Gonzales or Bust

What follows is the daily journal I kept during my trip to post-Katrina/Rita Lousiana to help with the animal rescue effort.

Monday, 9/26/05: Lori and I leave Sunderland at 7:00 a.m. on the button. We are in her Rendezvous pulling her old pop-up camper (maximum road speed: 65 mph). We head south on 91.

Our drive takes us through MA, CT, NY, PA, MD, WV, VA, TN, GA, AL, MS and LA. It takes us nearly 1600 miles and more than 30 hours of straight driving. We stop to get gas and fast food. Otherwise, we stop only three times for 15-30 minutes: Once at the Fancy Hill Restaurant in Virginia for supper. Once somewhere in Tennessee for pie. And once, just as the sun is coming up, at the Alabama-Mississippi border for breakfast. I have grits. We listen to the waitress, Barbara, tell us of her seven precious little dogs.

The rumors about what we will find in Louisiana abound. An email has been circulating describing conditions at the Hattiesburg, Mississippi shelter as appalling—for humans and non-humans, alike. We have heard that the main tool we should bring to Gonzales is a crowbar because the shelter was hit by Hurricane Rita. We will learn more about the power of the rumor mill as the week progresses.

Tuesday, 9/27/05:

In the pine belt area of Mississippi, there are trees down. Hundreds of skinny pines simply snapped off in the middle. In swaths. The guardrails are chinked like braces on a teenager where trees have fallen across the highway and then been removed. As we putter along, we are passed over and over again by tree workers, Bobcat operators, animal rescuers, and insurance adjusters from all over the country. They get thicker as we get closer to New Orleans.

We opt for Route 12 north of Lake Pontchartrain for fear that Route 10 will be closed at New Orleans. This takes longer and keeps us from seeing anything more than downed trees, twisted highway signs, tattered billboards, and the occasional roof covered in a bright blue tarp. It is now hot-with-a-capital-H.

We drop down on Route 55 between Lake Maurepas and Lake Pontchartrain. There are bayou homes and fishing shanties just off the highway. Even these houses that are normally on water are flooded, with little dry land in sight.

We finally reach Gonzales at around 1 p.m. on Tuesday. The Lamar-Dixon Exposition Center is easy to find—it is like a state fairgrounds. The National Guard stops us at the entrance and sends us off to register as volunteers.

Just as you come in the driveway, off to the right are two massive white tents. These are the air-conditioned cot dorms for volunteers. Scattered around the tents in random clusters are the tent villages of the people who opted for privacy over coolness. Ahead lies the animal complex—five open-air horse barns with row after row of steel stalls. Inside the stalls are horses (2 barns) or dogs, cats, and other animals (rabbits, birds, gerbils, etc.). Dogs, by far, take up the most room. They have been easier for rescuers to find—they come forward. Cats are coming in greater numbers now as homes are entered and searched.

We sign in to volunteer and learn that a new shift will start at 3:00 p.m. This gives us an hour and a half to get camp made, get our clothes changed, and report in. The volunteer checkpoint shares a tent with the lost animal reporting point. It is a reception desk with tired staffers who seem to have only part of the information they need. As we list our skills, we are told that they are desperate for skilled animal handlers in the intake area (animals coming off rescue vehicles) and in the horse barns. We tell them we’ll be back at 3.

We take off to set up camp with the other RV’s. Terrific! They are plugged into electrical outlets! While we don’t have AC, this at least holds out the promise of a fan or two and a way to charge the computer.

No sooner than we have the camper leveled and popped up, our stuff scattered about, than a tired and bitter woman in a golf cart pulls up and bluntly asks, “You planning to pay for this site?”

Hm. No one said word one about paying for a site—even when we asked about where to park. We inquire and discover that the fee is 25 bucks a day to park there. We are out of our league. We condense again and pull over to the tent city. There we find a bit of space under an oak tree. It’s too damp for tents but just right for us. We set up camp.

Having changed into long pants, closed-toed shoes, bandanas and fanny packs, Lori and I report to the volunteer check-in. Again, the staffers seem tired and a tad clueless. They ask us to step aside and wait until they find out where we are needed. Someone motors off in a golf cart to the barns to see.

Lori and I are told that they are desperate for skilled animal handlers at the intake area between barns 2 and 3. We report in and learn that our job will be to steward animals—mostly dogs, but the occasional cat, rabbit, or hamster—through the veterinary triage process and then into the “kennels.”

The “kennels” are really horse stalls. In each horse stall, there are 3-4 black wire crates set up. These hold dogs. Each dog receives food (primarily Hill’s i/d) and water. Mountains of donated bowls line the middle aisles. None of the crates have bedding, but this doesn’t seem to be an issue for the dogs. Most of them seem too hot to even want a blanket. They stretch out on the plastic bottom of their crate. Fans blow the hot air around inside the open barns. Each stall has a fan mounted in the front grate blowing air at the dogs.

Cats are also kept in horse stalls in the same black wire crates. The cats, though, can be stacked. The more of them that pour in, the more they are stacked. Each cats receives a litter box (a disposable aluminum basting pan or half of a paperboard shirt box), and food and water. I feel bad for the cats that they don’t have a place to hide, but it’s too hot to drape sheets over their cages. Fans continue to blow to circulate air. Kennel workers, dripping with sweat, trudge determinedly up and down the aisles. Their hands are full of supplies, they have leashes draped across their shoulders, they push shopping carts loaded with food, bowls, and cleaning products.

Lori and I queue up with the other intake staff. For the first 3 hours we stand or sit around in the heat. Nothing going on. A catering truck drops off Styrofoam-packaged meals. Half are vegetarian. The meals are surprisingly nutritious—brown rice and vegetables, peas, carrots, a roll. All the water, Powerade, or Mello Yello you can stomach. We grab a meal, pull up a cooler, and begin to eat. As if on cue, the first rescue vehicles pull up.

Thus begins hours and hours of taking frightened, filthy, often starving animals off trucks and out of cars. There are dozens of private vehicles with “SPCA Animal Rescue” hastily painted on the windows. They are mini-vans, SUV’s, and even sedans. Then there are animal control vehicles from faraway cities like Beverly, Massachusetts. There are rescue and adoption vans from local humane societies. The rescuers are bedraggled after days in the city. Some of them will come to us more than once throughout the night.

We take the animals off the vans and place them in waiting airline carriers. Intake handlers pair up with a paperwork volunteer. Each animal gets paperwork (a 3-copy carbonless LASPCA admission form), a tab collar with an id number, and 2 Polaroid photos. One Polaroid and the main copy of the admission form go to workers waiting in a large trailer labeled “Computer Center.” There, volunteers enter the animal into the Chameleon database, scan the photo, and upload the file to Petfinder.com. People in the community looking for their animals can search the website.

