After working a 15 hour day in 95 degree heat, wearing heavy rubber hip waders, and trying to scale rusted cyclone fencing (and not tear their rubber waders - the water is horrid). Rescuers used crow bars to get into a small apartment building - the windows were covered with heavy metal bars and all the doors were locked.

Hayden and Ginger, two of Pasado's rescuers, finally got inside and went door to door, breaking the doors in if they had to. They turned a corner, and there stood a man, ragged, and beaten. He wouldn't leave, because his dog, a pure-bred Husky, had had a litter of puppies a week ago. He wouldn't leave them behind. He broke into tears, and our rescuers told us, so did they.
Our rescue crew had already rescued 40 dogs, many cats, and birds, and needed to start transport back to the triage station. But they HAD to get this man, and his dogs, out of there.

"We begged him to leave. We told him, 'Your life has ended here. There is a new beginning out there. Let us take your dogs, we will care for them.' He was steadfast. He feared he'd never see them again.

The mama dog's milk had already run dry. She was dehydrated, as were two other 10-month-old Husky's who were also living with the man. "We just wouldn't leave him there," Hayden told us last night. "We were going anywhere until we got him out of there and got those dogs."

Our rescuer's persistence worked.
To get around the military (who will not let anyone take their animals), the Pasado crew managed to sneak the man into one of our vans, with all of the dogs. He would be join a family member in Baton Rouge. Then, we learned, the family would not allow the dogs to come.

Mama dog, is now on IV fluids, as are the pups and the two 10-month-olds, at our triage location South of New Orleans. They will recover. Our rescuers, slept with them last night.

We need homes for these little ones now, and for the mama and her two friends. Who would want to adopt them? But says Hayden, "They'd have to keep the name we gave to the mama, who we wept over, seeing her try to nurse her babies, but couldn't...it's Katrina."

UPDATE: Thanks to NW Ohio Husky Rescue, they were fostered! This man can still claim them when he can, and if he cannot, they will be adopted into great homes!