Mine Will Make You Cry Your Eyes Out

In the face of the storm, families evacuated by the National Guard were told that pets absolutely could not come along. Pets were not allowed in the Superdome, the only place of refuge for many folks in New Orleans: one documentary subject said there was just "nowhere else to go." Thus many people were forced to choose between saving themselves and their families or staying to die alongside their pets; one survey found that 44% of people who stayed behind did so for their pets. One survivor talks of her struggle to get her mother out of the city: "My mom would've stayed there and died with her dog." Another survivor, Jesse, describes lifting his ailing mother, who uses a wheelchair, into a rescue boat, and voices his dismay at not being able to lift his dog JJ in as well. Can we really say that he should have chosen staying with the dog over going with his mother?

Jesse laments, "I often think of how JJ must've been at that moment I wasn't there... I can just imagine how scared he was and I know I should've been there with him." Jesse, once homeless, says of his dog, "We started out with nothing and we grew together. As he grew, I grew." The dog clearly played an important transformative role in Jesse's life, making it even more sad to leave him behind. In addition to Jesse and JJ, Mine profiles Gloria, seeking Murphy Brown; Victor, looking for Max; and Malvin, who wants his Bandit back. Gloria and Malvin are elderly, adding to their plight: their pets were all they had, particularly in Malvin's case (Gloria has a daughter). All are devastated by the loss of their pets and the difficulty of getting them back.

The animal rescue efforts after the storm were absolutely amazing, managing to save thousands of animals, and the rescue workers deserve to be commended for their efforts. But the process of getting pets reunited with their owners was even more complicated than getting them out of New Orleans. Animals were microchipped, listed on Petfinder.com, put into massive databases. Pets were relocated as far away as California, Pennsylvania, and other places impossible for people who'd just lost everything to reach. And though the database creation was admirable and necessary, do you think that people who've just lost their homes have a lot of spare time to surf the net? As Jesse points out, "I didn't have an internet," making it impossible for him to seek JJ in the days and weeks after the storm. Instead, he returned to his home while the rest of his family stayed behind: "I was riding the neighborhood, hoping I'd be blessed" with JJ's presence.

Organizations that coordinated Katrina rescues could only hold on to the animals for so long. One rescue worker notes, "What they needed was to go home," but their homes did not physically exist anymore, and their owners were hard to find. As a result, many of the Katrina pets were adopted out quickly. The new owners became attached to their animals; they felt they were doing a good thing by rescuing pets without a home. Some even felt indignant: who could have left such a wonderful dog behind? Not having been faced with Katrina themselves, though, they have no way of knowing what they might have done when confronted with such a choice.

Tiffany, the new owner of Victor's Max, has renamed the Jack Russell Terrier Joey. She lives in Florida and has recently experienced a number of difficult events, including her mother's death. She feels Joey was sent to her for a reason: "As soon as I brought him home, I started healing." It's hard not to sympathize with Tiffany's situation, but she still has something going for her: a husband, a home, another dog. Victor's lost everything, and wants Max back most of all. Will Tiffany help him out?

Jesse's JJ is in a similar situation, adopted by a new family that doesn't want to give him up. Jesse talks on the phone regularly with the rescuer who adopted JJ out. She says she had to give up animals for adoption because owners did not come forward, and claims the new owners are just too attached to let JJ go. Jesse responds, "We're not talking about the thousands that didn't come forward. We're talking about me." He then adds, cuttingly, "I'm not 'attached' to him; he's mine."

Though the documentary focuses primarily on the stories of four caring pet owners determined to find their precious pups after the storm recedes, it also touches on the immense animal abuse uncovered by the storm. A vast number of the dogs rescued were pit bulls, covered in scars from fighting. Most of these dogs were not spayed or neutered, and many had heartworm. As one rescue worker says of these animals, "Katrina was the best thing that ever happened to them," allowing the dogs to get proper medical care and responsible owners.

This adds another dimension to the difficulty of returning animals. As one rescuer points out, "For the most part, rescuers deal with the bad owners," and may be hesitant to return animals to a distant home about which they know nothing. The impulse is to place the pets in a home that's a known quantity, where the rescuer can be sure the animal is safe and healthy. One Katrina survivor sues an animal rescue to try and get her dog back, saying "Our dog is family." The rescue counters that the dog had behavior problems and heartworm. A nice way to treat your family, right? Still, it's difficult not to sympathize with both sides. It's impossible to know what you would do when confronted with a situation like Katrina, which had no precedent. You might leave the animal behind: you'll be back in two days, everything will be fine. Then the unthinkable happens. What do you do? As Jesse pleads with the rescuer withholding his dog, "If you've never lost everything, you don't know what it's like."

The documentary is also a tale of class conflict. Two owners profiled are white; two are black. We don't want to give anything away, but we'll just let you guess the race of those who don't get their dogs back. The "pro bono" lawyer who defends the dog rescue sued for property return is white, upper-class, and completely unwilling to acknowledge that leaving one's home during Katrina may be different from going on a fun little vacation. If we were really nasty, we'd hope a hurricane hit him and forced him to choose between his adorable blond children and his Golden Retrievers—but he'd probably be flying away in his private jet long before the levees broke, oblivious to the fate of people poorer than him. The message of the film is clear: you have to know how to work the (white-dominated) system to win. And those who don't know how to work the system? Too bad.

The story of these Katrina pets is affecting in part because of the animals' innocence. They didn't know a storm was coming; or even if they sensed it, what could they do? The pets' lives were in the hands of their owners, who were placed—in part by a shamefully underprepared government—in an impossible situation: save yourself or stay to die with a loved one. Mine is also sobering because the fate of the pets serves as a metaphor for what happened to the people of New Orleans: They put their trust in their city and government and were miserably failed by both.

Katrina did give rise to the Pet Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act, which requires FEMA to address the evacuation of pets in addition to people. But the legislation doesn't address the issue of pets as property: if my dog is taken from me and "adopted" by someone else, is that dog still mine? And how do I prove it, or sue to get the dog back? This is an issue that needs to be addressed to avoid more situations like the one profiled in this documentary.

Mine is an affecting film, and we don't want to give away the endings of the amazing animals and owners profiled therein. Suffice to say that, as with most things in life, some stories end happily and some end in sorrow. But all of the pet owners are still working to get their best friends back if they haven't already. We kind of wish the government would show similar dedication to disaster preparation. If another hurricane like Katrina hit, would we end up with 1800 dead people, 150,000 dead animals, and a city still recovering four years later? We hope first and foremost that another such disaster doesn't occur, but also that government provides far better leadership and support for families of all colors and sizes if it does.