If a dog comes off the vans too frightened to handle safely, he goes in his crate to the Chill-out Row. There he sits to think about himself for a while. Volunteer behaviorists work with these dogs to see if they are truly going to be dangerous or if they are simply frightened, tired, and have been without human contact for too long.

An animal control officer drags a struggling pitbull out of his van. The pit needs to be on a control stick for everyone’s safety. The control stick is a 5-foot long pole with a thick wire noose at the end. It keeps a dangerous dog safely away from the handler. One of the paperwork volunteers approaches the dog and tries to pet him on the head. She is bitten for her efforts. The episode reinforces the desperate need for skilled animal handlers onsite. Being the average dog lover isn’t enough. An experienced animal worker would have known better. The wounded volunteer goes off to receive treatment.

Handlers walk the dogs through a triage center. Cats are left in a line outside the cat triage center. If an animal comes off a vehicle in critical condition, s/he is swept off to the waiting VMAT (Veterinary Medical Assessment Team—or Assault Team, as we begin to call them) emergency station—vets and technicians providing emergency care. I never have one of these. The animals I have are well enough to go through regular triage.

At the triage stations, the vets—all volunteers, of course—briefly examine, deworm, deflea, vaccinate and then microchip the animals (oddly, there are no scanners—so even if an animal already has a microchip, we wouldn’t know). The vets sign a health certificate and send us to the kennels. If they determine that an animal is not healthy enough to be immediately kenneled, they refer us to the VMAT station. Most are ready for the kennels. If the animal has a condition that requires treatment, they can record it on her paperwork and someone takes care of it.

As we unload animals, there is a constant trickle of evacuees wandering around looking worried. They have hastily-scribbled nametags that read things like “ Burt. Lost Pit” or “Edna. Lost Cat.” We do our best to steer them toward the right barns.

As the evening wears on, we receive word that a vehicle is coming with more than 100 animals on it. This turns out to be a large, air conditioned semi-truck. 107 crated animals on board—primarily dogs and cats, but also hamsters and birds. They are frightened, stressed, filthy, and often wet from spilling their own water. It takes hours to unload them. As we work with the truck, the usual vehicles continue to come in and unload. Another semi pulls in, this one only holding 20-some animals.

The wait to get a dog into triage now lasts at least 30 minutes. We stand, kneel, or sit on the pavement with our charges. Some of us hold and hug them. Some of the dogs just can’t deal with the contact. They stand at the end of their leash looking worried. Others pace, whine, lunge at other dogs and people. Many of them have diarrhea.

An old female Rottweiler smiles at me and holds out her paw. She nuzzles my pocket for more cookies. Her body is covered in dangling tumors and it’s obvious she has had litter after litter of puppies. She has a ring of gray hairs around her neck where her collar used to go. She isn’t wearing one today.

We are told that the animals coming in now are rarely found on the streets. Most of them are coming in from abandoned houses. When searchers went door-to-door looking for people, they found animals. They marked the doors with how many animals were inside. Animal rescuers now go in and remove the animals, record the address, and write “Rescued” on the door.

In some cases, we have the name or phone number of the animal’s person. We have mail taken from a mailbox. Two fat, friendly Rottweilers come in with a Speedee Lube receipt. It includes a name and phone number. I dub the male Rottie “Mr. Carroll,” based on his person’s last name. He is a happy, loveable lug—until the microchip. He tries to eat the technician. Wimp.

By 12:30 a.m. it is clear that Lori and I are not going to be able to function much longer on the 2-3 hours of sleep we had the night before. Our feet and legs are killing us from standing on the pavement for 10 hours. We notice that the faces of the volunteers around us have changed—many people dropping out and others taking their places. All of the volunteers—including us—are exhausted. Many of us aren’t making sense anymore. We do stupid things and are getting snippy with one another. It’s time for Lori and I to pack it in for the night.

There are still a dozen animals waiting for intake. There are at least 75 cats in cages lined up outside the feline triage station—with only two vets working that station, I suspect they will not be able to finish before morning.

I leave for the campsite. Lori joins me once she has walked her last dog through the process.

We are filthy. We smell like diarrhea and body odor. Our clothes are ruined. We want nothing more than to fall into bed. But we don’t. We gather up our things and try to hunt down a shower.

Next to the cot tents are large white trailers for bathrooms and showers. A sign on the women’s shower says it is only operational from 7 am to 10 pm. There is no electricity inside (meaning no lights), but the water runs lukewarm. We dangle a flashlight from a shower rod. I take the best shower of my life.

As we fall into our bunks in the camper, we can hear the cars passing on the road leading into the center. Many of them are slowing down and turning in….probably with animals to unload. It is 2:30 a.m.

Wednesday, 9/27/05:

Lori and I are able to sleep in until 8 or so. Due to the heat, we are constantly drinking water. But Lori has packed the Looby-Loo, saving us frequent hikes to the portable (and odoriferous) bathrooms.

We wander up to the food area only to discover that it has moved next to the First Aid tent behind Barn 1. There is no breakfast. Only coffee, orange juice, and power bars. We pilfer the piles of donated surplus dried foods. There are jars of peanut butter, bags of Saltines, and cans of chicken noodle soup. We load up with crackers and red beans & rice for later.

Because we don’t need to report to work until 3 p.m., we putter around the campsite, hanging tarps to shade us from the sun.

Today we need to make a Wal-Mart run. We need bread, ice, and we’re going to shop for a camp shower. I also need to find an unsecure wireless Internet connection to send and receive email.

I luck out on the wireless connection outside a Circle K convenience store. I send and receive and we get directions to the nearest Wal-Mart.

Wandering the aisles of the store, we realize that we could be anywhere in the U.S. The only distinctive part of this southern Wal-Mart is the fundamentalist Christian life manuals at the check-out counter (“With God on a Deer Hunt”, etc.).

We strike out on the camp shower but load up on bread, beer, and cookie dough (to eat as dessert right out of the tube). It is hotter than hot. We get lost finding our way back to the Expo center, but eventually figure it out. There isn’t a cloud in the sky, the landscape is flat as a pancake, and it is impossible to establish a sense of direction when the sun is overhead.

We return to camp and stop in the food tent to pick up our box lunch. Today’s veggie meal is mashed potatoes, carrots, and corn. They load us up on the carbs.

By 3 p.m. we are ready to report to work. We go back to the intake spot and prepare to process the loads of animals due in. We learn from our team leader, Linda, that last night we admitted 350 animals—putting 283 of them directly through triage. No wonder we were tired.

