"I'm so happy that he's alive"
Yesterday, I posted a story I wrote in 2004 about pets that had been evacuated from New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina that had made their way to Los Angeles.
Today, I'm posting a story I wrote a few months later about one of the dogs that found his way back home. For this family at least, the story has a happy ending.
This is the kind of story that really gets to me. A family in New Orleans had to evacuate as Hurrican Katrina barrelled through town. They didn't want to, but they were forced to leave their beloved pet dog behind.
Aside from a pile of food the family left for him, Bo was alone to fend for himself.
He wound up in Los Angeles, but because of his unusual markings, Bo eventually found his way home. I never met his family, but when I spoke to them on the phone a few monhts after the hurricane, they were thrilled about getting their dog back.
They had lost so much in the disaster, but the idea of being reunited with Bo brought filled them with joy.
Here's the story:
Not a lot of dogs look like him. Part Akita, part Dalmatian, he's black on top and white underneath, with a pair of pointy ears and a twisty curlicue of a tail.
But it was his feet -- four speckled paws that look like he ran through a mound of chocolate-chip ice cream -- that got Janet Taylor's attention.
The Rancho Palos Verdes resident saw him when she was visiting some of the hundreds of dogs that arrived in Los Angeles last month after Hurricane Katrina separated them from their families. She didn't know his name -- like many of the rescued animals, he had no tags and no collar.
"I just happened to take his picture," Taylor said. "I never saw a dog with spots on his feet like that."
The next day, while searching through a Web site that listed lost Katrina pets, she found one that sounded suspiciously like the dog she had seen the day before.
"I said, 'That has to be him,' " she said. "I called the number at 6 that morning."
That's when Taylor learned how the dog with the dappled toes wound up so far from home.
He was just a pup when he followed 12-year- old Willie Martin to his New Orleans home two years ago. They named him Bo, but nobody is really sure why.
"He was this little puppy from nowhere," said Willie's mom, Denise Martin-Marrero. "He was following all the children. My son felt sorry for him."
He quickly became part of the family. Martin-Marrero took to calling him her little baby.
"People thought I had a newborn baby with all the toys on the floor," she said.
The family was caught off guard when Katrina struck in late August. Ignoring calls to evacuate, they instead decided to wait the hurricane out in their two-story home.
"We didn't predict the storm like we were supposed to," Martin-Marrero said. "We stayed at home in New Orleans East. We went to bed and when we woke up, our little house was flooded."
For three days, the family -- two parents, son and dog -- remained stranded with no food, water or electricity.
"We prayed, had faith in the Lord," she said. "He gave us dry shelter."
During those days after the hurricane, only Bo had something to eat.
"My husband was able to walk to where the dog food was," Martin-Marrero said.
When the water finally began to recede, the family tried to find help. But their pet refused to leave the house.
"Bo, not liking to take a bath, didn't want to get in the water," Martin-Marrero said. "So we told him to watch the house. We worried about him every day we were gone."
It took several tries and several days before the family reached help and they wound up at the city's convention center. The last time they saw their dog, they left him all the food and water they could and hoped for the best.
"We shut the door tight," Martin-Marrero said. "He was like, 'You're all going to work. I'll see you this evening.' "
She's not sure how long Bo was left alone, but she believes it was at least two weeks.
* * *
Tens of thousands of animals were separated from their owners in the flooding and chaos that followed Katrina. The Web site Petfinder.com has acted as a meeting place where pet owners and rescuers could find each other. Its database lists 20,000 animals and 17,000 people searching for their pets. Many of them, like Bo, had no identification. When the family left him, he did have tags, but Martin-Marrero figures he wiggled out of his collar during a rescue attempt.
A spokeswoman for the company said it has helped reunite about 2,000 animals.
"We're getting them home every day," said Kim Saunders, vice president for shelter outreach. "It's pretty exciting."
Some people have lost their homes, their jobs, their every possession. For them, having a pet returned can be the one bright spot in an overwhelming tragedy.
"People consider pets to be part of their family," Saunders said. "They lost their family, but at least they didn't lose that."
* * *
With the family's permission, Bo was taken to the vet and neutered this week. After a brief recovery, he'll be flying to Dallas, where his owners have resettled. Taylor and friend Kim Zappulla will be along for the ride. Taylor said she felt a connection with the family, especially given that she has a dog of her own named Bo.
"We're helping the animals, but we're also helping the people, too," she said.
Martin-Marrero said her family can't wait to see their dog again. Willie, now 14, can't wait to be with his pal again, especially since he's living in a new town with few friends.
"I had nobody to play with or nothing," he said. "It was sad sometimes. I'm so happy that he's alive."
About the Bloggers
Daily Breeze reporter Donna Littlejohn has shared her homes with a succession of wonderful, funny, and occasionally difficult canines -- Muffin, Fritz, Ellie, Mercy, Pilgrim and now Cowboy, an Australian shepherd-border collie, and Tess, a border collie. From strong-willed terriers to weirdly obsessed Australian shepherds, they've invaded her world with boundless energy, wet noses, muddy paws and soggy tennis balls. But they've really brought so much more than that -- like laughter and joy, some unexpected life lessons, and more than a few tears along the way.
E-mail Donna at donna.littlejohn@dailybreeze.com.
Josh Grossberg grew up with the usual array of animals: goldfish, dogs, hamsters, parakeets and turtles. He now owns the loudest dog in the South Bay(Video: Rocket the Dog) and is the least popular person on his block. He spends his free time in dog parks, pet shops and always has an extra plastic bag in his pocket just in case. He also has a cat.
E-mail Josh at josh.grossberg@dailybreeze.com.
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