A Ray of sunshine

Barely a day goes by that I don't feel compelled to write.

It balances my mood, resets my counter, and puts the world back in order.

So when I read this passage by Ray Bradbury, I couldn't help but feel kinship with a writer I've never known. A writer who has achieved success beyond my wildest wordsmith dreams. I feel humble and filled with gratitude for what his words have done for me today.

* * *

To sum it all up, if you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling.

You must write every single day of your life.

You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next.

You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads.

I wish for you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime.

I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you.

May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories—science fiction or otherwise.

Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.

- Ray Bradbury, one of the greatest authors America has ever known

Follow animal instincts to vet a vet

Dr. Kimberly Barron works on this Labrador's ears.


When people ask me how to choose a vet, I always tell them the same thing.

If the veterinary team in question is committed to assisting the animal rescue mission, then you’ve found a keeper.

It’s true, I admit it—I’m biased. But after two decades as an animal rescuer, this litmus test has served me well. Veterinarians and their assistants who support animal welfare are almost always knowledgeable and compassionate. And they have the animals’ best interests at heart. Plus they care about the well-being of all creatures in their community, not just the clinic’s bottom line.

When I moved to Bellingham, Washington in 2001, one of my first stops was a visit to Dr. Kimberly Barron, owner of Northshore Veterinary Hospital.

Kim has served on the Whatcom Humane Society board of directors. She’s donated her time and medical skills to rescue groups and supported initiatives such as spay-neuter days at her clinic. She understands the issues.

Eight years later, I’m proud to call Kim a friend.

When my cat Opus fell sick recently, the knowledge that I had Kim in the pocket was a source of great comfort. If the worst happened, Kim would be there to help me take Opus’ life as humanely and painlessly as possible.

Kim’s competence alone would have been enough to endear her to me. And her personality complements her skills. Kind but not gushy, matter-of-fact but nowhere near cold, Kim has a friendly, good-humored demeanor that inspires serenity and soothes grief.

But that doesn’t mean she isn’t affected by her work.

Those in veterinary medicine who truly care about their charges face the same risks of compassion fatigue and burnout that test shelter workers and other rescuers.

But there’s a difference. At a shelter or rescue group, the human guardian most often walks away, leaving the animal behind as the only creature in need.

In a vet clinic, a human being is the first patient to present in need, characterized by sorrow, heartbreak, or other personal problems such as divorce, illness, and job loss, even a need to give up an animal because of an unexpected move or other change in circumstances.

At Kim’s clinic on Electric Avenue, any one of her clients might be losing a member of the family on any day. Or every day.

That means Kim and the rest in her veterinary ranks minister to the people just as much as they help the animals.

It takes its toll on her to support her clients’ emotions.

“Sometimes it comes out as being really irritable or depressed, and I don’t really know where it’s coming from,” Kim said. “And then I realize I’ve been doing a ton of euthanasias. Even if it’s for the good of the animals, it’s still really hard to do it.”

Before I arrived with Opus on her final day, Kim had decided she was going to take a break from euthanizing until the following week. She had already taken the lives of two cats and a dog in the previous 24 hours.

When the bodies start to pile up, Kim doesn’t sleep well.

“It’s not guilt or remorse,” she said. “I know it needs to be done. But it takes its toll.”

Another veterinarian at her clinic had offered to take over for a bit while Kim recuperated.

But in the end, Kim decided to perform the procedure. To follow the case through to its final conclusion.

It wasn’t an easy euthanasia. Opus doesn’t react well to leaving her home environment. Just like when she’s receiving a simple vaccination, Opus fought the injection that would shut her system down for good.

It’s the third cat Kim has euthanized for me in four years.

I know there will be more goodbyes in my future. But I’m comforted to think that Kim will be there, and not just for my animals.

For me, too.


To read the full story of Opus, go to "And then there were eight".

If you are interested in hearing more about Dr. Kim Barron and her animal rescue experiences, check out this story I wrote about animal hoarding. Kim's story is the lede.


Janet Erchinger-Davis rescued this pug from Craigslist to be a friend for her other four-year-old pug St. Coco. This one got an even loftier name: Basil the Great.