Today is slower. The semi trucks bring in only 30 and 70 animals a piece. One has a gold fish in a coffee can (with his food can duct taped to the coffee can). There is a snake in a crate. There are at least ten dangerously aggressive dogs on one semi. Chill-Out Row becomes crowded as the evening passes. Most of the dangerous dogs are pressed up against the back of their crates looking feral.

The first dog I take off the transport is a rangy black and tan shepherd mix. His eyes have the sunken, weepy look of the dehydrated. He is eager to leave his crate and bolts as soon as I open the door.

I wrangle the dog around to pose him for his photograph, but the camera malfunctions and my paperwork partner has to go find another one. Meantime, the dog starts to have a conniption. He begins spinning, throwing himself on the ground and frantically snapping at his leash. The thin nylon rope sliplead I’m using won’t take the abuse much longer. The volunteer behaviorist comes over and slips another on. Together we try to get him to a crate in Chill-Out Row.

The frantic dog continues to flip over and gnaw at his leashes, finally snapping the one the behaviorist is holding. With expert timing, one of the vets from the US Public Health Service shows up with a control stick. He slips it on just in time and stuffs the dog in a waiting crate.

My next dog is an 8-month-old red hound mix. He is a rack of bones, but easily the sweetest dog on the planet. He flops on the ground for belly rubs and cookies while we wait for the triage vets.

Sometime in the afternoon, Dakin’s Shelter Manager, Karina, arrives. She and her new friend Heather have driven down from the Hattiesburg, Mississippi shelter. They are needed more here. Karina jumps directly into the fray, serving as the technician to the cat triage vet.

Lori and I continue to unload dogs, escort them through the triage process, and then walk them to new kennels in the barns. There is constant confusion about whether the dogs go to Barn 5 (a quarter mile walk away) or Barn 2 (right behind the triage center). Barn 5 has great customer service—they respond immediately when we arrive and get our dogs set up. Barn 2 is a mass of confusion. They ignore us and we wait 30 minutes or more for help. Finally, we just put our own dogs away and hope for the best.

Lori watches one of the intake handlers put her entire head and shoulders into an airline carrier to retrieve a frightened Chow Chow. The dog will eventually be unable to finish triage before he has to be put on a control stick and placed in a kennel on Chill Out Row. The volunteer was lucky she didn’t come out of the crate with the dog attached to her face. Again, the need for experienced dog handlers shows itself.

We learn that the dangerous Chow Chow had his reasons. He came from a home that was flooded to within two feet of the ceiling. He had made his way the ceiling fan to survive until the floodwaters went down.

I have a silver Siberian husky tonight. Her name is Sheba. Her paperwork says she had been alone in the house since two days before the hurricane hit. By now, Sheba is a rack of bones and her hair is falling out in clumps. But she wants to play and cuddle. We know who her people are! She will have a happy ending.

Sometime in the afternoon, I am asked to take a dark brindle pitbull away from another handler. The dog’s ear is bleeding. His handler had allowed him to get too close to another dog in the intake area and he got in a fight. It wasn’t his first—his entire body and massive head are covered with scars. I walk him on two leashes through the triage process and down the way to Barn 5. We give all other dogs a wide berth. He joins a constantly growing row of pitbulls in the kennels. I have yet to see a neutered one.

By 9:00 p.m. the gates close. They are now enforcing a well-known closure hour. At least five rescue vehicles are turned away because they came in late. We are instructed to return for work at 8 a.m. to prepare to receive the animals that were turned away tonight.

Lori, Karina, Heather and I make our way back to Camp Dakin. We enjoy a beer before heading for the late night showers. Heather is planning to go into the city to do rescue tomorrow morning. Lori and I are contemplating spending a day doing this work. It sounds difficult. There are rumors of finding far more dead animals than live ones, of tires flattened by debris hidden under floodwater, and cats surviving on the corpses of their deceased caretakers.

One thing we’ve learned about this place is that nothing is more robust than the rumor mill. As I write this, Lori says she has heard that President Bush is coming here tomorrow. See what I mean?

Thursday, 9/29/05:

We awake from a nice cool night’s sleep at 6:30 a.m. Lori fires up the campstove and we have apple & cinnamon oatmeal and peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast. After gearing up (we now know to hoard the good leashes, take spare toilet paper—the restrooms are frequently out—and mist ourselves with Off to fend off fleas), we head off to work.

This morning’s intake consists of last night’s late arrivals. We put through a few frightened cats and a couple of dehydrated dogs. My main charge is a black pitbull dubbed “Gonzo.” He was found dashing around outside the camp gates this morning—probably dropped off at the camp by people unable to care for him. He is too frightened to get out of the car. He has to be dragged off the backseat of the rental van (where he spent the night and peed this morning). Fortunately, the Oregon rescuers who found him are planning to appeal to take him home with them. They realize that he stands little chance of finding a new home here with all the other pitbulls.

Once the morning rush is over, Karina, Lori and I head back to Camp Dakin. We know the intake won’t really need us until our evening shift and we don’t want to waste our energy and hydration on sitting around in the sun.

After a nice lunch of surplus red beans & rice, I wander off in search of electricity for my computer. I find it outside the ladies’ room. I sit in Lori’s truck running the air conditioning. A bright orange extension cord snakes into my passenger door. No one gives me a second look. Everything here is jury-rigged.

I discover an unsecured wireless connection outside the ladies’ room. Score! No more wandering around town looking for one. It comes, I’m sure, from one of the many RV’s camped here with satellite antennae (and 25-dollar-a-day budgets).

When I return to Camp Dakin, Lori is stretched out on the “porch” on a rigged up cot. It is breezy but too hot to nap. When 2:30 rolls around we get back into our long pants and fanny packs and head for the intake area.

Again, the early part of the shift is slow. We decide to sort through the pallets of donated items lining the aisle between barns 2 and 3. This is a mish-mash mess of pet food, cat litter, baby wipes, shampoo, dog collars, and, oddly, the occasional item for humans (toothpaste, diapers, etc.).

The problem we are trying to solve is that the kennel areas are running out of crucial supplies like cat litter that are buried in the piles. The animal rescuers, trying to load their trucks every morning before they head into the city, spend too much time digging through boxes looking for food and water for the pets stranded in backyards or homes.

Lori and I establish our own Quartermaster Corps. We rope in the intake volunteers who are standing and sitting around listlessly in the sun. Soon we are all digging through the mountains of stuff and sorting it onto pallets. It is hot, dirty work but we make a huge dent before the first trucks begin arriving early in the evening.

