Have you seen this dog?

[frustrated_lefty]

Hi guys,

For those who don't know, my family and I were among the evacuees from Katrina.

I've been away from the boards until recently, trying to get my family back into a semi-stable environment. We're ok now. I've got a new job in Philadelphia, everyone has clothing, we've got food on the table and a roof over our heads.

Genuine thanks go to the people of San Antonio and the DU-ers in Texas who helped or offered to help get us back on our feet. It's been difficult and would have been virtually impossible without the kindness and support that was so freely and generously given.

The one thing we haven't been able to do is recover our dog. It seems unlikely at this late date, but if anyone has seen the dog shown in my icon please pm me. His name is "Spunk," which was on his name tag. He was left at 2027 South Salcedo St in New Orleans. He's 1 yr old, intact, a chow/lab mix, amber eyes, loves to jump amazingly high and is a bug-hunter extraordinaire.

We've gone through all of the major online sites and used a pay service to send out a national alert looking for him. Three separate pet-retrieval groups were contacted with information regarding him on Sept.4, '05.

Funkybutt has generously offered to check with our old neighbors.

If you've seen him, please let me know. :(

[egadsbrain]

1. These may help with the search...

What a handsome dog... do you know his petfinder ID number? I'll keep my eyes open for him. I'm fostering a couple "Katrina Cats" and have found lots of good tips for searching for their people. Stealth Volunteers started out just looking for people, but have branched out somewhat and many members are now searching for pets too. I'm guessing you know about them already... but just in case, here's their website:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stealthvolunteers/

Lots of great "finders" here too:
http://forums.petfinder-network.com/viewforum.php?f=16&sid=876f453d4fe29140e4db4778fbeffc98
http://www.nola.com/forums/animals/index.ssf

Photo sites to search:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/danakay
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spiritsmom/

Search aid:
http://forums.petfinder-network.com/viewtopic.php?t=85902

Another aspect of the disaster continues as people finally start putting the pieces of their lives together and have the means to look for their pets. Pets scattered to shelters and rescues all over the country, many animals already adopted out to new homes who will not give them up, shelters refusing to post the animals they rescued for their people to find them, dogs and cats "lost" in the system set up to save them. New litters being born on the streets, strays and ferals being killed and abused, and on and on.

[egadsbrain]

2. Lots of chow mixes here...

frustrated, there are still dogs being rescued every day, so it's worth a try to keep looking. The avatars must be disabled today so I couldn't see if any are a close match. Let me know if I can help in any way. I'm glad you and your family are ok!

http://disaster.petfinder.com/emergency/rescue/search.cgi?typefound=1&disaster=KATRINA&animal=Dog&breed=chow&sex=M&fullText=&location=new+orleans%2C+la&street=&idtype=&idvalue=&name=&dateSince=&limit=40&tmpl=0

[frustrated_lefty]

3. Hi egadsbrain

and thanks. :) We do check petfinder periodically to see if he shows up there, but no luck so far. There were several mixed chows which closely resembled Spunk. On following up, though, they haven't been him. One of the give-aways is that none of Spunk's paws are white.

It's heartbreaking, not only to have hopes dashed time and again, but to see how many pets are still unclaimed after all this time.

I'll let you know if anything comes from following the urls you've provided. Many thanks for pointing them out.

fl

[shireen]

4. keep checking

disaster.petfinder.com

new entries listed all the time.

i can't see your icon ... DU probably has it turned off due to traffic..

have you done a search on your street and nearby streets? And similar breeds? Sometimes, breeds are not identified correctly.
Here's a chow-chow mix from your street
http://disaster.petfinder.org/emergency/rescue/reportDetail.cgi?id=30936


People are still searching for pets. I'm volunteering for Best Friends to do searches, concentrating mostly on chihuahuas, beagles, dachshunds, and corgis. But searches have slowed down a lot. Also, many shelters are being real asses and not allowing owners to reclaim their dogs. A few lawsuits are going to be filed soon.

BTW, petfinder.com is going to make major changes soon, allowing shelters to remove all contact info. That means even if you find your pet, you may not be able to find out where it is. HSUS and ASPCA have already been pressuring them to shut down the AERN database, but to petfinder's credit, they have resisted so far. But changes are coming ....

[Up2Late]

5. Good to see/hear you are O.K., we are slowly getting our NOLA DUer's back

You might want to search the October/November time frame (DU archive and active), we had a lot of "Pet Recovery" threads about that time.

[frustrated_lefty]

6. Hi Shireen and Up2Late

Thanks for the suggestions and I've replied to pms.

I have been digging through the archives. AZDemDist6 was kind enough to point out my car:



Still no luck with finding Spunk, though. It's disheartening. His tag had our names and address on it. We should have gotten one of those damned microchips. :(

[funkybutt]

7. No luck yet Lefty :(

I've put up your flyers and also put them on the residence you suggested. I'll keep trying. I thought I found him once on Vincinees but that dog's ears stand up, so I realized it wasnt' Spunky. Before you contacted me, I saw a pack of 5 dogs on S. Lopez. One of them seemed to match the description but at the time, I wasn't aware of your lost dog. I haven't seen that pack since, but I did call the SPCA several times about them. I'm assuming that they got picked up. Have you contacted LASPCA?

If it's any consolation, which it probably isn't, there are open bags of dog food around. None of the strays I've spotted seemed hungry or ill.

I won't give up Lefty. I keep your flyer with his pic in my car and I'm in the area every day. Keep the faith!