This woman brought a bird in for her daughter Korren, who has three rescued birds including one saved from a rodeo clown. This one, a sulfur-crested Cockatoo named Daphne, came by for a check-up.



The clinic had a record-setting day for number of teeth pulled: 42. Nine came from the mouth of eight-year-old Chunky B, a rescued Chihuahua who had been fed people food his whole life. He's been fixed up good as new, except for a new feature that's oddly endearing: his tongue has a tendency to stick out.


Licensed veterinary technician Rose Eastman does the Kennel Card Shuffle.

At a loss for words

One year after the storm, most neighborhoods were still lifeless. Only the grass came back. Houses were tossed about like toys, landing on different streets than the ones they belonged to.


Early last week, I promised to post Katrina coverage in chronology until I had the whole story outlined. I had intended for my stream-of-consciousness series to coincide with the four-year anniversary of the devastating storm.

It was about time I finally told this story right.

I’ve made many trips to New Orleans since the deadly flood in 2005 decimated the city. I couldn’t stay away. In fact, three out of the previous four years, I’ve been in the Big Easy at this time of year. Though "Easy" it wasn’t.

On all of the other anniversaries except the second, I was there to document the rescue and recovery mission.

But despite the volume of material I’ve gathered over the years—notes, photographs and stories from people willing to tell me how they survived it—so far, I haven’t told the story well. I’ve not been able to bring myself to sit down and write this epic from end-to-end.

Instead, I’ve been etching it out in bits and pieces.

Every time I went to write it, I’d sit there in front of my blinking computer cursor and freeze up. The tunnel of pain I had to crawl through in order to get to where I needed to go as a storyteller stopped me dead in my writer’s tracks. Even looking at photographs of the moldy houses we entered was enough to start me dry heaving as I remembered what we saw and smelled.

This year, I'd hoped it would be a healing exercise for me. I’d planned to start from the moment I stepped on a plane to rescue, and write through the mission following the progress as it continues now, so people would know what New Orleans is like today.

I put out the call to people who were there with me, and to those who are living there now. People I love and respect. We started to talk about it together. To share memories, stories, and photographs.

With four years passed, I had believed the pain wouldn’t be so fresh.

Was I wrong.

If you’ve been reading, you’ll know that I started to tell it.

Hope is born in a barn, Wednesday, September 2
Look into the light, Thursday, September 1
The silver lining after the storm, Monday, August 31

I had predicted I would be able to write six to 10 stories depending on my ability to achieve mental balance, and shut the story off when the writing was done.

Three stories in, and it’s already become too much. For me, and—I’d imagine—for some of you.

When I started writing it, I was right back there again. Reliving it in full color—the sights, the sounds, the smells. The nightmares.

Often it’s the same nightmare that plays repetitively, and I know others who have had it too. The animals are crying, and we are in the streets looking for them, crawling under rubble and searching. But we can’t find them. And when we do, we can’t catch them. They simply cry and die as we stand by helplessly.

Two years ago, this repetitive nightmare had me crawling off the opposite edge of the bed in the middle of the night. Just like when I had inched my belly along the ground under houses and mobile homes looking for animals who were lurking in the coolest hiding places they could find in the baking Louisiana heat.

I didn’t wake up until I crash-landed on the hardwood floor, breaking or cracking a couple of ribs. I’m not sure how many or how severe the damage, because I didn’t see a doctor. But I couldn’t walk for a week, and I was sore for a long while after.

Thousands of animal rescuers returned from New Orleans, but we didn’t really leave. I can’t even grasp how the locals feel. They tell me their stories and share their pain in gut-wrenching detail, but how can it be truly real to me when it wasn’t my life that was swept away?

This wasn’t our home, yet it became the place our hearts lived for a time.

And some hearts never returned. Umpteen marriages and relationships were destroyed when people who had been in the hot zone returned home changed, with altered definitions of what life meant to them.

Many refused to return home at all, preferring to erect new lives from the rubble. An animal sanctuary founder, a newly-minted animal control officer, a horse rescuer. They would all make New Orleans their new home.

Addictions took hold. Locally, and within our rescue community. The suicide rate in New Orleans tripled. Even some animal rescuers who witnessed the destruction succumbed, taking their own lives. People who had rescued beside us, who now couldn’t bear the pain of untreated post-traumatic stress disorder compounded by the tragedy that was already their troubled existence before Katrina annihilated what was left of their faith in humanity.