Today’s trucks, again, are semis, pickups, and mini-vans. The dogs and cats coming off the trucks are almost exclusively racks of skin and bones.

I am called to take in a German shepherd—a massive sable male who was probably a lovely example of his breed a month ago. Today he tips the scale at maybe 50 pounds (this is a dog who should have weighed about 80-90 pounds). Beneath his thinning coat you can see every rib, every bump of his spine, and the entire construction of his hipbones. As he walks, he can barely lift his back feet. His hind end is almost completely bald.

The rescuer plops a giant black cage down next to the shepherd. There is a bedraggled yellow and grey cockatiel inside. The rescuer tells us that they are a bonded pair (this is camp lingo for “they came from the same household”). He says the bird saved the dog’s life.

Turns out, the rescuers were given an address and told to go there to get a cat out. They looked all over for the cat but couldn’t find her. Then they started hearing the bird. Following the bird’s noise, they found the dog. He had been locked in the backyard, using a tool shed to escape the heat. I don’t think he had had a bite to eat—at least not since the cat….

Lori and I are repeatedly called in to handle the more dangerous dogs. I am asked to relieve another handler of a game, scarred pitbull who keeps lunging at other dogs in the triage line. With two leashes around his neck, he pops up toward the other dogs and I pivot him on his back feet and turn him the other way. We do this over and over again for the 10 minutes we wait for the vet. It is a big game to him. Like most of the pitbulls we handle, this dog is a perfect gentleman with the vet—they don’t even feel the needles.

The next dog I get is a young female black Lab. She is so grateful for human contact that she melts against me, licking my cheek. She doesn’t want to be alone anymore. She breaks my heart.

Lori is called up to help with the semi when it comes in. Turns out that a white pitbull has escaped from his crate and is running loose inside. The driver, a southerner, jokes about the duck and the fish he has on board. He hopes the pitbull hasn’t helped himself to the easy meals.

When they open the back door of the semi, Lori is perched on the rear bumper. I look over and see a jolly white pitbull face poke out the door. He is smiling a big dog smile and looking mischievous. There are no feathers sticking out of his massive mouth. The duck and fish have survived unscathed.

I take my first dog to VMAT. He comes off the truck a rack of bones, an emaciated little black dog who is such a mix of breeds that any bloodline was lost long ago. He is so weak he can’t stand in line, choosing instead to sit or lie down. The IV fluids the veterinarians gave him in field triage are the only thing that have kept him going this long. My triage vet says he is too pale and weak to go to kennels so we go to VMAT. There, he is put on fluids and put up for the night under observation.

This evening, like the last, ends early. The last vehicles come through around 9:30. In the meantime, Lori and I learn that we will be in charge of Chill-Out Row tomorrow. This means we get to do a lot more sitting, for which we are grateful—our feet are killing us. Lori learns the details from Lauren, the Chill-Out volunteer who is departing tomorrow.

Lori and I retire to Camp Dakin. Karina comes along a bit later. She had to stay to finish up the last few intransigent cats. We head for our now ritual shower-by-flashlight and scrub off the day’s dust, muck, and sweat. We will all need to report in tomorrow morning for any animals who missed the 9:00 curfew.

Friday, 9/30/05:

The night was cool enough to require blankets. Lori and I sleep like logs, awaking at 7:45 am. We need to be at work at 9:00 a.m. for any heldover intakes from the night before. Being on Chill-Out duty means we are not likely to be needed. Still, we can’t just not report in. So we put on the long pants, fanny packs, and leash sashes that have become our de facto uniform and head to our area.

We are met at the gate by the security guard. A private security company staffs the interior gates; the National Guard continues to patrol the main compound gate. The security guard won’t let Lori in because she has forgotten her volunteer id badge. Like all the southerners we have met, he is terribly polite about it. Lori heads back to the car and drives back to tent city to retrieve her id.

Only one animal arrives for the morning intake. With nothing to do, Lori and I resume our duties as Quartermasters. We continue to sort the food, litter, and supplies. Every so often a rescuer arrives and begins poking through our piles.

Some of the local temporary staff (aka “the LA staff”) hired by the HSUS wander through our area. They begin picking items up off the ground and tossing them onto pallets. Lori and I become frustrated to find PupCups (bottled dog water) on top of dog biscuits and cat litter mixed with the bleach. Finally, we stop Josh, the leader of the LA staff, and explain what we’re trying to do. He has been sent to do the same thing but is doing it differently. We put together a game plan and begin moving in the same direction.

Josh and his cohorts begin helping us sweep up and move pallets around. Josh has been issued a hand-trolley. A forklift has also been promised.

By 11 am it is clear that no animals are coming in until later and that it is becoming too hot to continue working on the supply stacks. We say goodbye to Josh and head off in search of a Laundromat.

Lori and I find a laundry up the road a piece. We throw all our dirty clothes in one washer and sit down to work on the computer and make phone calls. There are other camp staff here washing their disgusting clothes.

After our clothes are clean we set off in search of an air-conditioned restaurant. We pass up several Chinese joints on the grounds that they won’t be filling enough. We pass up Mexican because we’ve existed on beans and rice for the past two meals. At last we settle on a place called the Piccadilly Cafeteria.

The restaurant is crowded and we end up in yet another long line. Still, the food is the best of Southern cooking—fried chicken, mashed potatoes & gravy, and cherry pie. Although I’m a vegetarian, I eat the chicken. It’s the best meal I’ve ever eaten in my life. We want to go through the line again, even though we can barely stand up.

By the time we buy more ice and send off the day’s diary entry, it is nearly time to return to our 3 p.m. shift. We return to the camper to find a note from Karina. She has left to return home. We dress hastily and head up to the intake area.

Again, our area is scorching hot and there are no animals coming in. So for the first few hours, Lori and I check in on the supply stashes (Josh and his crew moved a few pallets around and then more volunteers took over sorting—everything is under control there). We go around and “requisition” supplies for Chill-Out Row. This means that we simply walk through and swipe what we need. If it isn’t nailed down around here, it’s fair game.

By around 6 p.m., the animals begin to trickle in. The first is a pair of mixed breed dogs brought to us by their people. The people have lost everything in the hurricane. They haven’t got anywhere to keep their beloved dogs. The family tearfully signs both dogs in to the facility with a promise to take them back when they are settled. Both dogs are thin and frightened. One, Princess, tries to bite repeatedly during triage. The vet is able to finish with her (she was muzzled), but she gets sent to Chill Out Row for trying to bite her handler. Our first charge.

