in this city
Surely, there is an opportunity there for you too to help rebuild our home, even if you choose to do it anonymously

STILL

2006-06-21T06:12:00.000-07:00

As I continue to work on the ground in this city, to do my part to help those eyes that peek out from the long-abandoned wood-pile that was once a house, those eyes that hide behind a gate, a gate frozen in place, a gate frozen in a time when human hands would open the gate and than open a business, I find myself thinking about more than the quantity of lives that remain........hard as I try, I can’t ignore the sad reality that, for those eyes still peeking, food and water may be the only thing I have to offer them today.

I see that the quantity of animals who remain is obviously different than in the early days, but I also see that for the three cats that remain on that deserted street, or for the mother dog and her pup who travel from block to empty block, the quality of life that they experience is its own tragedy. The ones we couldn't get, the ones we continue to work to help, if only in the form of food and water, do they miss the ones that we did get? Their worlds have changed and then changed again, and then, changed again......... so much of what they knew is gone, green grass, full dumpsters, noise. After this long, is what’s gone also forgotten? Or, do even the terrified ones welcome the sound of my wheels, the sound of my voice, the sound of life?

In the early days, the meal was what they waited for, what they killed their own for when the numbers forced them to wait beyond survival. My heart would break when I could see it in their eyes.......I hadn’t worked quickly enough and for that week, they had been hungry. But, as I would fill the bowls to the very top, I would take some comfort knowing that now, their bellies would be filled, if only for a short time. Now, as I work to help the ones that are left, my pace is not life and death frantic.......time and the efforts of many have reduced the numbers that I must continue to help, and while my heart broke in the past when I looked into their eyes, I could look. Now, nearly a year after their unending tragedy began, the easy part for me is filling their bowls........it is often impossible for me to look into their eyes, because now, nearly a year after, it is their hearts that are broken.

Food and water won’t heal their hearts, but unfortunately, for many, it is the one thing we can continue to give to them as we work to find volunteers desperately needed.....needed to still help find their families, needed to still find new families, needed to still find space, needed to still find funding, find sanctuaries, find solutions, find a lost city. Food is the one thing that we can make sure that they don’t have to search for........but we still need your continued support. We still need the rest of the wonderful world that has been their lifeline, our lifeline, to hang in there, to go the distance, so that their unending tragedy still has the once-in-a-lifetime chance to become a journey “home”

PLEASE SUPPORT ANIMAL RESCUE NEW ORLEANS AND THEIR CONTINUED EFFORTS TO SUSTAIN THE LIVES OF THE ONES THAT REMAIN AND STILL WAIT......
Visit the ARNO link to the right and donate today so that Animal Rescue New Orleans can still continue to fill the bowls while they still continue to work to find ways to mend each broken heart, one at a time if that is what this journey is going to take

Understand Her, and you may no longer rush to Condemn Her

2006-06-17T08:46:00.000-07:00

Beauty in things exist in the mind which contemplates them
David Hume

Please visit Alley Cat Allies website at www.alleycat.org
and see how ACA continues to help make New Orleans a better place for cats and the people who love them. Alley Cat Allies is working to help rebuild this city for animals and humans alike so that love them or leave them, we can all "learn" to coexist

Join Alley Cat Allies for its'
Feline Forum 2006 Creating a Bright Future for Feral Cats in Louisiana and Mississippi" June 22, 23 and 24 (see website for detailed schedule)

ERADICATION FAILS, TRAP-NEUTER-RETURN WORKS!

SHANNON MOORE, RESCUER, FRIEND, GUARDIAN ANGEL

2006-06-01T19:58:00.000-07:00

God Speed, Shannon We will not forget you

You tried so hard to save your babies, please let me save you

2006-05-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

I tried to trap your babies; I should have known that you moved them three days earlier when the men started to work on the building. I looked, I really did, but you were such a good mama, you hid them so well. I would never have found them and I am glad that the man who's shed you moved them too was there today to tell me that he tried to help them but they were stuck in the flower pot you put them in and they just couldn't breathe. He showed me the little area of earth that he was able to find under all the rubble of what used to be his back yard......he buried your kittens there when he couldn't save them and he put the flower pot with some flowers on top. He decided to do this instead of planting flowers, he just does not think they will grow in the ruins of his home.