I noticed there was a common thread that strung all of us together. The ones who came on the scene to help, and those who called the city their home. People who stayed in New Orleans and abandoned their old lives. And the ones who deserted New Orleans to go on to new lives.

It was the guilt. That’s what claimed us all.

The feeling that we didn’t do enough to save the city, and its people, and the animals.

When in the end, we barely saved ourselves.


Trash piles were almost a relief because they signaled life was returning to the dead city.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Perhaps the fumes from the hairspray impaired my fashion judgment. That's the story I'm sticking with, anyway. If you got me too close to the campfire, I would have gone up like a Roman candle.


Up until a year ago, I was regularly accused of being too harsh when writing about animal rescue. The blood, the guts, the gore. I told it all. I even wrote a manuscript for a children’s book that drove my focus group to tears.

But I didn’t do it for the sake of gratuitously shocking people. I wrote it raw because I wanted readers to see what I saw, to feel what I felt. To understand the untold suffering. I thought that if they were right there with me, they would grow motivated to take action.

Little did I know that writing the whole truth would accomplish just the opposite—nothing. The effect was reversed. The converted were traumatized and didn’t want to read about the horror they were already living amidst much of the time. In their leisure moments, they wanted to escape. And the outsiders just got annoyed and defensive about having the ugliness shoved in their faces.

One by one, people whose creative minds I respected told me it was too much. That I needed to tone it down. Soften the story. Wrap my words in velvet, so to speak.

I heard them, but—to be honest—didn’t really listen.

It wasn’t until I started writing my own rescue blog that the tides of understanding finally turned for me. I realized people would stop reading if everything I wrote was sad. It would be a mental overload and a downer and they’d never return to read my stories again.

I began to think in terms of ratios. I would write eight happy stories for every two sad ones I posted. Or seven to three. Or nine to one.

And seeking out the items with happy endings gave me an unexpected bonus result: a better frame of mind. I read once that we feel what we think. Seeking out the joyous stories for readers, the ones that bring me to tears—of inspiration, not pain—propelled me to start living in that happier, more optimistic space. Hope was restored again.

So yesterday when I ran the story about my interview with sports star Troy Westwood on the horrors of dog fighting and Michael Vick, I thought I’d close with a shot of a happier time. Troy and I in our teenaged awkwardness, dressed up in full fancy ‘80s regalia, on our way out to a family wedding.

I almost didn’t post the shot because I didn’t want to frivolously detract from the serious nature of my story. But remembering the advice from my creative mentors, I reluctantly decided to give the piece an upbeat ending.

Little did I know my atrocious ‘80s hairdo would be what caught readers’ eyes, and give them something to laugh at. Every email I received mentioned the bird’s nest appropriate for a bald eagle.

So, in the spirit of good humor, I’ve dug up a few more for your viewing pleasure.

Let’s just say my hair is ending this story on a high note.


Notice the top of my hair didn't even fit into the photo. It wasn't the first time that happened in a picture.

Photo courtesy of the Winnipeg Free Press

Who could forget the crimping iron?

When I wrote for the Winnipeg Free Press in Manitoba, there would always be times when photographers needed a model at the last minute. Here I had been dragged in to get the shot for a story about the fur industry. I was already rescuing animals and clearly not impressed with modeling the coat. I remember feeling pretty disgusted about being wrapped up in dead animal fur.

I know why the caged bird sings

This is the cage I found myself inadvertently trapped inside when the locked door slammed behind me.

I was scrubbing my warehouse from top to bottom last weekend when I decided to give the outside of the doors a much-needed washing down. It was going fine until I got to the back door, which is screened in for a makeshift porch that surrounds it. It was built for Madison, one of my cats who has lived here on and off.

One side of the enclosure used to have a screen door. Unfortunately I forgot that the door had been removed and replaced by plain screening after a burglar broke it down last summer.

But that realization didn’t hit until the locked door banged closed behind me.

The screen’s not the flimsy kind, either. It’s the heavy-duty nylon-coated polyester advertised as “indestructible”, designed for pets and guaranteed to be impenetrable. Even against the most determined paws and claws.

