Chapter 8 - Raised right
September 21-October 3, 2005
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Tim Rickey and Brett Huff share a bond that goes beyond animal rescue. Rickey and Huff were hired at the Humane Society on the same day, January 7, 2002. They’re southern Missouri boys, born and bred. Huff, 34, was raised on a farm in the state’s lead belt, about a hundred miles south of St. Louis. Rickey, 32, grew up in Joplin, in southwest Missouri where his dad owned and operated an asphalt company. Each of their parents loved pets and liked having lots of them around. As Rickey put it, he was “raised kinda right” when it came to animals. Both now have children of their own, and lots of pets.
Since joining HSMO, the two have worked together occasionally on animal rescue efforts. Nowhere were their skills with animals and their ability to collaborate more important than in New Orleans. As they steered their skiff up and down flooded streets, now nearly three weeks after Katrina, they could hear the baying of hundreds of trapped and starving animals.
To a great extent, New Orleans is a pit bull and pinscher city. Many residents like their dogs large and aggressive and often have more than one. Few neuter or spay their pets. Some train them for fighting. As Hurricane Katrina closed in, many homeowners, anticipating a quick return, left their dogs behind with enough food for just a few days. Some tied their dogs to stakes or fences and left them outside.
And that is how Rickey and Huff found one pit bull who Rickey described “as the meanest dog I ever encountered in my life.”
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They were in an impoverished neighborhood in Algiers, a few miles east of downtown that had been swamped. The pit they found had survived on what food had been left behind and the water that he could drink from puddles. He was attached to a chain that had been padlocked to a fence. He was badly scarred, probably, Rickey guessed, from dog fighting.
As the two approached, the dog lunged at them. They would have to work together on this pup and in doing so, Rickey would place his life in his partner’s hands. An errant move on Huff’s part and the dog could be at Rickey’s throat.
Huff draped the loop of his catch pole around the snarling dog’s neck while Rickey snuck in behind the animal to cut the padlock tethering him to the fence.
Over the years, Huff had learned how to work with animals on the end of his pole in a kind of ju-jitsu fashion, using their weight and aggressiveness against them, sensing the direction they intended to go and then steering them where he needed them to end up. If Huff lost control of the dog that was now leaping and biting at anything within reach, Rickey would be in serious trouble.
But Rickey had no doubt Huff would do his job. Not only did he have the skills, but like all the people he worked with at the Humane Society of Missouri, he knew Huff was “raised kinda right.”
“If I go into a yard with an 80 pound pit bull with Brett … or Carmen … or Debbie … or Kyle,” he would say later, “I know they would get bit before they ever let me get bit. I know that because that’s the kind of people they are.”
Within minutes the two had wrestled the pit bull into a cage and had him on his way to a safe haven.
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On September 24, yet another storm was closing in on the Gulf Coast – Hurricane Rita. Bracing themselves were members of the Alberti clan, among them Bobby Alberti, the man who had lost his home and then his dog Rover in the chaos that followed Katrina.
Bobby had been inconsolable since he had to leave Rover behind at a makeshift rescue center at University of New Orleans three weeks earlier. Since then he had been staying with his sister, Joyce, and her husband, Pete, at their home in Bellville, Texas, about an hour’s drive west of Houston. Each day as he sat on the front porch gazing into space, Alberti wondered what that day was like for Rover. He thought about whether Rover was hungry or thirsty, or alone. Whether Rover missed Bobby as much as he missed him.
Alberti was convinced that he’d never see Rover again. But his sister, Fran, believed otherwise. Fran Alberti is a small but sturdy woman who has a strong belief in God and that everything in life happens for a reason. “We’re going to find your dog,” she told her brother. “I know we are.”
Fran Alberti is an administrative aide for an oil company executive and over the years had gotten savvy with computers. She started searching for Rover on the internet, placing ads on animal web sites and spending hours looking at pictures and descriptions of missing dogs.
On one day, the two drove six hours to the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center where thousands of dogs were being sheltered. There they looked at the dogs sweltering in cages crowded into hundreds of horse stalls. But no luck. Bobby had all but given up hope after the visit and their trip back to Texas passed in silence.
But Fran kept searching and on the day that Hurricane Rita bore in on the Texas coast, Fran believes that God sent with it a message. Check out the Pet Harbor website.
“I’m going to look for Rover again,” Fran said to her sister, Nancy. “Want to look with me?”
As the two peered into the computer with Fran clicking on one picture after another, Nancy suddenly yelled, “Stop! That’s Rover.”
“Are you sure?”
The two summoned Bobby, who again was sitting alone on the porch.
As Fran recounted the moment, “Bobby came in dragging his feet, but when he saw the picture he cheered up. “That’s my dog!” he said.