Mama cat, we are both keeping an eye out for you now.....we are going to get you so that you can find a better place, a place where you will eat every day and a place where you will be safe.

REST IN PEACE, TINY TABBY KITTENS

Sorry Mama, I really tried to save your Kittens

2006-05-21T13:37:00.000-07:00

Even though I was too late for your two beautiful kittens, we managed to get you, all 6 pounds of you and you will never have to watch another litter of babies die again. Who would have guessed through all your hisses that you are really such a sweet girl......I hope someone will see past your skeletal body and know that you need love AND nourishment. Now that Animal Rescue New Orleans has you off the street, finally, you can have a meal EVERY day.

Each One, a Unique source of Joy

2006-05-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

The smallest feline is a masterpiece. - Leonardo Da Vinci

One day, One kitten, One life at a time

2006-05-15T18:27:00.000-07:00

"...Saving just one animal won't change the world
...but, surely, the world will change for that one animal..."

Eight months ago, I would not have believed what the future held for me; but, before I shed tears for what my life has become and what I wish it could be, I think about this little guy and what the future holds for him and his family.......what if I can't get him out before our next hurricane season? My pace has become faster and more frantic because I know that in 3 weeks, another season starts and I am terrified.....terrified that this time around, I will be helping to pull more babies like him from the destruction and I am terrified that babies like this one, and mothers like his on which every rib in her pathetic little body can be counted, I am terrified that they won't have the strength to wait until we can pull them through the destruction they now call home, or worse, that they won't have the strength to survive yet another wave of destruction that, for the rest of my life, will only be one nightmare away.

If you have any time to give, please, please consider volunteering for
Animal Rescue New Orleans, an organization STILL on the ground, STILL dedicated to finding, nourishing, trapping, rehoming the animals that STILL remain in New Orleans.
Please follow the link to the right and visit Animal Rescue New Orleans website to see how you can help.

Remember when those tables and benches used to have lunchtime picnics? Where did our lunch buddies go?

2006-05-12T15:45:00.000-07:00

What if those people who worked in that hospital over there never do come back? I sure hope that nice lady has enough food for us AND those hungry birds too!

The two tabby brothers in the first picture used to have lunch every day with a nurse from the hospital you see in the second picture......but first the wind came, then the bad rain, then the water that wouldn't go away, and then that nice nurse doesn't come out of that hospital....nobody does anymore. So now, these brothers keep each other company and wait for somebody to show up this week with food, hopefully enough food this week to help the hungry birds who don't go to picnics anymore either.

Please Help Animal Rescue New Orleans as they continue in the fight to be the link to life for this feline family and other feline, canine and hungry families left on the ground of this shell of a town called New Orleans.

Cats are resilient, they can survive off of garbage...

2006-05-12T15:20:00.000-07:00

But, what if the only garbage around is the concrete ruins of a lost city?

Will you help feed the innocent ones who couldn't make it out while they wait for their city to return? Please visit Animal Rescue New Orleans' website at the link to the right, and find out how you can help sustain the solitary survivors that barely exist amongst the ruins that used to contain life.....and garbage.....and a meal.

Should she eat today, or let her babies have a chance?

2006-05-12T15:05:00.000-07:00

With your help, Animal Rescue New Orleans can feed this starving mama and her babies

"KiKi"

2006-05-10T06:22:00.000-07:00

?? / ?? / ?? - 05 / 09 / 06

I will miss you dearly and will forever regret that I could not get you back to your family. I hope that if the family who loved you before Katrina ever finds this, I hope they will believe that you were completely loved after Katrina took you away from them and that you had a second family with us.
Rest in Peace, KiKi

Puppies make you smile....unless, they make you cry

2006-03-19T15:12:00.000-08:00

I find it difficult to put words to these pictures, I believe the look in each of these siblings' eyes is by far, the story that must be told.

