in 
Katrina
Katrina Thursday
14Dec
Dog Gone, and Back
Thursday, December 14, 2006 at 10:43PM Jessica had hurt her back, and it was a dog's fault. This alone did not make her story unusual, though. Over the years I have treated many a sprained back, more by far than I would care to, and over this time I have heard so many outlandish injury stories that even "my dog did it" does not stand out. One former patient of mine was hospitalized after she tripped over her dog and rolled down a few steps. Another patient, a middle aged man, laid himself up for a week after swinging a forty pound bag of dog food onto a shelf. Yet another had an encounter with a tree after swerving to miss his neighbor's dog on the way to work.
A dog-hurt-my-back story? It would take more than that to impress me.
"Well, it wasn't actually the dog itself that did it. I was on my way to Pittsburgh to testify in court to get my dog back, and I slipped on the walkway to the plane and fell on my back. It has been hurting me ever since. I have this pain just to the left side of my lower spine, and it shoots down my leg."
"Okay, wait. You traveled 1,400 miles to see a judge about your dog?" I shifted in my seat. This one might be good after all.
"Yes, I did. It was my son's dog, and I wanted him to get it back. A woman in Pittsburgh had it, and she wouldn't give it back to us."
Naturally I wanted to hear more about this story, but she had not come in to talk about her dog. I addressed the medical issues at hand. Once she had answered my inquiries about the mechanism of injury, and the intensity, location, radiation, duration, and character of the pain, I moved on to the physical exam. As I usually do during a physical, I asked Jessica a few personal and social questions. The layperson might call this small talk, but to bill for it we doctors prefer the term "obtaining a social history."
"Tell me more about this dog." I said, as I palpated her cervical lymph nodes.
She did. Jessica was a longtime patient of mine, first visiting me at my practice in Chalmette, Louisiana. After Hurricane Katrina destroyed Chalmette and forced me to Mississippi, Jessica found me. She and her family had moved to the country town of Amite, LA, and she still commuted to her old job in New Orleans.
Jessica rode out Hurricane Katrina with her husband and son in Chalmette. It is not clear to me why they decided to stay behind, considering the extreme danger and the fact that they had a three year-old with them. Jessica has always been rather vague about it, simply insisting that their car had broken down. At any rate, they did stay behind, and soon regretted their decision. Their home was flooded with 7 feet of water minutes after the levee broke, and the three of them had to scramble up the attic ladder to keep from drowning. They escaped from the attic by cutting through the roof with a hammer and chisel, and waited on top of their house for an entire day before being rescued by the Coast Guard. They fled first to a shelter in Baton Rouge, and eventually ended up in Amite. They lost everything they had to the hurricane.
Everything except, unbeknownst to them, their dog. Brownie, a 25 pound terrier mix, somehow survived Katrina and was picked up, fithy and starving, by an animal rights group a week later. Brownie first traveled to Tylertown, Mississippi, only 30 miles from where I live today, and then was forwarded to an animal shelter in Pennsylvania.
The animal rights group arranged to have every canine refugee placed in a foster home. To join the program volunteers had to sign an agreement promising that they would return the dogs immediately when the owners came forward. That was the arrangement, anyway.
After much suffering, Jessica, her husband, and her son, settled in a FEMA-provided trailer near Amite City. For the longest time they had no idea that their dog had survived the storm and was still alive. They were surprised and delighted when a letter arrived in their mailbox notifying them that that a dog had been rescued from their old residence.
The story should have ended there with a belated and happy reunion of boy and dog, but, this being America, the law had to get involved somehow. Jessica contacted the animal rights group at its headquarters in Utah. According to Jessica, the group was initially very unhelpful. First they said they did not know what happened to the dog. Then they said they were looking into it. Phone call after phone call and there was no progress.
With nowhere else to turn, Jessica petitioned the Louisiana State Attorney General's office. And, in the most shocking turn in this story, the Attorney General's office was helpful. Someone from that office, perhaps sensing that it might be good for public relations to help a three year-old boy find his dog, sent a letter to the animal rights group. In the letter, they tersely explained that the dog is the boy's personal property and that if they do not produce the pooch forthwith they could be charged with looting.
Next thing Jessica knew she was in possession of a name, street address, and email address of a woman in Pittsburgh.
Again, one would think the story should end there; but no, that would be too easy. The Pittsburgh woman refused to return phone calls. Jessica emailed her asking if she could have a picture of the dog to verify that it was in fact her son's. The woman emailed back: This is not your dog, and no I will not send you a picture.
Jessica persisted. Does the dog answer to the name Brownie? No, came the answer. Can we see him? No. After many weeks of exchanged email messages, Jessica finally threatened to go to court. The women wrote back, saying that by the time Jessica got a lawyer and got before a judge, the gate to her yard would inexplicably be left ajar and the dog would go "missing."