After a while, the semi arrives and Chill Out Row is suddenly swamped with dogs. Many come off the truck with “caution” already written on their crates. Many of them threatened their rescuers or the staff of the field triage unit.

Some dogs don’t have “caution” on their crates but are simply paralyzed with fear and incapable of coming out of the crates. They shrink against the back wall of the kennels and turn their faces to the corner away from their intake handlers. Rather than force them out, we simply drag them still in their crates over to Chill Out.

This semi brings us 50 animals, including a flock of chickens, a couple of turtles, and a ball python. There is a female Rottweiler and a 4-month-old liver pitbull puppy. They are a bonded pair. The rescuers found them in their house together. The Rottweiler was surviving off the remains of her dead person. The pitbull is out of her mind. She has spent one of her primary socialization periods in complete isolation from humans while her closest companion was eating one. In Chill Out Row, the puppy falls asleep.

Another Rottie comes in who was found with her dead person. There is a starving longhaired Chihuahua named Hi whose companion Chihuahua (Daisy) starved to death. Hi eats canned i/d off my fingers as I sit on the pavement in Chill Out. He has been labeled a fear biter, but with enough time to chill out and some food in his stomach, Hi makes it through triage.

Lori and I spend our evening moving dogs in to Chill Out and then trying to coax frightened dogs from their kennels. Many of the dogs just need time to adjust to the surroundings. It is nighttime, but there are spotlights set up all over the place casting wild shadows. There are large industrial fans blowing in different directions creating a roar and often-violent breezes. The dogs in all the barns are barking and the place stinks of feces. There are clanging pans, slamming doors, chugging engines, and shouting voices. People zip back and forth in golf carts or on forklifts. We drag crates over the ground with a clatter and noisily toss them in piles. As we bend to peer into airline carriers, we must appear as dark shadows with no faces to the frightened dogs inside. It isn’t a wonder to me that any dogs are frightened and dangerous. It is a wonder to me that they all aren’t.

A yellow Lab mix comes in off a rescue truck. The handler and paperwork volunteers move too quickly toward his head and he reacts by whipping around and snapping at them. Lori and I—as is our duty—intervene by asking the paperwork volunteer to stand up and get her face away from the dog’s face. We ask the handler to stop reaching for his head.

Both volunteers become indignant and insist that the dog didn’t try to snap. We tell them to go to Chill Out with the dog and they become angry, insisting that the dog is just scared. When we explain that scared can equal dangerous, they insist that they are experienced handlers and have handled worse dogs. Although it is apparent to me that they are a tad delusional, I patiently explain to them that Chill Out is not a mark on the dog’s Permanent Record it’s just a chance for him to acclimate to the commotion before heading to triage. Finally, Carol, our new team leader intervenes and tells the volunteers that they are welcome to sit on a chair with the dog in Chill Out or get back in line. The volunteers leave. They don’t return for the evening. I call in another handler and she sits with the dog for 10 minutes and then takes him through triage without incident.

There is a black Chow Chow in Chill Out. He is the only dog in a wire crate rather than an airline carrier. He is ragged, balding, and barely moving. He was sent to Chill Out directly off the semi because he had a “Caution. Aggressive” label on his paperwork. We are concerned that he is not going to make it out of Chill Out alive—he is morbidly thin, his eyes are nearly sealed shut with green mucus and he seems unable to move. I approach his kennel to see if he is still breathing. When I touch the door, I am rewarded with a lunge, snap, and snarl. Clearly, he’s got energy for the important things. I go into Barn 2 and scam some canned i/d and a watering can off our camping neighbor, Mark- From-Indiana. I drop the food through the top of the Chow’s crate and refill his water pan with the can. The Chow scarfs down the food and laps water for a good few minutes straight. But he’s still not my friend. I read his paperwork. An evacuee returned to his flooded house to assess the damage. When he opened the door, this dog was inside. The dog was a squatter.

As the evening winds to a close, Lori and I spend all of our time getting dogs out of crates to go through triage. We are able to move most of them. By the time 10 p.m. rolls around, though, the triage vets are closing up shop and we don’t have enough time to get through all our marginal dogs. We simply load the good, the bad, and the ugly on a trailer and transport them to the outer stalls of Barn 1—Bad Dog Row.

On Bad Dog Row, the first stop is a transfer from the dogs’ airline carriers into wire crates. Most of the dogs readily leave their carriers. Others need to be removed with a snappy snare or a control stick. Some are snarling and lunging. Others are running away from us.

Eventually, everyone is settled in for the night. Lori and I arrange with Scott (the head behaviorist) to return in the morning to reassess and care for the dogs.

We return to our camp (now labeled Dakintucky for its ramshackle appearance) and eat our ritual evening peanut butter before heading for the showers.

This evening’s shower-by-candlelight experience comes complete with its own entertainment. From next door, in the men’s shower, comes the sounds of a man and a woman, well…you know. It cracks us up. Lori pounds on the wall and yells at them to get a room.

We return to camp and assess our condition. We both have scores of mosquito and flea bites. Both of us have developed a rash around our ankles from our work boots, the heat, and fleas. Still, we sleep the sleep of the dead.

Saturday, 10/1/05:

Lori and I awake to a hot, humid morning at 8:00 a.m. We listlessly eat our peanut butter & jelly and applesauce breakfast before suiting up. Our rashes and bug bites are getting worse. I have blisters on the bottoms of my feet from my workboots. Lori’s face is sunburned (despite the fact that hats are part of our uniform).

At 9:00 a.m. we head up to greet our Chill-Out charges from the night before. We don’t want them to end up on Bad Dog Row. So our job this morning will be to see who is ready to come out and be a good dog.

It isn’t too hard. More than half of the dogs are, if not happy to see us, at least willing to venture out of their wire crates. Many of them have soiled their crates overnight, leaving them to sit for hours in urine and feces. Others go to the fence and pee for minute after minute, obviously relieving themselves.

This job is not for the faint of heart. Many of the dogs we work with are pitbulls and Rottweilers. They are probably always going to be dangerous on some level and may never find an adoptive home. But there are others there—a black and white Chihuahua mix who likes to bite when you pick her up (Lori names her Sylvie and spends lots of time with her, cuddling her like she does Milo).

I have a couple of unneutered male Rottweilers—one with a sizeable prong collar who apparently growled at everyone in field triage. This dog is so grateful for the opportunity to pee outside his crate that he doesn’t give me any grief. He just leans against my legs as I try to find an open kennel for him.

Once Lori and I have taken out, walked, and relocated (into the aisles of Barn 1 reserved for sketchy dogs) the nicest of the Chill-Out dogs, we turn our attention to the rest.