Or fingers, in my case. I squeezed them through a small hole in the screen and tried to open it wider to no avail.

In this nearly vacant industrial park, no one could hear my pitiful, somewhat sheepish cries for help.

Standing inside the screened box, I knew how a caged animal feels. Helpless. Nervous. Powerless. And uncertain. About how much time would elapse before rescue.

Some minutes passed before I concluded no one was coming to help. It was up to me to take action. A short 2 x 6 piece of wood used to prop the door open would make an ideal battering ram. Slamming it against the edge where the staples met wood, I was able to pop the staples loose from the beams. I scraped my body through the sliver of an opening. It felt like crawling through barbed wire as the metal points scratched and cut my skin.

But I barely noticed the scrapes in my rush to get out into the open again, where the air seemed fresher.

For a few moments, I had been trapped like a bird in a cage, giving me new perspective on what the animals go through at the hands of human beings. How it feels to be at the mercy of people standing outside the cage walls.

Whether animal or human, there's something we have in common. We all just want to be rescued, freed from the cages that close us in.

Writer's note: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is poet Mayo Angelou's 1969 autobiography about her childhood.

A hot dog boils to death in a police car

A desperate dog trapped in a NOPD car this past May destroyed the interior in a futile attempt to escape. Photo by the Metropolitan Crime Commission.


I’ve worked hard to build up a tolerance for viewing horrific scenes of animal neglect and cruelty. If I didn’t thicken my skin, I couldn’t do my job writing about these chilling subjects. I’d simply have to stop, or fall apart.

But despite all that I see and read, there are still times when a story makes me recoil with sheer horror. Tears prick to my eyes, my heart starts hammering, and I feel physically sick to my stomach.

Today’s blog update was one of those moments. For days, I dreaded opening the link emailed to me by Shelly Patton, information technology manager for the Louisiana SPCA. Her shelter is helping to investigate a case of neglect that is typical in some ways. But highly unusual in another.

It’s the identity of the perpetrator that makes this incident of negligence noteworthy. He’s a New Orleans police officer from the K-9 unit. Someone hired to serve and protect. Someone who should have known better.

On May 27, officer Jason Lewis left his 6-year-old Belgian Malinois partner Primo locked up in his police car. Temperatures in New Orleans that day peaked at 88 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a desperate attempt to escape the sweltering torture chamber he found himself locked into, Primo ripped apart the interior of the vehicle, reducing its seats to shredded yellow foam.

By the time Primo was admitted to a veterinary clinic, his temperature had reached a shocking 109.8 degrees. Before he died, he collapsed and endured three seizures. Normal body temperature for a dog is 100 to 102.5 degrees.

"Those photos confirm the horrible and excruciating death this animal suffered," said Rafael Goyeneche, the president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission in New Orleans. "Police officers are supposed to treat these dogs as their partners."

The necropsy -- the animal version of an autopsy -- determined Primo's likely cause of death was "shock due to heat stress," according to the report compiled by the Louisiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory.

Primo wasn't the only dog to die in the care of the NOPD K-9 unit recently. Around the same time period, a canine named Phantom didn't survive the fall down an elevator shaft during a training exercise at a hospital. And a police dog named Carlos died from heartworms, a serious but treatable disease.

Thankfully, Lewis won’t be tasked with caring for another police dog. On June 21, he was transferred out of the K-9 unit to another district.

The NOPD has launched its own internal investigation through the Public Integrity Bureau, according to spokesman Bob Young. And the Orleans Parish district attorney's office is considering charging Lewis under Louisiana’s cruelty to animals statute.

Just like a human police officer, Primo risked his life to protect ours. And in exchange, he suffered a painful, terrifying death at the hands of his guardian. If the officer couldn’t even protect his dog, how could he be expected to protect us?

The word “Primo” means the best of its kind, and no doubt this police dog was one of the best of his breed.

Now it's time to get him the best justice.


Photo of Primo by Matt Rose of the Times-Picayune newspaper in New Orleans.


I've seen dogs locked up in hot cars on many occasions. People run into the grocery store for a few minutes thinking their dogs will survive. This card is handed out at Washington State car dealerships warning people of the dangers. It can be placed under an offender's windshield wipers.


