Here is a first hand account of what it is like when they find the dogs who were let loose by their owners hoping that someone would find their pets once the initial danger was over. They their pets would survive the Tsunami and be able to fend for themselves until help arrived.
Kenn Sakurai in Japan
Status Report 03/15/11 Tuesday
Dogs rescued: 32
Cats and others: 20
Staff injured (broken rib) while the rescued dog on his back has suddenly struggled and the rider and bike with the dog fell off from the narrow mountain road.
Ordered total of 6 dozen of cages with various sizes by the Shelters. Those are made by the frame welders and carpenters at each site.
Gathering the numbers, total of 120 plus dogs are rescued (as of Monday Afternoon in the US) by their organization. About half of them had the waterproof (mostly letter or memo in the Ziplock bag) notes attached to the collar telling its name and their home address and phone numbers.
They are the dogs released while the owner or the family was trying to getaway from the Tsunami. Some of the attached bags had money in it.
The present problem, a big one is that the regional offices are having the hard time making the list of those who have survived whereabouts.
So it would be long for those dogs to be reunited with their owner families and that means we need more cages, related stuffs and staff and more.
It too two hours to take them (two dogs) to the closest shelter. The guys who had done that had the bigger plastic cage on the back of the (motor) bike. Having such weight on the back is risky for going the way with no road.
Oh my…*leaky eyes* Have to say we have been so caught up in the trauma of it all we did not think about the befores as much as the after-effects… people setting their animals free in the hope that they had a better chance of survival. That is true love. x x