PLEASE FIND IT IN YOUR HEART TO HELP US CONTINUE TO HELP THE ANIMALS IN NEW ORLEANS
The puppies who are continuing to be born in the midst of much of the devestated, uninhabited areas of the city, must eek out an existence without so much as human's garbage, and many of these innocent creatures must do so in a constant state of suffering because of disease, mange and living in toxic environments.

If you are not here, experiencing the devestation that still surrounds us, please help us to continue to search for and find these guys so that they can have a chance at an existence without suffering. Please visit our website at
www.animalrescueneworleans.com
and find out how you can financially support this ongoing and still much needed effort to help finish what must be done.

If you want to roll up your sleeves and help us on the ground, please visit www.animalrescueneworleans.com to find out how you can give one of your most precious commodoties, your time. Animal Rescue New Orleans, along with several other local organizations such as St. Francis Animal Sanctuary, the Humane Society of Louisiana and the LA/SPCA, are still in this fight together to help the animals who were left behind and we now must help their new and growing families.

We are still in this fight because for some of these animals still on the desolate streets, just being alive means too much suffering and sadness.

The Porch Light at the End of the Tunnel

2006-02-25T19:45:00.000-08:00

There was a time in my life when a porch light was just a porch light; but now as I, we, approach a milestone, the six month anniversary of when the world changed forever in my city of New Orleans, a porch light has given me a tiny glimpse.....there is and will be an end to that tunnel.

As so many of you already know, I spent many months after Katrina working to retain my sanity by working in the company of so many others in the largest animal rescue effort to ever have taken place. The work was exhausting and too overwhelming to allow me to think of my future, my hopes, my fears....there was always another animal to save. However, that drastically changed for me just a few nights ago as I set out to do what I do nearly every night, feed yet another lonely animal.

The day was already ending with a bang when I was forced to spend an hour stuck in the elevator, somewhere between the 27th Floor and the 1st Floor of my Poydras Street Law Firm building. Although it was nerve wracking, when I finally "escaped" I set out for Lakewood South, that neighborhood I came to know so well through my eight week effort to rescue Hope/Bella, my beloved German Shepherd who is now loved by a wonderful family in Alabama. You might recall that I had become aware of a solitary cat living on the same street as my shepherd, sharing the feeding station, but never showing more than the glow of his or her eyes.
Although my shepherd is safe in a loving home, this cat remains elusive to my trap and subsequently I have no other choice than to lay out one small portion of food, every night.

Because I was so long in the elevator, by the time I drove up to the food "station" it was late and so very, very dark. You see this neighborhood, as it lies right next to one of the 17th Street Canal breaches, remains uninhabited, without electricity, basically without life. I thank God every day for being able to have taken Hope/Bella out of the darkness nearly two months ago and I am determined to do the same for this cat. But it would not be this night....this night, I would have to pull myself out of the "darkness"

As I got out of my vehicle to walk around the other side, I realized that I had locked my keys inside, along with my cell phone. Remember, this was late at night, in the pitch black, without a person to be found, and finally, after nearly six months of doing this, I broke. I broke down not for the fact that my keys were locked inside the vehicle, I broke because this is what life is now, and I could see no end to it. I broke because this used to be a street filled with families, children, dogs, pool parties, barbecues and iced tea. I broke because this used to be a life, and now, I only could only see those, like myself, left behind, with broken lives, traipsing and trudging, every single day and night, through the desolate wastelands of others' broken dreams. They want so badly to be able to return home, and after six months, I broke because I am here, and I know that this is not home and I broke because I was scared that it never will be again.

The details of how I managed to get out of there that night are not really important....after this long at the rescue effort, I feel almost qualified to train cadets at survival maneuvers. The important detail that night, for me, was that I finally, and with an extremely heavy heart, accepted that my world and the world of any other New Orleanean, here or elsewhere, might never again be "normal" I think that this night was truly one of the saddest of my life, and without a doubt, the saddest I have experienced since that fateful day, August 29, 2005.

