Reunions & adoptions

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:

Reunions with lost pets occurred as far away as the Marin
County Humane Society, north of San Francisco, where pediatrician
Brenda Singh on September 16 found her nine-year-old Welsh springer
spaniel Lady, two weeks after the dog bolted from a friend at a
Baton Rouge evacuation center.
In all, San Francisco Bay area shelters fostered at least 14
planeloads of animals, mostly flown from Louisiana and Mississippi
by Operation Orphans of the Storm, coordinated by real estate
developer Bill McLaughlin.
Other participants included Countryside Rescue, the
Berkeley/East Bay Humane Society, the East Bay SPCA, the Peninsula
Humane Society, Pets Lifeline, the SPCA of Monterey County, the
Sacramento SPCA, the San Francisco SPCA, the San Jose Animal Care
Center, the Humane Society of Sonoma County, and personnel from the
San Francisco Department of Animal Care & Control.

The first major airlift of animals from New Orleans,
however, was Operation Pet Lift, organized by PetRelocation.com and
funded by Texas oil baron T. Boone Pickens at request of his wife
Madeleine. About 80 dogs were flown from Baton Rouge to San
Francisco on September 11, half for local placement, the rest for
relay to foster homes found by the Helen Woodward Animal Center,
near San Diego.
“Usually only a few people show up at the center when it
opens, but more than 20 waited to see the ‘Katrina dogs,'” reported
Debbi Farr Baker of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “Fourteen of the 38
dogs at the center who were rescued from the ravaged Gulf Coast
states were offered for adoption,” Farr Baker continued. “The
shelter would not identify which dogs came from where. Spokesperson
John Van Zante said that almost all of their dogs are from other
shelters and all need homes.
“San Diego Humane Society spokesperson Zimran Zilaro said
that having extra animals here does not displace animals who are
already sheltered,” Farr Baker added. “Instead, people who
otherwise might not have thought of taking home a shelter pet may now
be spurred to do so.”
The San Diego Humane Society also offered animals displaced
by the Katrina/Rita crisis for adoption. Thirteen San Diego Humane
society personnel participated in the Louisiana rescue effort.