A dozen dogs are now safe after a Best Friends rescue team pulled them from the storm-ravaged peninsula of Port Bolivar near Galveston Island.
One young pit-bull mix enthusiastically greeted the team as they opened the back door to his house.He was adorable, and he literally jumped up on me and licked me and gave me the doggie hug, says Rich Crook, who is leading the team on the ground where Hurricane Ike struck southeast Texas. He was so happy to see just anybody.
Also happy to see them were a Sheltie and a small mixed-breed dog inside the same home. A good chunk of that community was gone, but that house was still there and these little guys survived, Rich says.
At another house, three black dogs were trapped on a porch because the steps to the house had been torn away by the Category 3 hurricane. As the team approached, those dogs also greeted the team with wagging tails. The house was on stilts and the stairs were gone, Rich says. They couldn't go anywhere. They were stuck. Team members backed up Best Friend's panel truck to the porch and lifted the dogs into it.
Of the dozen dogs rescued on September 18, just one was skittish. He was what I would consider street-smart, Rich says. He ducked under a car and we got him out and put him inside an [animal control] truck. The others, he says, were clearly owned animals. We were pulling them from houses. The previous day, team members saved four dogs, one kitten and a warthog during their initial rescue operation.
All pets rescued by the Best Friends team are taken to the Galveston County Health District Animal Control Shelter in Texas City. Many are then cared for by Shelter Buddies, a local rescue group that is continuing the work they did before the storm: fostering, helping with medical care, reuniting pets with their families, and finding new homes for displaced dogs and cats.
A few cleanup workers were in the area, along with a handful of residents, even though locals hadn't yet been given the green light to return to the area. One nice thing about working in an area like the peninsula is the local communities all know each other, Rich says. They were giving us invaluable information. They know the dogs' owners.
The team plans to continue their rescue effort, working beside animal control officers with Galveston County, which invited Best Friends to help in the rescue and recovery effort.
We are going out again tomorrow, Rich says.
Written by Cathy Scott
Photo by Joe Winston
The shelter is in need of supplies such as pet food, flea treatment, de-wormer, disposable kitty litter pans and collapsible wire cages. The shelter's address is Galveston County Animal Shelter, 3412 Loop 197 North, Texas City, TX 77590.
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This article is courtesy of Best Friends Animal Society