I have never considered myself a religious person in the past, although,
I often find myself preempting every statement with the phrase, "I have never before....." so, I am not overly shocked at the experience I had two days after my night of sadness, just yesterday evening, nor am I inclined to find any explanation for it......if there is indeed a God, or a "higher power" I knew it last night more than I have ever known it in any church, synagogue, bible class, prayer session or all my years in Catholic schools. What brought me full circle from my overwhelming despair just two nights before? a light, my light at the end of this long, difficult tunnel, and yes, as the title of this blog suggests, it was in fact, a porch light.

Yesterday evening, as I sat down to check my 12,000 e-mails, I realized that I had not fed my solitary feline in Lakewood South; I am ashamed to admit that I actually toyed with the idea of skipping the run altogether.....he/she would certainly survive without one meal. I couldn't do it, and after contemplating for about three minutes, I trudged off to again enter the darkness. This time, I would continue to repeat "keys and phone" to myself during the eight minute drive, almost to the point of singing my own instructions. No way was I going to go through that again!

I drove the route that I could probably drive with my eyes closed....along the Interstate service road that winds from Lakewood North, around the auto graveyard from vehicles abandoned on the Interstate during the storm, to Lakewood South....but this time, something was different. It took me a second, but I finally realized that I could see the road in front of me, and not because of my high beams.....there were scattered street lights shining the way! Was I dreaming this, did I just need to make this trip so more bearable than the last time I entered this neighborhood that I was experiencing street light mirages much like a parched man envisions an oasis in a desert filled with sand? Was I going crazy, finally?

Last night, as I drove into Lakewood South, I broke down in tears, yet again, but these were not the tears of despair I had cried only nights before....these were tears of hope and tears of disbelief and tears of not understanding and tears of realizing that I didn't need any explanation. As the tears ran continously and freely down my face, I could feel every single breath I took, every inhale and every exhale. I never once thought about wiping the tears and so they fell and fell some more and instead I concentrated on the sound of my heartbeat as it beat harder and faster and whooshed through my ears. The tears fell to where they stung my face and I welcomed the burn on my cheeks and the salty taste as they hit my lips......I was, without any effort on my part, taking it all in, every bit of it and welcoming the feeling of that same aloneness I had felt the last time I was there. You see, this time I wasn't alone and this time, I wasn't feeling sorry for my broken life and all those broken dreams scattered throughout Houston, Atlanta, and many more places.....this night, I was overcome with the energy being transmitted, and the energy that I felt in my fingers and toes....the energy of one porch light, shining brighter than any sun I have ever seen, one porch light on the very street where I had spent countless hours during the past six months to help one dog and one cat find a way out of the darkness that came every night.

For the next twenty or so minutes, I just sat and watched that porch light and let me assure you that the picture ranked right up there with all the classics. That light, as I watched it then, and as it is forever ingrained in my mind, is the Pulitzer, the Oscar, the Emmy, Christmas morning and the Lottery, if they were somehow all put into one prize......it was the perverbial "jackpot" for me and I hit it when all my chips were down and when I needed it the most. In my old life, my old world, that porch light was a porch light, but, at that moment, last night, after six months in my new city, Chaos, that light was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. As I watched that porch light, I saw a spectacular sunrise, a romantic sunset, a colorful rainbow, the brightest shooting star, an eclipse to eclipse all others, the Northern Lights, and yes, I think I saw all the planets align, too. Although, I hated to leave so that the cat could eat his dinner, I could because the scene was burned onto my brain.

As I drove the eight minute drive, this time, in twenty minutes so as to relish every stretch of the roadway, I couldn't help thinking about the irony of the two different nights I had in this area, and how both nights had been the cause of so much raw emotion and feelings that were so bottled up in my own head and heart for so long. I am grateful to Entergy more than I can say, for they have worked these past six months to restore electricity throughout the region and I know theirs is a thankless task. But, my awe and amazement and disbelief and so much more will be expressed, alone, in a prayer of thanks, with feelings that are part of my soul, because I know that a much bigger power than Entergy, is what guided me to see, to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I do see that end, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but I see it and if I need to see it again, I know where I can go to find it.....it's only a porch light away.

