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Katrina Survivor Boots Is Now Arizona Shelter’s ‘Kitten Whisperer’

This story was originally published Oct. 27, 2014.

The furriest volunteer at the Arizona Humane Society’s kitten nursery in Phoenix is 13-year-old Boots, a survivor of Hurricane Katrina.

AHS staff call Boots, a Chow/Golden Retriever mix who started working at the shelter in October 2014, the “Kitten Whisperer.”

Boots reports for duty every Wednesday. Kittens between the ages of 5 and 8 weeks old are allowed to snuggle up to him, so shelter staff can observe how well they’ll do with potential adopters who have dogs.

“He’s so relaxed,” Bretta Nelson, public relations manager for the AHS, told the Arizona Republic. “We bring him in, he sniffs the tents, he sniffs (the kittens). You can see their reaction, who’s curious and will just come up to Boots or will want to go slow.”

Boots “was rescued from the flooded streets in New Orleans after Katrina with severe chemical burns to his feet,” wrote Corinne Williams, a veterinary tech with AHS, in a comment on its Facebook page. “Now he is giving back by potentially saving other fellow creatures’ lives. Go Boots!”

According to the AHS website, studies show that kittens have a small window of time in which their exposure to new things will have an impact on their ability to adapt to changes when they become adults. The kitten nursery, which opened in May 2014, exposes them to “home life,” including riding in cars, the sound of a vacuum, children — and dogs.

“By bringing a dog nanny in, we’re exposing these kittens to a lot of different things,” Nelson said. “In the end, they will be adaptable and more adoptable.”

She said having Boots as a volunteer is a win-win for everyone involved.

“Boots loves it. Most of the kittens love it. Some are very scared at first, but the whole thought is to get them acclimated to being around dogs.”

Photos via Facebook

10 Years Later, Rescued Katrina Dogs Reunite

The images from 10 years ago still break the heart: Dogs forced to be left behind in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, struggling to stay alive on the roofs of their New Orleans houses and frantically swimming across flooded streets.

Hundreds of animal rescuers who were moved by those images made their way to New Orleans in 2004, doing whatever they could to save displaced pets.

Among them were dog trainer Anne Trupo, veterinarian Lisa Hart and Amy Beichler of the Public Animal Welfare Society (PAWS Ohio), who drove down in a caravan from their Cleveland homes. They rescued 18 dogs and 12 cats, including a mixed-breed dog the women named Hurricane.

“It was 117 degrees and we were overwhelmed,” Trupo told The Plain Dealer. “We were asking people about trapped dogs and one woman told us about a mean dog she locked in a bathroom. We went into the abandoned house and found Hurricane. He had been locked away for a week and was crazy with heat and starvation.”

Hurricane was a smart dog — he figured out how to turn on the bathroom’s water faucet, which kept him alive.

Homeland Security officers alerted the women to another abandoned dog, a German Shepherd with a broken leg who’d been left in a yard with no food or water.

“They said they had been feeding the dog, but that he needed help,” Trupo told The Plain Dealer. “We found him. I put my hand through the fence and Storm just laid his head on my hand. We broke through the fence and saved him.”

The women drove Storm and the other animals they’d saved back to Ohio.

All of these four-legged Katrina refugees found forever homes — or at least places to stay until their original owners were able to take them back. Trupo fostered and then adopted Storm. Matt Harmon of South Euclid, Ohio, became Hurricane’s dog dad.

“Hurricane and I were best friends from first eye contact,” Harmon told The Plain Dealer. “He trusted me right away and I let him know I was there to stay. He was very sick at first, infected with parasites and extremely underweight. He and Storm had heartworms, which are tough (often fatal) to treat, but he recovered.”

For the first time in 10 years, Hurricane and Storm were reunited at Forest Hills Park in East Cleveland this week. The Plain Dealer reports that Storm, now 11 years old, seemed to instantly recognize his old buddy. The two seniors spent half an hour playing and chasing each other around the park.

“Oh, he’s gonna feel that tonight,” Trupo said. “He’s an old dog and he does not get around as well as he used to, but that’s not stopping him today.”

Watching Hurricane play with Storm, Harmon told The Plain Dealer, “He’s going to be a tough act for another dog to follow. While I’m sure he won’t be my last dog, he’ll always be my best dog.”

The death of so many abandoned pets in the aftermath of Katrina who weren’t as fortunate as Hurricane and Storm, as well as the deaths of pet parents who refused to leave their loved ones behind, led to the passing of the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act (PETS Act) of 2006. This law requires shelters to be provided for people as well as pets after a disaster.

As its summary states, “Hurricane Katrina has clearly shown that when given a choice between their own personal safety or abandoning their household pets, a significant number of people will choose to risk their lives in order to remain with their pets.”

Photos via Twitter

Watch a Former Soldier Reunite with His K-9 Partner After 3 Years

There’s nothing quite like a reunion between two war heroes after years apart — especially when one of them has two legs and the other has four.

