Not Left Behind
Dog reunited with her person in Houston almost one year after Hurricane Katrina
August 10, 2006 12:00 AM
Kanab, UT (08/10/2006) - Patches the dog picked Walter Williams - almost from the day she was born - and now, almost a year after the most destructive hurricane in U.S. history, these two Katrina survivors will be back together.
Patches and Walter will be reunited at 11 a.m. on Friday, August 11, at Memorial Park, 6501 Memorial Drive. Patches has been staying for the last few months at Spindletop Refuge (www.spindletoppitbullrefuge.org), a Houston-based rescue group specializing in American pit bulls and American Staffordshire terriers.
Patches was one of the 4,000-plus rescued by Best Friends Animal Society in New Orleans. Her person, Walter Williams, said he "didn't take the storm seriously enough. I was at my brother's house and I thought 'I'll go home after the winds die down.' But when I tried to get home to Orleans Parish, the water was seven or eight feet high. When I could get home, Patches was gone."
Walter said Patches is eight years old and she was one of 11 puppies born to his dog, Moni. And, he says, this little pup was a piece of work from the start: "Four weeks old and she's figuring out how to get over the dog gate. Then she'd look up at me. I'd put her back, thinking I had her in safe and she'd get out again. And even as a little thing, she would only come to me; she wasn't like the other puppies."
Walter has big plans for Patches once he gets her home: the couch and the bed. "I want to make her real happy and comfortable. I want to help her forget all about Katrina."
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Best Friends Animal Society operates the country's largest sanctuary for homeless animals. The society works with its members, and with shelters and rescue groups nationwide, to provide adoption, spay/neuter, and educational programs, and to bring about a time when there will be no more homeless pets.
Best Friends Animals Society: A better world through kindness to animals.
