les gets serious for a second

Today I wrote a letter to Mr. Charles Foti, the Attorney General of the State of Louisiana. It seems that Mr. Foti and some of his colleagues have decided to "investigate" the Humane Society of the United States and their response to Hurricane Katrina. They are raising concerns that the HSUS operations hindered people's chances of reclaiming their lost animals after the storm.

Mr. Foti and his friends, in my opinion, are chasing their own tails and deflecting the blame for this tragedy from the people on whom it more directly should lie: federal, state, and local emergency planning officials who did not allow for companion animals in their evacuation plans; the state of Louisiana that refused to allow the HSUS to house more than 2,000 animals at any one time at the Lamar-Dixon Exposition Center in Gonzales--even with 200-300 new animals pouring in each DAY--causing animals to be shipped out of Lamar-Dixon to shelters around the country just so new animals could be rescued; and the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center itself for forcing the HSUS to shut down operations before the mop-up was over so they could HOST A RODEO.

As I wrote my 2-page letter to Mr. Foti, I was taken back to my trip to Louisiana and my work at Lamar-Dixon. The little dog, Hi, that I'm sitting with in this photograph was removed from his family's house a month and a half after Katrina hit. He had been locked inside without food or clean water. There was another Chihuahua with him. She was dead of starvation.

Things did not have to be this way. And it doesn't have to happen again. Visit the Humane Society of the United States and learn about the Pet Evacuation and Transportation Standards (PETS) Act. Contact your congresspeople and ask them to vote in favor of this act. Don't know who they are? Go here and find out. The whole thing only takes minutes.

I've worked in animal shelters for 17 years. Before I went to Louisiana I thought I had seen the worst that could befall animals and their people. Now that I've been there, I know I have.