Last week, two of these heart-warming events occurred between former U.S. Army specialists and their bomb-sniffing dogs. The two dogs, along with nine others in the Tactical Explosive Detection Dog (TEDD) program, had been bought by a private company and then left to languish at a boarding kennel for 17 months. Thanks to the efforts of Mission K9 Rescue and the United States War Dogs Association, nonprofit organizations dedicated to finding homes for retired military dogs, photos of the dogs posted on social media successfully helped track down their former handlers.

On Wednesday, after a four-year separation, Tyler Roberts was reunited with his former partner, Donna, a Belgian Malinois, in Thorton, Colo. Roberts is now Donna’s official dog dad, and he said her only assignment from now on is to chase tennis balls.

The next day in Boise, Idaho, Vance McFarland was reunited with his former partner, Ikar, a Czech Shepherd, after three years apart.

“Some times were good, some times were stressful. Having Ikar definitely made it a lot better,” McFarland told KTVB regarding their two-year-long tour of duty together in Afghanistan. “Having a dog with you on deployment is almost like having a little bit of home. Other soldiers were jealous — they always wanted to come up and pet Ikar. We made the best of it.”

McFarland, who’s now a full-time college student, was eager to have Ikar join his wife and two other dogs.

Ikar took a trip to the lake over the weekend, and that’s just the beginning. “He is going to live the rest of his retired life spoiled. Really spoiled,” McFarland told KTVB.

As McFarland waited for Ikar’s plane to land in Boise Thursday, he was concerned that his former partner wouldn’t remember him after so much time had passed.

As you can see from the video, McFarland had nothing to worry about.

Photo via YouTube

Sheep Dogs Guard Fawn’s Body after Idaho Wildfire

Some of the worst wildfires in U.S. history have swept across western states this week, burning about 7.2 million acres. Among the victims were, tragically, three firefighters in Washington state. The fires have also undoubtedly killed scores of wildlife.

One of those four-legged victims was a fawn in Kamiah, Idaho, who probably had nowhere to run when a fast-moving wildfire roared through the town, destroying more than 40 homes.

Louis Armstrong found the fawn while checking his property after the fire.

“This one got me in the feels,” he said, according to Big Country News Connection. “Lots of destruction and sadness in the Kamiah area. I found this dead fawn Monday morning. An hour later this sheep dog and her two pups are here protecting it.”

A picture he took of the fawn and her three guards has gone viral.

“They have been here for hours and won’t leave,” Armstrong said. “Barking at people that come near (although they are very nice).”

The three dogs remained there, protecting the lifeless fawn from predators, until the sun set more than 13 hours later.

This one got me in the feels, too.

Photo via Facebook

Four Years Later, Soldier Reunited with Abandoned Bomb-Sniffing Dog

Four years ago, U.S. Army Specialist Tyler Roberts and his partner, a 2-year-old bomb-sniffing Belgian Malinois named Donna, were deployed to Afghanistan.

“She was excellent. You could unclip her from the leash and she could find something a mile away,” Roberts told FOX31. The team found hundreds of pounds of ammonium nitrate, a chemical compound used in improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Roberts and Donna formed a bond that Roberts didn’t want to end with their tour of duty.

But after her tour with Roberts ended in September 2011, Donna and 11 other dogs in the Tactical Explosive Detection Dog (TEDD) program were bought by a private company.

Roberts, who retired from the Army in 2013, did what he could to find his former partner.

“I tried to follow her career so that I could adopt her after she retired, but I could never get a straight answer as to her whereabouts,” he told USA TODAY.

In early 2014, the unidentified company that had bought the TEDDs left them at Mt. Hope Kennels in Chester, Va. The company told the kennel’s owner, Greg Meredith, the dogs would only be staying there a couple of months at the most.

Seventeen months later, Donna and the other TEDDs were still languishing in the kennel. Meredith paid about $150,000 out of his own pocket for their care. He couldn’t try to find homes for the dogs because they were considered government property.

Two months ago, the company contacted Meredith and told him it no longer wanted the TEDDs because they were now too old. The company told Meredith to dispose of the dogs as he saw fit.

“They’ve been abandoned. This is not the life that they deserve, nor is it how this country should take care of its soldiers,” Meredith told NBC12 last month.

He contacted two nonprofit organizations, Mission K9 Rescue and the United States War Dogs Association, which are partnered with the kennel and dedicated to finding homes for retired military dogs. If the organizations couldn’t track down the TEDDs’ former handlers, they would find them forever homes with other families.

“Our goal is to reunite all of the handlers and soldiers with their war dogs. We love to make that happen for them,” Kristen Maurer, president of Mission K9 Rescue, told USA TODAY.

Her organization met its goal with Roberts and Donna. Yesterday the two were happily reunited in a Thorton, Colo., park.

“I owe her my life and I intend to spoil her for the remainder of hers,” Roberts told USA TODAY.

He told FOX31 Donna has accepted a brand-new mission: chasing tennis balls.

Mission K9 Rescue has received hundreds of adoption applications for the other 11 TEDDs abandoned at the kennel. For information about adopting retired military dogs, visit the Mission K9 Rescue website.

Mission K9 Rescue has created the “Mt. Hope K9 Warrior Rescue” account on GoFundMe.com to raise money to reimburse Meredith for his generosity and help keep his kennel in business. To make a donation, click here.

Photo via Twitter

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