There is Princess, the foxy little mix whose family couldn’t care for her anymore. Princess will have nothing to do with us today. She ate her food, pooped in the bowl, and then spent the night trying to stay out of her own urine. Like about six of the dogs, Princess still isn’t safe to remove from her crate.

There is a little female Rottie mix who has been showing her teeth to everyone since she got off the truck. She lunges and snaps. As do a couple of the pitbull mixes. Lori and I undertake a plan to clean the cages of these dangerous dogs. We decide to slide the bottoms of their crates out (leaving the dog standing on the cement temporarily, but still inside the crate). Then one of us will go hose off the crate bottom while the other rustles up some food and water. It works beautifully.

People keep coming up to us to thank us. Apparently, until this day (the last official day this will happen) these dogs had to sit in the same airline carriers they arrived in (most of them already sitting in feces and urine) all night and well into the next day, in the hot sun, until they could be assessed by the one behaviorist on duty—who, like us, found most of them to be perfectly compliant in the light of day. Lori and I are dismayed to learn that no one else could come up with a simple, humane plan to care for the dogs. If we weren’t so depressed about it, we would feel like heroes.

One of the remaining intransigents is last night’s pathetic black Chow Chow. Scott gets him out on a snappy snare so the vet can examine him. The vet tries to get a muzzle on the dog, but the dog continues to lunge and snap. Finally, Scott moves to a control stick and the vet is able to get the muzzle on. I’m too busy cleaning up poop to find out what became of the dog. I’m sure his days are numbered.

By noon, Lori and I head off for lunch. We are due back at 6 p.m. to help clean the kennels in Bad Dog Row. The other workers are grateful to have experienced handlers to work with. Scott said he has had to dismiss a number of folks who just didn’t work out. It makes us proud to hear, but it also reinforces the ongoing need for people who know what they are doing here.

Lori goes to the cot tent for an air-conditioned nap. I go off to town to charge my computer, send email, and pick up some Diet Coke. At the laundry where I stop to sit and charge up, two little boys (2-year-old Derrick and his 7-year-old brother Stefan) marvel at my computer. They’ve never seen one before. Neither has their mother. I let the boys play a few rounds of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 before I get to work on the journal entry.

It occurs to me as I send off yesterday’s entry that I have completely messed up the dates. I have to keep consulting my calendar to figure out what day it is. We are thoroughly removed from the world at large.

When I return from the store, Lori is still napping in the FEMA tent. It is beyond hot at Dakintucky. I eat some peanut butter and potato chips, sitting my empty plate at my feet. Soon, I feel something nibbling on my feet and discover that I have been swarmed by ants in search of potato chip crumbs. With a shrill yelp unbecoming of someone who can wrangle nasty pitbulls, I leap out of my chair and stumble to the can of Off. I DEET every creepy crawly I can find. My foot has 10 more itchy welts on it.

Around 5:30, Lori comes stumbling back from the FEMA tent. She proclaims the cots comfortable enough to make you drool in your sleep.

We suit up for Bad Dog Row. Though I’m not normally a gearhead, my fanny pack belt now contains a Leatherman, my phone, a tiny bungee with a roll of duct tape on it, spare nylon leashes, and a carabiner for contingencies. It also has latex gloves, spare tab collars, two Sharpies, and a bottle of water. Lori and I rattle and clank when we walk. As we head up the main drag to sign in at the volunteer table, we pass two women wearing no fanny pack and carrying nothing spare. Rookies.

We get to Bad Dog Row and see that Scott is working on the last two of last night’s Chill Out Dogs. He is getting them out of their crates on snappy snares or control sticks to see how much they can chill out. They aren’t doing too badly and are all placed into crates inside the stalls of the outside aisle. This is the aisle for the worst dogs. This is where Lori and I will clean tonight.

We grab a shopping cart and load it up with food, bowls, bottles of water, and paper towels. We start at the end farthest from the poop-hosing location, reasoning that the longer we clean, the shorter that hike needs to get.

Lori begins walking each dog while I clean his crate and restock it with food and water. Many of the dogs have been holding it since their 8 a.m. walk. Others aren’t so delicate.

We have a system of leashing that involves putting on the standard nylon slip lead and then clipping a traditional lead to the ring of the slip lead. This way, when you put the dog back in his kennel, you don’t need to reach in with your hand to remove the slip lead, you just pull on the standard lead and it yanks the ring of the slip lead until it comes off. Given the intense pursuit of food by starved, dangerous dogs, putting your hands near them while they eat is asking for trouble.

The second dog Lori walks is a little blue pitbull with fight-clipped ears. As soon as he comes charging out of his poop-soup crate (poop-soup, you see, is a lovely mixture of feces and urine), the dog leaps up and grabs the leashes in his mouth. He gives them a shake and dangles. Lori, caught by surprise, works to get a thicker leash around the dog’s neck before he snaps the two nylon leashes. The dog immediately grabs the thick leash and shakes. Prying the leashes out of the dog’s mouth is impossible, clearly he has been trained to jump, grab, and hang on as a way to workout his fighting muscles.

One of the other walkers yells at Lori to get a towel for him. I fish a pink towel out of the bottom of the cart. So THAT’S why there are towels! The dog yanks the towel out of Lori’s hand and breaks the towel's lousy neck over and over again. As soon as we put him back in his clean kennel he pees. We clean it again. He poops. We clean it again.

We proceed down the row, alternating cleaning and walking by stall. Most of the dogs are reasonably compliant. Some require a snappy snare to get them out of their crate (to avoid our reaching in with our arms and shoulders), others charge out, eager to relieve themselves. All of the dogs charge back into their crates after the bowl of food.

The work is difficult, smelly, and dangerous. We find it physically and mentally exhausting. This isn’t walking dogs. This is fishing scary dogs out of crates in cramped quarters while other scary dogs bark at you like they’d like to hurt either you or the dog you are trying to help. Then when you finally get them outside, you have to be careful they don’t get after you or any of the other scary dogs being walked around the area. Then you have to put them back in.

Many of them are in poop soup. This involves removing the crate tray and schlepping it to the end of the aisle and hosing it off with water and bleach. We dry it with paper towels and put it back. If the dog doesn’t poop or pee on his walk, we check back in to see if he has soiled his crate while we are working with the other dogs.

We come upon a stall where an old shepherd mix is loose. He has busted out of his wire crate by prying at the bars. Thankfully, he isn’t a bad dog and is easily captured with a snappy snare after a few tries.