That was enough for Jessica. She contacted the Attorney General's office and the animal rights group. The group agreed to pay for a lawyer, and to fly Jessica to Pittsburgh to plead her case. But, lest anyone presume that the animal rights group was being generous on this count, Jessica says the group didn't agree to take this step until she let the Attorney General weigh in in on the conversation.
I asked Jessica why she went to such lengths to get her dog back. I am not a dog lover, and I suppose this question revealed my attitude. Not that I dislike dogs; I am simply indifferent to them. Jessica, adopting a somewhat schoolmarmish tone, tersely reminded me that they had lost everything in Katrina, including every toy her son ever owned. Brownie was her son's only possession that survived the storm. The only one. After swimming out of St. Bernard in the filthy swamp water and sewage, Jessica even disposed of his shoes and the clothes on his back. Her son wanted his dog and she was going to get it.
When she got off the plane at the Pittsburgh airport, she slipped on the walkway. Her back ached through the legal proceedings, so she took aspirin and pressed on. It worsened the days afterward, so she took more aspirin and contined to press on. Doggedly.
In the end, the Pittsburgh woman learned the hard way the first rule of law -- when you are accused of wrongdoing, keep your fool mouth shut. The judge interpreted the email in which she insinuated that the dog might go missing as an intention to defy a court order. He ordered the dog seized without warning or a prior hearing.
So this silly woman, who had endeavored to deprive a three year-old boy now living in a government-issued tin can in rural Louisiana of his beloved dog, got her comeuppance. It seems beyond comprehension that an adult would go to such lengths to prevent a child from getting his dog back. To do would require a degree of villainy that borders on the cartoonish, like a real world Cruella De Vil. I couldn't help but be amused by it, blackguard that I am.
I imagined this stupid woman sitting on her sofa in her Pennsylvania home. Here comes a knock, like the Stalinists in the night, and she opens the door. A cop shoves a court order in her face, and another darts into the house and snatches up Brownie as if he were ten kilos of prime hashish. Then the door slams, there is a whirr of a siren and the spinning red light in the distance throws red bursts across her sheer curtains, filling her room with crimson pulses. And there she stands, dogless. The fierce moral eyes of the universe upon her, judging her badly.
And the turn that might embarrass her most of all: One week later, a doctor in McComb, Mississippi sitting at his desk, busting a gut in amusement over her audacious misadventure.
It is not over. This woman has gotten her own lawyer and petitioned for a hearing. She is arguing that she was deprived of her animal without due process and that she has a right to confront her accuser. So Jessica has tickets to go back to Pittsburgh in a month, where the judge will again listen to the case. It is, however, impossible to imagine by what constitutional precedent a jurist would deprive a hurricane-displaced boy of his floppy-eared friend. He would have to have the heart of a Bush appointee.
The happy ending here is that the seized dog really and truly is Brownie. Boy and dog recognized each other immediately and there were many tears shed in that tin can in Amite when Jessica came home. The reunited pair are having a wonderful time together, and, as a family pet, it is my understanding that Brownie is doing a heckuva job.
Now you knew that last line was coming.
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Reader Comments (10)
Katrina pets were hot; everyone wanted one. Never mind the dogs and cats languishing in shelters in their own back yards. They wanted the social cachet of a Katrina pet. When it's all about them, they tend not to think about what's best for the animal.
In all fairness, the post-Katrina animal rescue situation was quite chaotic, as I've heard firsthand from people who volunteered at facilities such as Lamar Dixon. Reuniting people with their pets was very difficult, and at some point you have to make a decision to place the animal with someone else or have him euth'd.
If I'd been handling Katrina adoptions, I would have made it clear that if the animal's rightful owner turned up and wanted their pet back, the new adopter would have to relinquish him... and I would have made it a requirement for them to sign a waiver.
A lot of lessons were learned from Katrina, some of them the hard way. :(
BTW, animal rights and animal welfare/rescue are not the same thing. There is some overlap and obviously some disagreement within each group as to how they should be defined... but in general, an organization that rescues and rehomes dogs such as Brownie would primarily be considered animal welfare. Just a clarification.
I guess it's revealing that when I read your post, I zeroed in on the dog. ;) Then again, I like animals far more than I do people.
I had to check for a hernia after that last line! Absolutely the best one liner ending I've read this year - bar none!
Jessica (not her real name) was very distrustful of the group that took her dog. I only have her point of view, and you are very right to point out that this group may very well have done the best it can, under the circumstances. I appreciate your comments.
PG: Thanks for your comments. High praise coming from a writer as accomplished as yourself. I'll tell you a secret: I got the idea for a punchline ending like this from the book "Tristram Shandy," which is in my humble opinion the funniest book ever written.
Oh dear, animals do tend to make me emotional :D
As I do not share your political views I shall only say one thing about that last line:
It was hilarious!!!!!!!! : D <--hey, even Republicans can have a sense of humor! LOL!
Unfortunately, with the dog's name, I couldn't resist the cheap shot. Had to do it, not because of my commitment to politcs but because of my commitment to comedy. Thanks, and Merry Christmas.