With just days to spare before Hurricane Ida wreaked deadly havoc on Louisiana, the Animal Welfare League of Arlington (AWLA) team received an
urgent request: would they be able to take in some homeless, displaced dogs – immediately?
The Bissell Pet Foundation, whose national mission is to get as many homeless animals as possible into loving homes, put out the call and the AWLA sprang into action.
“When we got the request from the Bissell Pet Foundation, they were coordinating a massive rescue effort to move dogs and cats out of Louisiana ahead of the hurricane,” Chelsea Jones, AWLA’s Senior Communications Specialist, said. “They were clearing shelters to make room for pets who would undeniably need help down there, and some of the shelters they took animals from were actually in the path of the hurricane.”
So on Wednesday, Sept. 1, representatives from AWLA and a slew of other local rescue organizations arrived at the Manassas Regional Airport to collectively greet and grab 110 dogs and eight cats that the Bissell Pet Foundation flew out of harm’s way.
And with less than a week’s notice, this local non-profit animal advocacy organization happily assumed the responsibility of eight dogs.
“We were there from 12 to 15 different nonprofit organizations, each of us navigating this mass transport,” Jones said. “It was pouring down rain, but we were all waiting and so excited. It’s always exciting being part of something like this, which is a lot of controlled chaos. It’s very organized and well-run, but it’s still crazy because it involves so many animals going to so many places.”
Amid the downpour, representatives from AWLA quickly got to work once the chartered plane landed with all the dogs and cats.
“As soon as they arrived, all the animals were labeled with the name of the organization that was taking them, so we all started taking them right away,” Jones said. “We at AWLA picked up the full spectrum of dogs – everything from Gizmo, an eight-pound scruffy mix, to Milo, a big one-year-old lab mix, and everything in between.”
In emergency transport situations like this one, the AWLA gets very little information about the animals they bring into their care. And since picking up Gizmo, Milo, and all the others, the AWLA team has wasted no time getting to know them.
“Most have gone into foster homes, and a couple are staying at the shelter for medical treatment,” Jones said. “The ones in foster will stay a week in their foster homes to decompress, and this has already been great because the foster parents are giving us key information about the animals that they just didn’t come with.”
The eight Ida-displaced dogs have already shown their big, lovable personalities.
“They are mostly all really happy and really excited to be here,” Jones said. “We found out that Milo had been in the shelter since December 2020, and he’s still mostly a big floppy goofball who wants to play. Whenever you enter the room, he will run right up and stick his head in your chest.”
The younger members of AWLA’s new Louisiana crew are also a delight.
“Lucy is a thick, chunky little puppy,” Jones said. “She’s the only dog who came off the plane totally happy to go right back into another crate for a car ride. She has a zest for life, and she’s happy to be doing whatever you’re doing. She just wants to be near people.”
A couple of the other dogs were more timid at first, and understandably so, but Jones said they are now coming into their own as they grow more comfortable in their foster homes.
This isn’t the first time AWLA has been involved with a large-scale emergency transport – the organization is always ready to lend a hand in a pinch.
“It’s usually one big disaster that happens a year, and we are typically called out to assist during hurricanes because of our geographical location,” Jones explained. “To meet these demands, we always maintain a certain level of ‘capacity for care,’ which involves reviewing the space we have in our shelter and with fosters and making determinations about how many animals we can take. We at AWLA have a very robust foster program … In this scenario, when the Bissell Foundation approached us, we put out a call asking for more fosters. We got a great response and were immediately able to line up fosters for all the dogs before they arrived.”
These dogs and cats in AWLA’s care have been enjoying the good life over the last couple weeks. And, already, many of them are ready for adoption. To learn more about them, visit www.awla.org.