Another stall contains an obese red Chow Chow mix. He is glaring at us like he’d sooner eat us than look at us. His crate has duct tape on it that reads “Use Pole To Walk.” Super. We get the control stick and spend 5 minutes trying to get the loop around his head. He is on to this game and is good at avoiding it. The worst part is that he is afraid; he tries to climb out of the back of his crate and is crying. We get the stick on him and get him out into the walking area where he proceeds to chomp the pole for a while before giving up and just pooping and peeing. Then he goes back to crying, throwing himself on the ground, and biting the pole. This is obviously someone’s pet dog (or he wouldn’t be so fat and healthy looking). But he isn’t likely to find a home again with this behavior. It is depressing.

By the time we are finished, the dogs have eaten and are now napping peacefully. Lori and I head out for Dakintucky. We sit for half an hour and then head up for the showers. The word has gotten out that the showers being closed doesn’t mean you can’t use them. There develops a line. And by now, grungy people have littered the shower with shampoo bottles, dirty rags, and razors. Some of them are too gross to use. I have half a mind to requisition some cleaning supplies and spend an afternoon making them usable again.

Lori’s arthritis in her foot is acting up. My feet hurt from all the walking and standing, I can’t imagine how much hers hurts. We are grumpy and tired and fall asleep promising ourselves that we will take the next morning off and not report to work until the 6 p.m. cleaning shift. We receive word that Justen, our Assistant Shelter Manager, and the Massachusetts contingent are nearby and will arrive in the morning. Good. The reinforcements are coming.

Sunday, 10/2/2005:

The morning dawns hot and sunny. We are rudely awakened at 7 a.m. by people noisily coming and going from their campsites.

Four women stroll through camp peering in tents and yelling, “Chris! Chris!” over and over again. They are looking for their friend. After disturbing half the campground, they find her. Then we are treated to cries of “She’s over here! She’s over here!” You’d think Chris had wandered off into the barren tundra for 6 months with only polar bears to keep her company. Instead, she is safely asleep in a tent in a gravel parking lot.

Lori and I putter around Dakintucky, sweeping up and putting our dirty laundry away. We are, after all, expecting company. Justen should be arriving some time this morning. We find out he is nearing Baton Rouge so we decide to go grab some lunch in town. Of course, we can’t resist another visit to our old friends at Piccadilly’s.

By the time we finish eating and do a load of laundry, it is nearly 2 p.m. We find Justen’s stuff stowed at Dakintucky when we get back. So off we go to the main facility to find him and take some photos. When we don’t see him anywhere, we call his cell phone. He is back at Dakintucky looking for us.

We help Justen set up his tent and get situated. We requisition a cot and sleeping pad that had been left outside the FEMA tent for a few days. It is officially Justen’s during his stay here.

While Justen and I are checking out his gear, we hear a screech from Lori. She is standing on the cot on the porch of Dakintucky, pointing at some cushions we had leaning against the camper. “A lizard!” she yelps. Indeed, there is a whip-fast 6-inch-long striped lizard on the cushions. At least it wasn’t a snake.

We give Justen a guided tour of the operation and then return to camp to laze about in the heat (it has cooled down to only 90 degrees or so today). When 5:30 rolls around we suit up and head for the mess tent. Justen and I grab veggie meals (an unappetizing lump of lima beans and white rice), frozen smoothies (yum!) and, our favorite, miniature powdered donuts. We eat quickly outside Bad Dog Row while Lori mixes the evening’s dog food.

Justen heads off to work with the veterinary teams. The VMAT teams are demobilizing and will pull out completely on October 5th. The Army veterinarians are taking over the operation. We learn later that the army vets don’t want to work with Justen (because he’s not military) and he is assigned to do medications throughout the facility with other technicians.

Lori and I go back to our charges on Bad Dog Row. Having the morning off to relax and recover has made us sharper. We move much more quickly through our charges, better able to deal with the towel-killing pitbulls and the control stick Chow Chow.

Some of the dogs are doing better. We are particularly fond of a big dark Lab mix with Flying Nun ears. We nickname him Jed and recommend that he be sent to GenPop (General Population—where he will mix with the regular dogs and be handled by inexperienced handlers). This is Jed’s ticket out of here and on to a better life.

I handle one of the super hyper towel-eating pit bulls. This is the one that yesterday got loose on Lori in the stall. It happens to me. He rushes the cage door and spends his time jumping around, eating the leashes, and shaking the towel. As long as he is focused on something else, you are safe. But getting the slip lead over his head when he is shaking a towel is a challenge. I finally make it happen in the split second between him dropping the towel and grabbing on to a blanket on another dog’s crate. Lori swings open the stall door from behind like the guys who work the gates at rodeos. And being with this dog is like a bull ride.

The pitbull drags the blue blanket into the middle of one of the piles of sawdust the dogs relieve themselves in. He mauls it for a while until he spies one of the Army staffers walking by. The dog decides the Army guy looks tasty so he launches himself that direction. When he reaches the end of the leash, all four feet are off the ground. I swing him 180 degrees to the right and he lands on the blanket again, digging in and giving it a big shake. I’m grateful to see that Lori is done with his crate and the dog can go back.

When we are finished with our cleaning, it is only 8:30 p.m. We go back to the mess tent and requisition extra packages of donuts. Justen is nowhere to be found so Lori and I head back to camp.

Justen arrives shortly. He has been doing medication rounds through Barns 1 and 2, treating sick dogs and cats. He reports that he has made a volunteer cry.

He came upon a kennel where a pitbull was aggressing at another pitbull through their crate walls. Meaning to comfort the aggressing dog, a volunteer had gone in to his crate. Justen caught her starting to hug the dog and told her to stop and back away. He explained that, in his frustration at not being able to get the opponent he wanted, the pitbull was very likely to turn and attack anyone nearby—primarily the volunteer. Frightened at how close she had come to being attacked and frustrated at not being able to offer comfort, the volunteer walked away crying.

As with all of us, the volunteer came here to offer relief. But as most animal shelter workers know, some of the animals we work with are dangerous—either because of their environment or their normal emotional state. It is one of the frustrations of our job.

It occurs to me that I paint a bleak picture of things at Lamar-Dixon. I write about dogs who are dangerous and volunteers who put themselves and others at risk. But this is only a small part of the bigger picture. My perspective is skewed because my work has been almost exclusively with stressed or dangerous animals.

More than 7,000 animals have passed through the HSUS rescue operation. Most of them have been sweet, gentle souls happy to find comfort and peace with humans once again. One need only walk through the cat aisles of Barn 1 to find this peace. Cats lie stretched out in their crates in the heat. The volunteers—cat ladies every one of them—work quietly and diligently. They scrub litter boxes, create cardboard hideouts from discarded boxes, and spend time socializing with their charges.

