More Hurricane Katrina Anguish: Where is "Snowball"?

During the Hurricane Katrina evacuation from New Orleans, many evacuees who had brought their pets with them to the shelters were not allowed to take the pets with them on the buses. One especially horrible episode was when a small boy had his dog taken from him as the family boarded the bus. The boy screamed for “Snowball” until he got sick and vomited. The newspaper story touched so many hearts that there is a web site offering a reward for the reunion of this child and his pet. http://www.katrinafoundpets.com/snowball_fund.htm One can only be shocked by the cruelty involved in taking away the one comfort that this child had. Due to the public outcry of this practice, some later evacuees were allowed to take their pets with them.

The obstacle to this reunion is that it is not clear what Snowball looks like or what the little boy’s name is. The reporter who first told the story (API’s Mary Foster) and who should at least be able to describe the dog, has apparently not been very helpful in trying to describe him . It has been reported that she said that she saw him after he was put in the stairwell of the Superdome with the other confiscated pets, but that she didn’t see him when the ASPCA came to collect them. She thought that he had either escaped or been taken by someone. The policeman who confiscated him at the bus has apparently not been found and questioned either. The person providing the web site offering the reward for the reunion is considering hiring a private investigator to find Snowball and his boy.

Another confusing part of the puzzle is that a small, white dog was shown on tv pawing at the closed door of the bus that took his mistress/master away, but it is not clear if this dog is Snowball or another unfortunate pet. It broke my heart to see this dear little dog trying in vain to get on the bus.

A web site that has comments from animal lovers is http://news.bestfriends.org/index.cfm?page=specialreports&mode=cat&catid=04061773-BDB9-396E-9001EF6EC01318A4&stid=3&pn=26#cmtHead
It is organized in a “blog” manner and one has to read from the oldest comment to the newest if one wants a chronological view. Its drawback is that very few of the people commenting have left an email address so that they can be contacted to form a united group.

It is very important that we rally to insist on a “Snowball’s Law” to rescue pets with their owners. Comments on the “BestFriends” web site indicate that this kind of an evacuation has been done and should be done. What is needed is an organized effort to influence better procedures for evacuating people and their pets. I am willing to compile a list of people who want to be involved in such an effort. Email me your snail and email addresses. (The email addresses change so fast that they are not valid for long.) To see my email address, click on “View my complete profile”. Let’s do something to prevent this callous treatment of pets from happening again.