And, in my heart of hearts, my dream of dreams, my hope of hopes, I know that the ones who are not here, the ones who left broken dreams behind, the same broken dreams that I have climbed on, crawled under, walked through, kicked in, and done so, ALWAYS with a sense of shame for having to invade their dreams in the name of rescue....those dreamholders will someday, soon I hope, get to watch that porch light with me and than they can watch their own. It will again be "home" when all the porch lights can shine, but for now, that one lit porch is enough because it shines so brightly and if I look hard enough, I see the end of that tunnel.... on the other side, is my city, New Orleans, and it's built on a foundation of new dreams.

So, this coming week, between February 28th and March 1st, as oddly and very appropriately enough, there will be no 29th during this, the six month anniversary of Katrina, please say a prayer of thanks and hope, for us all in New Orleans, and in the Gulf Coast, and maybe for that one night, you can leave your porch light on, too.

He hid......does that mean he doesn't exist anymore?

2006-02-05T21:36:00.000-08:00

If you are willing to take into consideration the official positions which have been set forth in New Orleans, regarding the animal rescue efforts, the success achieved, and particularly, the need to feed and that it is no longer necessary, than his fate has been sealed......twice. An "official" search conducted on 9/26/05 found "no cats"

If you think you might be inclined to agree that all the animals have already been saved, can you make the call to Renee L. to tell her it's over?

Do You Know who I am?

2006-01-29T08:32:00.000-08:00

Please Help me find my way back home!

I have been hanging out a nice lady's house in Metairie, LA . I have been staying there since the really bad storm made me get lost......a nice lady feeds me and there are a few other lost kitties like me. It's not so bad, but I miss my family.....can you help me find them? I will trade all the kittie treats in the world if I can go home again!

My sex: I don't know and I haven't let the nice lady check on that just yet

My age: I think I am a young cat, maybe between 2 and 6

My color: This is where I fool people....at first, I look like
I am grayish/silver,but if you get real close, you can see I
am more champaigne looking and to make things real interesting,
I have tabby markings on my face, my paws and I have the prettiest
raccoon like tail....it's got rings around it!

My tail: Speaking of my tail, it's really cool....it curls up under me.
The nice lady thought I had a short little tail, but I fooled her!
I think my tail is about the length of all the other kitties
(well,maybe a little bit shorter, but not much) but I keep it curled
at the end so you can't see my raccoon rings, neat, huh!

My eyes: I do have the most beautiful, crystal blue eyes
which make me the prettiest(or handsomest) cat on the block, really!
Sometimes, at night my eyes almost look like they have red pupils
which is kind of weird

I am quiet: I don't talk too much, in fact, I don't think the
nice lady has ever heard me meow, ever!

Food: I eat dry food, but boy, will I come running for canned food!

Quirks: Okay, I'll admit, I do have one strange habit......
I sniff all other cats' rear ends before having supper.....I know,
I'm working on it! I do have one other strange thing, but if you
think you know me, you will have to tell the nice lady what it is;
take a guess!

Collar: I have one, but it is weathered pretty bad, so the
nice lady really does not know what color it used to be,
maybe red/white, I just don'tknow!
I used to be a little thinner, but now since winter is coming
I'm starting to get that thick overcoat
like all kitties outdoors do so it's harder to see my collar...
maybe I'll let the lady take it off soon just to see what it looks like
Today was first time I decided she is okay enough to get some pictures
of me up close!

If you want to help me get back home (please say you will help!)
you can see some other pictures of me as I "strike a pose"........
go to www.kodakgallery.com and sign in under lisejimmy@cox.net
with the password, palomine. There I am, under the 2006 albums....
I have 3 of my very own! Ain't I pretty!

If you talk to my mom and dad and they miss me too,
please call the nice lady at (504) 299-2236 or
e-mail her at lisejimmy@cox.net.
She is really nice to me but she and I have decided that
I really should be back home with my family since I miss them so much!
Oh, and the other kitties in my pictures, they told me to ask for help
for them too! I think the lady is going to take their pictures too
but they don't always pose as good as me!

Bye now!