The main dog walking areas for the good dogs is peppered with dog lovers from all over the country. They walk their charges, sit quietly embracing them, or playing with one of the donated toys. People from all walks of life have come here to create an amazing temporary community.

Hundreds of animals are being exported from Lamar-Dixon every evening. The ASPCA is in charge of this end of the operation. Dogs and cats (and other animals) are being shipped around the country. All receiving agencies must sign an agreement not to permanently place the animals for 30 days. This gives the animals’ real families time to track them down through the Petfinder website.

For more information about the whole story of Lamar-Dixon and the humane rescue effort, please visit www.hsus.org. We spent some time on this website yesterday during our afternoon break. There are wonderful stories, great photos, and good facts. Another important piece there is information about the proposed PETS act. This would require federal emergency planners to incorporate a strategy for companion animals into their larger evacuation plans for disasters. The tragedy cause by Hurricane Katrina should never be repeated.

Lori, Justen and I decide not to shower tonight. We wash up and hit the sack. We need to be on Bad Dog Row bright and early tomorrow for the morning shift. No point in being clean for slopping out kennels. Tomorrow will be the last workday for Lori and me. Justen is just getting started.

Monday, October 3, 2005:

We wake at 6:30 a.m. and eat peanut butter and requisitioned packages of mini powdered donuts. We scrub our faces and brush our teeth at the camp table and head out for Bad Dog Row.

After setting up our cart, we begin again removing dogs and cleaning kennels. Reinforcements arrive in the person of A., J1 and J2 (names are being withheld to protect the innocent). A. can help handle dogs while J1 and J2 can only clean. We decide to have two handlers work with one cleaner to move down the row.

This sounds like a good plan on paper. In reality, it depends heavily on the work ethic and attention span of everyone involved. Within half an hour, it becomes apparent that our “helpers” are going to be trouble. They wander around, move slowly, stand and gawk at the dogs, and generally keep us standing under the hot sun getting jerked around by strong dogs who are frantic to return to their crates for food. I am barely able to restrain myself. These people are getting on my last nerve.

Somehow we manage to make it to the end of the entire row. By now it is noon. All three of our helpers declare it to be too hot to continue working and leave. They stick Justen, Lori, and I with the task of going back up the aisle to refresh water bowls and clean up the messes made by the dogs who, for whatever reason, prefer to relieve themselves in their crates rather than outdoors.

At around 12:30 we wander over to the food tent. Today’s veggie lunch is kidney beans and white rice. By now, we are happy to see, there is an air-conditioned dining tent. We sit inside and quietly commiserate about our helpers. We are determined to not work with them again on the afternoon shift.

After wandering back to Dakintucky, we decide to check out a rumor that the local Holiday Inn will provide free showers and Internet access to relief workers. Lori calls them up and tells the lady who answers the phone that we are at Lamar-Dixon and want to take advantage of their offer. The lady asks Lori if she is one of the top people. Lori replies, “Well, I think I’m a top person, sure.” I guess that isn’t what the lady meant.

Turns out some relief workers have made us all unwelcome. There was one who took a dog in the swimming pool. Another who allowed a cat loose in the hallways. And yet another—presumably an unattractive one—who swam in her underwear. Lori assures the lady that we are not that kind of relief worker and that she will be sure to pass their concerns along.

We round up our stuff and head over to the Holiday Inn. On our way, we call the Dakin Animal Shelter and sing happy birthday to our bookkeeper, Jaana.

Oddly, the free shower is in Room 123. This is the hotel staff’s break room. There are no beds, just tables and chairs, a fridge, and a television. The housekeeping staff is eating their lunch, smoking cigarettes, and gossiping. We feel like intruders. But, like the sweet southerners they are, they welcome us in and direct us to the room’s bathroom.

This is the first hot shower Lori and I have had since the morning we left home—Monday, September 26th. We are not disappointed. The water pressure feels like a sand blaster.

Once the three of us have showered, we decide that Justen needs a taste of Piccadilly’s Cafeteria. We enjoy some good home cooking, visit the local K-mart so Justen can get a watch, and then head back to camp.

We while away the next hour and a half stretched out in the cool FEMA cot tent. I read, Lori naps. Justen talks quietly with some fellow Mass. Animal Coalition folks. Soon the hour rolls around for us to head back to Dakintucky to suit up.

Back at Bad Dog Row, I learn that our “helpers” from the morning shift will be unable to assist us. I am afraid I can’t act disappointed. Instead, I go next door to Barn 2 and find their new supervisor, Mark-From-Indiana. I ask him for two or three extra people to help clean while we handle dogs.

Mark sends us Kathleen-From-Arkansas, Sonya-From-Minnesota, and Sean-From-Colorado. This is their first day in camp. We explain right up front that this is not the place to cuddle dogs. This is a place to be careful, to help us open and close gates, to pass us the equipment we need, and to clean quickly. They nod in agreement.

What luck! These three are fantastic. We breeze through the row and are done by 8:30. We do the re-watering and 2nd-chance poop clearing and head for the evening’s volunteer party.

The HSUS has gathered us together, bought $800 worth of beer, and brought in a fresh supply of previously-rare yellow volunteer shirts. There is a raffle (mosquito repellent, can cozies, and—best of all—blue ceramic cow banks). It is good to hang out with people, swapping stories and finding out what brought folks here. We learn that Sonya is really a civil engineer. Lori goes around swapping Dakin shirts for shirts from other places.

The best part of the evening is when we meet Xiante. Xiante is a pet-sitter who lives in upstate New York and New Hampshire. She is also a belly dancer. She gives us lessons. I have some lovely photographs of Lori practicing “scooping ice cream” with her hands, and “feeling” her abductor muscles. (These should prove as priceless as the ones she took of me finally shaving my armpits.)

As the crowd thins and the hour grows late, we retire, one last time, to Dakintucky.

Epilogue:

Today, Tuesday, October 4th, we send Justen off to work with a breakfast of requisitioned donuts. He will return to Bad Dog Row with Sonya and Sean (our new camping neighbors, as it turns out).

Lori and I spend the morning breaking camp. We decide to rig up the big silver tarp (that now says “Welcome to Dakintucky” on it—complete with the trademark pawprint over the ‘i’ in Dakin) as shade for Justen’s tent. We give him an extra FEMA cot, our toothbrushing water, and spare leashes. We are sad to leave him behind.

On our way out, we drive outside the fence of Bad Dog Row. Justen is there holding the little red Chow mix who hates leashes. In the days past, we had had to use a snappy snare to get her out. Today, she is on a regular leash. The dogs are getting better. We made a difference here.