When temperatures have reached only the low 80s outdoors, your car will become a furnace in minutes, even with the windows cracked.

• In 10 minutes, the inside of your car can reach 102 degrees Fahrenheit, or hotter.
• By 30 minutes, it will have heated up to 120 degrees.
• At 110 degrees Fahrenheit, your animal may have only minutes to live -- heatstroke will result in brain damage and a horrendous death.
  

Mowed down by progress

I watched in helpless horror as this poor deer kept trying to get up
and cross the road, despite her broken back legs.

Some days I'm scared to leave my house. But not because of agoraphobia.

It's the animals.

Everywhere I go, I find animals -- dumped, lost, frightened, injured. I regularly encounter horrific suffering that doesn't escape my mind once I leave the scene.

I'm not the only one who has this affliction for finding animals in trouble. Most of the rescuers I know report the same phenomenon.

It's gotten so I can't leave the house without a carload of rescue gear.

Today it was a deer who had been cut down by traffic. As I drove by, I spotted her lying marooned on the grassy center median of the busy freeway. She was crawling and trying to get up, but her disabled back legs kept failing her and knocking her back down again.

When I see an animal in trouble, all thoughts of personal safety evaporate.

I slammed on the brakes and hugged my car into the guardrail as the road's shoulder was rapidly disappearing. Just before it tapered off completely, I was able to lodge my car out of the path of traffic barreling at me from behind. The 5 Freeway is the main thoroughfare from Canada. All day, it rumbles with massive trucks.

As the vehicles rolled by, I tried to figure how I was going to travel the 500 feet or so backwards to get to her.

But first I fumbled with my cell phone and called 911.

With breaks in traffic coming in short bursts, I was able to back up close to the deer. I waited for my moment to shoot across, and drove my car onto the median.

I was careful to park a good distance away from her, because when I tried to get near, she struggled to get up and away, and back into the path of danger.

Like all wildlife, she was more scared of people than cars.

I stayed hidden behind my vehicle and watched her while I waited for the police to arrive. When the male and female officer got there, they kindly explained to me that there was nothing that could be done for a deer with broken legs.

I already knew that. All I wanted to know was when would this be over.

They got on their radio calling for wildlife rescuers to respond and perform the euthanasia.

But it didn't seem like they would be there fast enough. Again and again, she tried to get up and fell back onto the grass.

I begged them to shoot her and put her out of her misery, and they admitted that if they didn't get a rapid response, that's what they planned to do.

But not while I was there.

They wanted me to leave so they could stop traffic and do what needed to be done, without the tender eyes of the general public to witness it.

In rescue, there are cases that blur together, and those that stick out. The ones you don't forget haunt you because you couldn't do anything to help.

It doesn't matter that you did all you could.

Sometimes that's just not enough.

Joy to the world

Joy presents me with a Recovery Buddy appropriately named Stormy.


When I'm interviewing animal rescuers, I've stopped asking if something horrible happened to them in the past.

Instead, I ask what happened.

Was it abuse? Neglect? Violence at the hands of human beings?

That's because I've noticed that people who risk their livelihoods, their health, even their own lives to save animals have usually been victims of trauma themselves, often from experiences that stretch back to their tender childhoods.

Whether it's because they identify passionately with the underdogs, or they have lost hope in human beings, the rescuers I've encountered turn to animals instead of people to find safe, rewarding, unconditional love.

My kind friend Joy is a dedicated animal lover. We first met when we landed on the scene of disaster in New Orleans in September 2005 following Hurricane Katrina's history-making devastation. We had both self-deployed to rescue the emaciated, injured animals left behind to die in a flooded wasteland devoid of people to care for them.

Like many of us, Joy has found a dangerous way to cope with her inner demons. Her soothing behavior of choice is self-injury. She began the behavior as a teenager.

Self-injurers might cut, burn, hit or scratch themselves. It's a disorder that mystifies many laypeople, who can't fathom inflicting pain on their bodies to bring comfort to their minds. But I understand Joy's actions. The physical pain she inflicts causes her to forget her mind's pain for a moment, and the distraction brings relief. It might also be an attempt to ease feelings of emptiness or numbness. The pain allows sufferers to feel alive because they are feeling something.

