In the chaos of the first two weeks that animals were being rescued, the Humane Society was underprepared and overwhelmed. As a result, many of the pets that were rescued and brought to the Lamar Dixon Expo Center (under HSUS management) were NOT properly inventoried. As I walked through Lamar Dixon last week, I noticed many of the charts on animals' cages said "no petfinder". I was told at the information table that each animal that was brought there, was given an I.D. number with two polaroids taken (the number written on both). One polaroid was to go with the animal on their chart, the second was to go to Petfinder to be posted on the internet (for their owners to find them).

I am highly concerned that this has not been the case, or at least it was not done thoroughly. I also was trying to help track down a dog that Pasado had rescued and relinquished to the Lamar Dixon center - however the only hope for the owner (she had called Pasado looking for her dog) was to tell her to go directly to Gonzales and look through all 2500 cages of animals to see if her dog is there. The HSUS has lost track of many animals, and even if their records show they have the animal - they can not tell you what barn or what row or cage number the pet is in. Very disappointing - especially knowing they have processed over 5000 animals in the first three weeks since the Hurricane.

Here is one Maryland man who is taking his own initiative to help match up lost pets with their owners. He has travelled to Houston, to start gathering information from the people sheltered there to find out what pets they have lost and the descriptions. Patrick Allen owner of software company called The Caplen Company

Check out the results of his efforts at Animal Emergency Response Network

Here are some other online resources:



Breed Specific Sites: