"People can bring their pets here regardless of their health or situation," said Joel Lopez, a former pacemaker sales representative from New York, who quit to work for the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
The shelter is operated with staff from the organizations and volunteers who use vacation days from jobs.
"This is the largest emergency-relief deployment in our history, dating back to 2007 when the program was launched," said Steve Pawlowski, communications manager for PetSmart Charities, which is using Memphis as a staging area for the flood disaster and for victims of the recent string of tornadoes.
The New York-based ASPCA is overseeing the operation.
The process for sheltering and rescuing the animals was born from the chaos of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when people were forced to abandon pets, many of which drowned.
It inspired rescue groups and the federal government to develop a plan that addressed animal welfare.
"We realized organizations needed to come together to create a unified operation, said Kathryn Destreza, ASPCA Southeast regional director. "There were so many lessons from Katrina. There wasn't even a people plan in place to deal with victims. Remember the Superdome? You can't imagine the chaos dealing with pets."
A federal law, created in 2006, requires states seeking Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance to accommodate pets and service animals in plans for evacuating residents facing disasters.
Rescue organizations formed the National Animal Rescue and Sheltering Coalition to create a unified effort.
"We're all pet people so we believe the least we can do is help relieve people who are under so much stress to know that their babies are safe here with us," said Debrah Schnackenberg, American Humane Association senior vice president for emergency services.
"We spoil them and treat them like they're our own until the owners are ready to reclaim them."
That sounds great, right? But what about this news release from the ASPCA that says they have formed a "national relocation program" for shelter animals?
Press Release
ASPCA Launches National Relocation Program for Shelter Animals
“Animal Relocation Initiative” Begins with Transport of Dogs, Cats from Regions Affected by Floods, Tornados
May 10,2011
NEW YORK—The ASPCA® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®) today announced the launch of its national Animal Relocation Initiative for shelter animals, which began with 46 dogs from shelters in eastern Arkansas that traveled westward over the weekend to make room for animals displaced by recent flooding, and continued on Monday with over 70 additional dogs from tornado-affected areas in Georgia and South Carolina going to shelters in the northeast. This morning, 15 dogs and 10 cats from shelters in a flood-affected region of Mississippi were loaded onto a trailer headed for West Palm Beach, Fla., and additional relocation efforts for animals in other affected areas are in the works.
The dogs and cats will be made available for adoption following their arrivals at the various destination shelters. Dogs from the initial relocation efforts traveled from Eastern Arkansas to shelters in Kansas and Colorado, and those from Georgia and South Carolina were sent to shelters in New York and New Jersey. The animals are being transported in climate controlled vehicles.
“Our new Animal Relocation Initiative will establish a national network that facilitates the transfer of animals and build a professional collective engaged in the issue of relocation,” said Ed Sayres, president and CEO of the ASPCA. “We also intend to develop flexible, scalable relocation programs that assure animals are moving the shortest distance possible.”
The ASPCA’s Animal Relocation Initiative moves animals from areas of oversupply to areas where there are few, if any, similar pets available in shelters for adoption. In these first cases, the ASPCA’s Field Investigation and Response Team has been deployed to areas where a large-scale disaster recovery effort is in progress, and the Animal Relocation Initiative is supporting those efforts, working with a network of agencies willing to receive and house animals that already exist in the community’s sheltering system.
“Our new program is all about supply and demand,” said Sandy Monterose, the ASPCA’s senior director of community outreach. “We will be exporting animals—safely, efficiently and humanely—from crowded shelters to regions where space is available. In this case, moving current shelter animals out of the affected area increases the ability of local organizations to help animals that need to be rescued or sheltered until they can be reunited with their families.
So, that seems a little confusing. Not to mention a trifle opportunistic. They are taking dogs in the tornado and flood areas and sending them to places where there is a demand for them. But, how do they know that some of the animals in the shelters weren't lost in the tornadoes and flooding? How do they know there aren't families looking for those dogs? And, if those dogs are sent to states 1000 miles away, how will their families ever find them? They won't even know where to look for them. Plus, the animals will have been adopted by other people. This sort of sounds like what happened with the Katrina dogs that HSUS "rescued" in Louisiana. There were all kinds of accusations at that time that HSUS took the dogs, saying that they would reunite them with their owners later, and then they sent the dogs to other states, adopted them out to other people, and their original owners couldn't find them. A few owners did track down their dogs and they had to go to court to get their dogs back.
(Gee, reading these Katrina stories, you think it's possible that HSUS doesn't really have much hands-on experience with animal care? Hmmm? What do you think? But how could that possibly be true? Isn't it HSUS that is always proposing legislation about animal care and telling people how to take care of animals? How odd. Aren't they the recognized "experts" when it comes to animals? Well, maybe not.)
So, you see why I think it's a little odd for the ASPCA to be "relocating" these dogs that they are "rescuing." They are kind of rescuing and relocating them against their will, or at least under false pretenses. And they aren't the only group going into tornado and flood areas in the South and plucking dogs out of shelters and even out of people's yards and sending them north and elsewhere. It's kind of despicable, but there are a lot of shelters in the north and other places which are taking these dogs and then adopting/selling them, using the big selling point that they are "Tornado Dogs!" to get people to pay money for them. Again, their families don't have any idea what has happened to these dogs. And shelters are making money off them. It's a pretty rotten business. It stinks.
Actually this "relocation" business raises another troubling question. If dogs from southern disaster areas are being moved to shelters in other parts of the country, what happens to the dogs in those shelters? Are they being killed to make room for the more financially desirable "Tornado Dogs!"? Sure, those shelters may be less crowded, but they probably aren't completely empty. Who wants to buy a plain old local dog when a shelter can pimp a dog with a sad story that's been through a flood? I just wonder how many dogs are being killed as part of this "dog relocation program"?
Trunking?
Oh, yeah, there's one more story from Memphis that I wanted to mention. This one pops up every year or two and it always makes me roll my eyes. Ever hear of "trunking"? Well, don't feel bad. Most people haven't. That's probably because it comes from the tortured and alarmist brains of some animal rights people and doesn't really exist except in their fantasies. The story always comes from the same newspaper in Memphis and cites the same two women as sources. According to these people "trunking" is the new craze in dog fighting whereby dogs are thrown into the trunk of some ne'er-do-well's car and, while this person drives around playing loud music, the dogs fight in the trunk ... er, yeah. I'm not making this up. It's a sport or activity without any spectators which really makes no sense to me. And, no one has ever actually seen this event happen. Nor is there any evidence that this event has ever happened. But these ladies claim that this is the hot new trend in dog fighting. Yeah, sure. So, again, no witnesses, no evidence, no one has ever seen it happen. But the story gets reported periodically. I really think this is some kind of urban legend perpetuated by a couple of animal rights fanatics. Seriously, if you google the term "trunking" the only stories relating to dog fighting (and there are hardly any at all) go right back to these two women in Memphis. I really think they made it up and I feel kind of sorry for them if that's the way their minds work.
So, if you're in Memphis, being chased by a tornado, and the river is rising to meet you, watch out for someone in a car with loud music playing because he could have dogs fighting in the trunk. Okay? Just be careful out there. Memphis is really in trouble.
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