Joy -- who works as a veterinary technician -- recently spent a 30-day stint at a recovery clinic in Texas. That's where she discovered that a small item gave her big comfort.

Upon arrival at the clinic, she was handed a Recovery Buddy to help her through the difficult moments. Joy recalls clutching her yarn-covered soft toy as she weathered the lonely times away from friends and family.

Before I made the trip to visit Joy near her home, she asked me what my favorite colors were. I said black and blue. That's appropriate because I'm notorious for being a clumsy oaf.

And so, over a leisurely lunch, she presented me with Stormy, a black-and-blue Recovery Buddy she had knitted herself.

I was touched. The Buddies are knitted by survivors like Joy, who donate them to clinics around the country. The toys provide comfort to people battling a variety of mental health disorders.

The doll's appearance was apt on more than one level. Stormy sums up my circumstances right now. And don't forget -- Joy and I crossed paths in the aftermath of the most devastating storm in American history.

As I write this, Joy is madly knitting up a batch of 50 Recovery Buddies that are destined for an eating disorder clinic in Florida. She plans to enclose encouraging notes with words to comfort the recipients. Like them, she's been there.

Joy's found a way to make herself feel better. Instead of hurting herself, she's helping others.

And she's figuring out that this storm, too, will pass.

What happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas

Louisiana is one of the big dog-fighting states. The Louisiana SPCA created this logo as part of their campaign to stamp out the blood sport just before Hurricane Katrina hit and the shelter and the entire city surrounding it was submerged.

It's been more than a week since I returned home from the Animal Care Expo. Perhaps you've noticed that I've been at a loss for words ever since.

It's not because the conference was a snoozer. As you'll see in the coming days, there were many compelling stories that came out of the event, which was sponsored by the Humane Society of United States.

Shelter workers, veterinarians and independent rescuers listened at full attention to the prestigious line-up of presenters. The nation's best-known investigators shared their experiences working on high-profile animal cases. That included the people who helped convict Michael Vick of dog fighting. And expert witnesses who testified in the San Francisco murder trial of Diane Whipple, who was mauled to death in the hallway of her apartment building by two Presa Canario/mastiff mixes named Bane and Hera.

So why my somber silence?

I can't shake the thoughts of the photographs and videos we viewed for days. It boggles my mind to imagine the mental make-up of the human beings that derive satisfaction from inflicting pain on helpless creatures. Images of neglect, cruelty, and even bestiality were screened. At times it was tough to watch. Pictures of animals in agony are still creeping into my mind.

Sadly, I know it won't be long before the images presented at Expo will be replaced by fresh ones from somewhere else.

Still, there is an inspiring side to Expo. Being surrounded by like-minded people who have devoted their lives to helping animals makes one feel less alone in a calling that seems hopeless at times.

I'm just reviewing my conference notes now. More to come on dog fighting, forensics, and puppy mills, so please keep reading.

Dogs rescued from neglect won't suffer any longer

This dog spent his days in the darkness of this dirty shed. Note his nose poking out from the bottom left corner of the yellow door.

Even the sweetest day of the year doesn’t give dedicated rescuers in the field pause from heartbreak.

While many people celebrated love with their heart throbs on Valentine’s Day, I was consoling a New Orleans animal control officer whose heart had been torn apart. You met 22-year-old Melanie Fenwick last week. She’s the red-haired rescuer who came upon three dogs existing on a trash-strewn, derelict property.

The place is like so many others that litter the post-Katrina wasteland. Buildings that were submerged under dirty floodwaters are moldy, tattered shells.

In this case, two three-year-old pit bulls were being housed in dark, dilapidated sheds. The third, a five-month-old puppy, was clamoring to escape from the cab of a junked pick-up truck.

During one site visit, Melanie found a dog tethered on a heavy chain next to a burning pile of debris. There wasn’t even a bowl of water to quench his thirst as he sat breathing in the toxic fumes.

Melanie and her partner Travis Causey hoped they could orchestrate a happy ending to this story. They instructed the dogs’ guardian to make changes towards improving their welfare.