Endings are just New Beginnings

2006-01-25T13:47:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, January 15, 2006, exactly 20 weeks after Katrina turned her life upside down and sent her into exile in a lonely abandoned area of New Orleans, my Christmas miracle breakthrough dog, Hope, the Shepherd/Husky mix, went home with a wonderful family who drove nearly 6 hours from Alabama, just for her!

After all paperwork was in order, I insisted on being the one who would introduce her to them......it was a wonderful fit. My Hope was renamed Bella, which of course means beautiful...and she is; I couldn't believe it when I watched her respond twice when her new Mom called her Bella....possibly her former life name was similar. At any rate, once I was sure that they were sure....they came because of my story about her, but I wanted them to truly want and love the dog, not her story.....once I was sure and they were sure, I kissed the dog who has to Hope no more and without a look back, left her to her new life.

I will be forever grateful to a local hero, Marilyn McGee, an extraordinary animal rescuer who has rescued countless animals in New Orleans, St. Bernard and other areas in and around this city for being the “perfect link” in the chain between Hope’s rescue and Bella’s happy ending.
Marilyn is a dedicated rescuer, but also somewhat of a “dog whisperer”.....she has spent much of her time in working to obtain the trust of emotionally wounded animals and she was just what my Hope needed in order to find the perfect family, and find them she did.

Any concerns, worries, what ifs or doubts I may have had for Bella’s future, completely evaporated on the day I saw her respond to her new mom, her new family and her rightful name. Bella had learned to trust and so now I was the one who would have to make that leap, for her sake. It was the best leap I have ever taken.....Bella’s new mom has been so gracious and I am blessed that she has not only Bella’s happiness at heart, but mine as well. Because she is truly compassionate, she has given me reason to laugh with joy as I read through her updates on Bella. With the exception of a rough patch brought on by thunderstorms, Bella has so easily blended into and with her family, that it is as if she was meant to be there. She even accepts some feline brothers and sisters with no complaints. Bella is truly, truly blessed with a second chance at happiness and she is doubly blessed in that her family loves her enough to make adjustments for her quirky, hurricane-survival behavior....her mom tells me that she hasn’t given up the habit of hiding her food throughout the house, her food because she makes it hers! Although the turkey and cheese sandwiches set briefly on the table ended up in Bella’s tummy, the cream cheese seemed like the sort of thing to hide for later.....in the couch! Bella’s family knows what she managed to survive and are willing to patiently work through her lingering fears. No, I don’t think I could have scripted a better and more complete ending for Bella .

In the end, Bella taught me something that I truly needed to learn......animals are creatures of beauty and we can't possess them, no matter how hard we may try. Bella showed me that you can love without possessing, without control, without your agenda and with another’s heart in mind rather than your own. Bella taught me that there is truly such a thing as an Ending that is Happy.........endings are just new beginnings. For Bella, a new beginning to let life embrace her, through the love of a wonderful family, and, for me, a new beginning, one for me to embrace life and whatever it brings, instead of planning it.

Ciao! Bella, beautiful girl, thank you for making my heart a little more beautiful...

New Orleans Residents: Who will tell her that all the animals have been rescued already?

2006-01-22T17:29:00.000-08:00

Do you have the Heart to tell her that all the animals in New Orleans have already been rescued?

Very soon, the animal rescue efforts in New Orleans will cease to exist in any large-scale capacity.....please don't think that it is truly over for the animals in New Orleans. If it is really over, and all of the animals have been rescued, will you be the one to feed this little girl or will you be the one who tells her that she wasn't on the list? If you are a local, please search your heart and find the courage to see beyond the devestation to your own world and help those who need it the most. Can you find it in your heart to give something more precious than money....your time?