“Are you sure?” Fran asked.
“I oughta know my own dog,” Bobby shot back. “He has white on his chest with a little black spot and white on the tips of his back paws. That’s him.”
Bobby isn’t the sort who likes to show much emotion. But Fran and Nancy started hugging each other and told everyone in the family to take a look.
The information attached to the picture said that Rover was at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center. Maybe he had arrived after Bobby and Fran had been there or maybe they just missed seeing him. This time they had an identification number they could use.
And this time all three of Bobby’s sisters would go.
But they couldn’t leave for four excruciating days as Hurricane Rita passed through the region. And when they finally got to the center, Rover was gone.
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On September 10, when Dr. Donald Bridges, director of veterinary services at the Humane Society of Missouri, put out a call for volunteers to go to Louisiana to help at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center, Bonnie Dean and Mette Nichols stepped up. It was a coincidence that they were the two newest staff members at the HSMO veterinary clinic. Although they’d met, they had never spoken to each other. Within two days, they were on a plane together, heading to Biloxi, Mississippi, and then on to Gonzales, Louisiana. Each woman left a child behind; Nichols had never been separated overnight from her 18-month old son, Connor. The two staffers had packed for a two week-stay. Debbie Hill cautioned them to bring clothes that would be discarded at the end of the visit. They packed their swimsuits, having been told that they would have to shower in the open. They carried granola bars, bananas, and peanut butter.
Dean and Nichols knew that the work would be grueling and dirty. There were plenty of rescue personnel on the ground already. They were being sent to walk dogs and clean cages. What they couldn’t anticipate was the heat, the noise, the chaos, and the 18-20 hour days. Within days of arriving at Lamar-Dixon, both women were given the responsibility of barn management. Dean managed the import barn, where all animals were brought in to be photographed, documented, checked for wounds, bathed, and crated. It was her job to muster the volunteers to walk, feed, and clean the crates of 600 dogs twice a day. Nichols had fewer dogs under her care, “only” 300. But these dogs were the ones that had been identified as highly aggressive. Many of these dogs had been bred and raised as illegal fighting dogs; they had never been socialized as pets.
For nearly two weeks, the pace was relentless. And then they were told that Hurricane Rita was headed toward Louisiana, and Lamar Dixon would have to be evacuated. The grueling workload was cranked up.
Volunteers were tying down equipment and supplies, preparing for hurricane winds. As tractor-trailers pulled into Lamar-Dixon, animals were loaded up to be evacuated further inland. The Humane Society of Missouri was filling its own rescue trailer with 150 animals, preparing for a return to St. Louis. And Nichols and Dean were leaving behind the hundreds of dogs that they had been caring for, day after day. It was harder to leave some than others.
Nichols couldn’t bear to leave Marshmallow behind.
Marshmallow was a 60-pound, pit-bull mix who initially had been housed in Dean’s barn. He had not been neutered, was high energy, and hated his cage. He jumped and snapped at everyone who tried to take him out for walks. The volunteers were terrified of him. He was moved to Nichols’s barn, where the more aggressive dogs could be kept in dog runs with doors. But Marshmallow couldn’t be contained. He was an escape artist, accomplished at breaking out of every cage available. They tried double crating him in a plastic kennel and a wire cage — and Marshmallow escaped. He would eat through plastic. He could work a metal bar loose from its weld. Lock up Marshmallow, and Nichols could count on him finding a way out. But what she couldn’t get over was the sweet, puppy-like dog who would stick to her side as soon as he escaped.
As they were packing the dogs for transport, Nichols couldn’t stop thinking about Marshmallow. There was no room for him in the HSMO van; it was packed to capacity. Who would take a pit bull with heart worm and separation anxiety? Nichols found a veterinarian who was heading back to Florida who agreed to take him with her. She gave him a tranquilizer in preparation for the trip, put him in a crate, and … Marshmallow escaped, even while drugged. Meanwhile, the vet left for Florida without him, deciding to take sicker dogs in his place. Marshmallow found Nichols, who tied him to her waist as she continued to secure the shelter. She was heartsick at the thought of leaving him behind, all the while berating herself for becoming so attached to the dog.
Her hopes soared when she ran into a volunteer from the Animal Protective League of Springfield, Illinois, who was transporting only bunnies, guinea pigs, and other small animals to their shelter. Even so, she agreed to take Marshmallow along. Nichols turned over the dog, finished securing her other charges, and left for St. Louis the next day. Neither Nichols nor Dean would learn what happened to the hundreds of dogs they tended. This would haunt them in the months to come. As for Marshmallow, a very sick dog, they weren’t sure they wanted to know what became of him. Read Chapter 9 .
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