“Those pictures were not the worst ones,” said Fenwick, referring to the photographs posted to the blog story, Officers help dogs living in dismal conditions, February 10, 2009.

There isn’t a happily-ever-after ending for these dogs.

On Friday, the case went to court. The owner struck a plea bargain. He agreed to relinquish his two older dogs to the Louisiana SPCA. In exchange, some charges were dropped – a neighbor had spotted one of his dogs roaming at large, and none of them had rabies vaccinations. But the neglect charges stuck, and he pled guilty to three counts. One for each dog.

Now the fate of the two dogs turned over to LA SPCA had to be decided.

Prospects for pit bulls needing homes are grim at best, hopeless at worst. Most shelters I visit are overloaded with them. Many shelters won’t even put them up for adoption, fearing liability to their organization, or mistreatment of the animals. Pits are often euthanized upon arrival. Some organizations will consider adopting well-behaved pit bulls if the dog -- and the potential adopter -- pass rigorous assessments.

Louisiana SPCA does place pit bulls. But tragically, the dogs rescued in this case have several strikes against them. They aren’t babies anymore. At three years of age, people will look right past them and gravitate towards the plentiful puppies. And they tested positive for heartworm. The mosquitoes nurtured by the steamy climate of the bayou carry the parasites. The disease is expensive to treat and requires weeks of quiet rest. It’s not practical to offer this peaceful convalescent environment in the shelter’s chaotic setting.

And the pit bulls seized have other marks against them -- significant scarring to the skin that might be viewed as battle scars.

“We don’t want them fought, and we don’t want people coming into the shelter thinking, ‘Oh, this is a good fighting dog,’ ” Melanie said. “Nothing with scars goes up.”

The dogs were scheduled to die soon, this past Friday or Saturday perhaps. I don’t know if they are still alive. If they are, their time is coming. Possibly as you are reading this. Take some comfort in knowing that, unlike how they were treated in life, their deaths will be handled with humanity and compassion.

If you feel compelled to act and memorialize them, there is something important that you can do. Educate someone you know who is thinking of breeding their companion animal. Whether they own a pit bull or another type of animal, you will be saving lives. There is an epic overpopulation crisis. There are simply not enough homes. It’s time for all of us to act.

Back in New Orleans, the sheds where the dogs lived in misery have already been torn down by the landlord.

“His house really shouldn’t be inhabited,” Melanie said. “He didn’t have a proper place to put the dogs.”

Melanie won her case. But she’s frustrated. The win begets a loss. Unlike people who minister to human beings, animal rescuers aren’t just tasked with saving their charges. In many cases, they are also responsible for deciding who lives, and who dies.

Melanie consoles herself with the knowledge that their last few days at the shelter will likely be the best times for these dogs. And like most rescuers I meet, she’s more worried about the dog going home than the ones scheduled to die. The five-month-old puppy will be returned to his guardian this week. Melanie will be back to check on him soon.

“I care about the well-being of the dogs,” she said. “It’s good that they’re not going to spend the rest of their lives on the end of a chain. They won’t have to live through that again. At least they’ll have shelter and food until the end."

Update on rescuer shot recently—she's home!

For those of you keeping Bunny in your thoughts and prayers, I'm posting this follow-up from her sister-in-law Shelly Patton.

Carreen, you captured the essence of Bunny beautifully. When she is feeling stronger, I look forward to watching her read this. She isn’t aware of the blogger’s comments and for now that is best. When she begins to seek out information on her own, I know this writing will be such a blessing to her, set apart by the tenderness with which you wrote. On behalf of Bunny and our family, thank you.

She is out of the hospital and in the best environment possible for healing; surrounded by her children, grandson and ferrets, with family and friends filtering in and out ensuring she is not alone. I’ve seen Bunny smile.

Still, it will be a long journey before she is truly home, but she isn’t walking alone.

Thank you to everyone for walking with her through your prayers and well wishes.

Shelly

Animal rescuer shot in the face

She has always been spellbound by animals.

Even as a little girl.

Her love for creatures was so intense that she changed her name when she was in high school. Her nickname had to describe a girl who hopped around with enthusiasm. From then on, she was Bunny.

Now 60 years old, the New Orleans-area woman is devoted to rescuing orphaned baby wildlife. Gently and patiently, she nurses them back to health.

