Pet Updates and Pet News

Sophie's tale: A dog's long road from Katrina

“We have a dog for you!” read the e-mail from Dandelion Dog Rescue. “Judy’s driving her up from New Orleans. Can you wait a few days?”

Outside, that November day, it was raining. It had been clear and sunny the day I started driving north from where I'd grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area to move to Seattle. But about halfway across Oregon, it started to rain. It kept raining through my first week, as I unpacked and drove in lost circles and tried to settle into working remotely for my Berkeley, Calif.-based company. As I read the e-mail about our soon-to-be dog, it was still raining. The gray dreariness matched my mood.

“Sure,” I wrote back. “We can wait a few more days."

Piecing together a history
Several months earlier, my husband and I had decided to add a dog to our family. A friend, who knew about the plight of the animals left behind in Hurricane Katrina, encouraged us to consider one of those dogs. After contacting an rescue organization, we saw a picture of Diamond, a black German Shepherd mix from St. Bernard Parish. She'd been through hell, and yet, somehow she looked hopeful. I just knew she was meant to be mine.

In the days after, I received scraps of information her. She was an “owner release,” surrendered by her family following Hurricane Katrina. Their house had been flattened, and they had to take refuge in a FEMA trailer, where an 80-pound dog wasn’t allowed.

Like most of the homeless dogs from New Orleans, Diamond had tested positive for heartworm, a parasitic roundworm that resides in the heart of the host animal. Transmitted by mosquitoes, which were rampant in the days and weeks that followed the hurricane, the worms can eventually kill the animal.

The treatment, an arsenic-based shot to the spine, was serious stuff — and expensive, totaling around $300. But we were assured that the cost would be partially defrayed by a grant from a benevolent animal-lover who didn’t want cost to be a barrier for homeless Katrina refugees looking for new owners.

My husband, Steve, and I are unabashed animal lovers, and we ‘d paid close attention to the pet-related coverage of Katrina. Before I'd had any notion that I’d be working for MSNBC.com, I pored over the site’s stories, reading the blogs, watching the videos of people and their pets stranded on rooftops. I wrote a blistering e-mail to Governor Kathleen Blanco when I heard that Louisiana sheriffs were shooting dogs. Heartworm was not going to be a barrier for us.

I was also quite alone in our new home in Redmond, Wash. In late September, our beloved, 16 year-old, three-legged deaf cat lost her long battle with cancer. With Steve at work during the day, I was completely without companionship, in an unfamiliar place in a house that didn’t yet feel like home. And although I hadn’t specifically set out to adopt a Katrina dog, it seemed fated somehow. Diamond was lost, and needed a home. I was lonely, and needed a friend.

New Orleans dog in the Northwest
Days passed. It kept raining. My parents arrived to visit. And then, on Nov. 18, we got the call that Diamond was in Seattle.

Returning from dinner the night of the drop-off, we rounded the dark corner to our cul-de-sac and I saw two women walking a big black dog. I nearly tore the car door from its hinges and leapt out to meet our new family member. She was gorgeous, regal-looking — and scared. I knelt down on the pavement and came face-to-face with her. Her eyes were haunted and sad; I couldn’t (and still can’t) imagine what she had seen.

The first couple of days were hard — Diamond, who we renamed Sophie, paced the halls at night. We often found her standing by the front windows — we imagined that she was searching for Judy McCarthey, who had brought her and six other dogs up from Louisiana in a van. There were clues that she’d perhaps had puppies at the time of the storm: She had several plush toys that she’d carry gently in her mouth and arrange together — crying while she did.

It didn’t take long for Sophie to adjust to us — and us to her. Soon, it was us she waited for from our front windows. She slept through the night now, curled up on her giant dog bed (a gift from my smitten parents) with the blanket that had made the cross-country journey with her.