With hurricane season in full swing, both residents and their pets are being displaced. People from all over the country have been lending a hand in Houston with Hurricane Harvey.
Texas is in a slow recovery from Hurricane Harvey and people aren’t the only victims of this disaster with thousands of pets displaced, abandoned or left behind during evacuations. Volunteers from around the nation stepped in to help rescue them including Utah native Trevor Johnson.
“It was a dog that was just swimming around in the water. He swam to us. He’s up the street a little bit and he was paddling towards us because he wanted to get out of the water," Johnson said. "I don’t know how long he’d been in there. I got out of the boat and picked him up and put him in the boat. He was definitely cold and shivering. He was happy to get out. We ended up finding the neighbor to the owner. As we were driving around one of the guys that stayed in his house recognized the dog and said it was his neighbors’ dog. So he said he’d take care of it until he got back."
Sara Varsa, senior director of the Humane Society of the United States Animal Rescue Team shed a little light on what it was like on the shelters’ side of things.
“It’s a reaffirming moment, it's why we do what we do," Varsa said. "We actually were in a situation where we just reunited a gentleman with his dog and cats that were stranded in his home when he had to leave. In the areas where we worked we serviced and rescued about a hundred animals.”
Varsa suggests that a way to avoid a situation like this is to make a plan beforehand so when natural disasters do occur, you and your pet have a place to go.