When the animal rescue organizations leave our city at the end of February, there will still be a very real need to continue the supportive care to the animals that still remain on our streets; these animals, many feral, yet many, former pets who have remained elusive to the traps, but still in need of a daily meal while they await for the return of civilization. If you agree that these innocent creatures have endured so much, and you would like to give some of your time to a worthwhile and life-changing (theirs and yours)effort, please send your Full name, Street address, city, state, zip, Cell phone, land phone, and Email address to JaneGarrison@comcast.net Although no longer on the ground after February, Animal Rescue New Orleans is currently recruiting local residents to continue the long-term feeding program which it began shortly after Katrina devestated New Orleans......because of this program, so many animals, many of which are former pets still on our streets, were able to remain alive despite all the odds. If you can help feed an animal in need, or if you would like to offer your time with trapping efforts, please help make a difference and give some of your time to your home, New Orleans. We all watched with gratitude from Houston, from Atlanta, from all over this country, as the rest of the world came to rescue our beloved animals.....can you find the compassion to help now, when it is needed the most?

Hope Springs Eternal

2006-01-22T16:51:00.000-08:00

"Hope" as she was named by her rescuer, is a very special dog. When her local "guardian angel" found her it had been two months since Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast Region. When she was found one November morning, "Hope" appeared to be the only living creature amongst the ruins of Lakewood South, one of the more decimated areas of New Orleans. The desolate wasteland that used to be a thriving community neighborhood, abutted the 17th Street Canal at the Metairie/New Orleans line........the area, still without electricity, had taken a direct hit when the levee was breached and subsequently, very few, if any animals were rescued from the subdivision. We are hopeful that most of the residents were able to evacuate, with their pets, prior to Katrina.

The occasional construction/clean-up worker would attempt to befriend her during the first two months following the flooding, all to no avail. And so, over the period of time, she would receive pizza handouts from the workers......they always looked out for her, no matter that she was unapproachable. When a local feeder/rescuer came upon her in early November, 2005, it was clear that this dog was not only starved for nourishment, she was starved for human attention and whatever trauma she suffered before, during and after the storm, was preventing her from reforming a bond with any human. With that in mind, the local set up a proper food/water station and began what would become an eight-week journey......a journey full of setbacks and breakthroughs, full of tears of both joy and frustration, full of lessons taught and lessons learned......all stepping stones and road-blocks along the journey which ended with a very special friendship between dog and girl.

It took two very long months of daily visits and chats (some, ignored on the dog’s part) and coaxing and sometimes just sitting and watching and letting "Hope" do the watching too. Over time, that milk-bone didn’t look quite so ominous, as long as it was offered to the ground first; then, the hand attached to the milk-bone looked like it might be okay to take a treat from.......and finally, on Christmas Day of all days, that hand looked like it might be nice if it scratched behind those tired, but ever-alert ears.......Aahh! yes, and wow, that felt so good, a belly rub might be in order!!

"Hope" was leashed by her rescuer, without a struggle, on December 30, 2005, in the very same spot in which the two had met eight weeks earlier. The differences that time had brought were visible and audible.......birds were chirping on this sunny day and Joe, the neighborhood security patrol, watched with his jaw open wide and a lone house worker grinned with delight because finally, she would be safe. The rescuer’s only regret was that the kindly gentleman who gladly shared his water-logged, sun-dried remnants of his front and side yard of 5636 Cherlyn Drive, was not there that day to see his timid tenant finally take that walk like all carefree dogs do. I know that during her four months in exile, "Hope" did take some comfort in his daily comings and goings and this rescuer believes that the hospitality he showed to her, instead of attempts to catch or run her off, made all the difference in the world in her progression back to Trust.

As her rescuer, feeder, guardian, and most of all, friend, I named this girl Hope because even with no trust in her eyes, it was clear to see that she never gave up hope. I came to realize that she stayed put for so long because she was ever-hopeful that her family would find her....eventually that hope changed direction, it was never lost, but she somehow managed to redirect that hope and let other humans in and hope for more than she had been. She is a delight to be around......she loves and is loved and she so thoroughly experiences joy as I visit her now, at her temporary home at Celebration Station, Metairie, LA.

So, now, at what is surely the end of our journey together, it is I, her rescuer, that is "hopeful"I hope she finds her family, but, if not her former, than one who will love her just as much......I hope she never again has to find her way back to the loving, exuberant, and playful creature she truly is. Selfishly, I hope she never completely forgets me, but, because I love her, I hope she forgets me as much as she needs to in order to find her forever family and happiness with them.

I’ll never forget, Hope........