But a week ago, she was the one who needed to be rescued.

Like most people in the hurricane-ravaged region, the road back to self-sufficiency has been long and hard for gregarious, rambunctious Bunny. She lost her house to Katrina’s devastating blow.

Then it happened again.

In September, Gustav swept through the Gulf Coast, destroying her trailer. In a left-for-dead city plagued by skyrocketing crime and rampant homelessness, Bunny had finally found a temporary place for herself and her 14-year-old daughter in a motel room.

But none of that compares to what happened to Bunny on January 3rd.

In a quest to find better accommodations, she rented the bottom half of a house from a man who placed a Craigslist ad seeking a renter. For several weeks, she had been moving her possessions into the house. Then, on the day she was scheduled to make his home hers, the 57-year-old man lured her into a strip mall parking lot and shot her in the face. One 25-calibre bullet lodged there, shattering her jaw. The second pierced her cheekbone, settling in her sinus cavity. A third tore into her shoulder. The fourth grazed her back and landed in the car seat.

If she hadn’t slumped over her steering wheel and played possum, she wouldn’t be here to tell the story.

Bunny’s passion for animals isn’t the only reason I feel kinship for this gutsy woman. She’s the sister-in-law of Louisiana SPCA staffer Shelly Patton. Besides being a dear friend, Shelly is a frequent contributor to this blog. She wrote to me about the shooting.

“When she opened her eyes, his car was gone,” Shelly said. “She started the van and drove back to the strip mall, parking behind the stores. After trying to reach her oldest daughter twice by cell phone, she called 911.”

Bunny is unable to speak. But being a bubbly chatterbox, she’s still fighting to tell the story in her own words. For now, she’s communicating by madly scribbling in a notebook. Fittingly, given how she saved herself, she’s also using a possum puppet as a prop and a book on ventriloquism.

Despite her troubles, Bunny hasn’t forgotten about the animals.

“All she wants to do is get home with her ferrets,” Shelly said. “Bunny focuses so much love and attention on her animals.”

Even in her excruciating pain, Bunny made a courageous decision. She’s stopped taking pain medications. The drowsy feeling makes her feel helpless, and that’s when memories of the shooting creep in.

“She would rather deal with the pain than lose her sharpness of mind,” Shelly said. “Her face is torn up inside. The piece of bone that hinges her jaw to her skull is gone. Her nose is broken, her sinuses pressurized by blood. And she stops her pain meds. I knew she was tough, but I had no idea. I have a whole new respect for that woman.”

The physical pain doesn’t compare to the mental torture her attacker has inflicted.

“Bunny’s greatest suffering right now is from terror,” Shelly said. “I don’t know if Bunny has ever really been afraid. She cries when she talks of being afraid. Thankfully, she is talking of being afraid.”

Shelly has been visiting Bunny in the hospital, where doctors are determined to piece her back together again.

“She looks like a human, Goth god hybrid,” Shelly said. “Black lips, black shading under and around the eyes, deep purple patterns painted along the left cheekbone, chin, and down the neck, a blank facial expression caused by the drooping left side. But the eyes are so bright. There is life in the eyes. It is very eerie.”

Not everyone has been a source of comfort for Bunny. As is typical, many bloggers have been cruel. These sanctimonious cowards saw an opportunity to kick a woman named Bunny after she was taken down. From the anonymity of their computer screens, dozens of bloggers weighed in with their high and mighty opinions, blaming Bunny for what happened because she answered an Internet ad.

Saying that she deserved what she got.

Their righteous, heartless attitude churns my stomach. It’s easy for them to point fingers from the comfort of their safe homes. Bunny is a woman just trying to survive in a wasteland, a dark place that tried to waste her.

But from what I hear, the courageous, indefatigable spirit that defines Bunny won’t be dimmed by their ugly words.

“Bunny is the most perpetually happy person I have ever met,” Shelly said. “She lost her home in Katrina. She continued to smile. She lost her trailer in Gustav. She continued to smile. She has lost so much through her life, starting with her innocence in childhood. She has always smiled.

“I hope I see Bunny smile again.”

More details of this baffling crime are available in The Times-Picayune newspaper article.