Airing TONIGHT (February 16, 2010) on PBS! The film is “MINE,” part of the Independent Lens series on PBS. Set your DVRs or VCRs now, as this one will not be streaming online after airing! Check your local listings; in most markets it airs at 10pm.
Tonight on PBS’s Independent Lens, watch the story of New Orleans pet owners who were separated from their pets during Hurricane Katrina. The documentary is called MINE — echoing the pet owners’ frequent refrain (“This dog is mine!”) as they try to get their pets back from new owners who have rescued them. It’s a complicated and emotional film, examining a series of pet-related issues that arose after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In a nutshell, here’s what went down:
First, the (human) residents of New Orleans were evacuated as Katrina approached. In some cases the residents left their animals behind, thinking they could be retrieved within days; in others, owners were forcibly separated from their animals by the National Guard. In many cases, evacuating owners didn’t have the resources to take their pets with them, leaving pets in their homes with stockpiles of food and water. In the aftermath of Katrina, animal rescue organizations rounded up as many animals as they could, placing them in temporary shelters and tagging the houses. One poignant spray-painted message on a house read: “Petfinder: 1 cat rescued, 1 cat inside.”
But then two problems coincided: Hurricane Rita hit (preventing many residents from returning to New Orleans), and the shelters filled up with animals. So the animals were moved around the US, in many cases being adopted outright rather than entering foster care. When residents later tried to claim their pets, those pets already had new families, new names, and new homes — often far from New Orleans. Now the issue became a legal one. As one (former) pet owner says in the film, “A dog is family; the law says it’s property.” Lawsuits were filed in an attempt to get the animals back to their original owners, and many well-intentioned people (staff at rescue agencies and the adopting families) were hurt along the way.
So MINE is the story of what happens when pets are lost, and how hard it is to get them back. Years in the making, the film shows actual recovery efforts days after Katrina, and follows multiple pet owners’ stories as they try to get their pets back. Some succeed, some fail. Warning: if scenes of animals in danger upset you, you may want to avoid this film, or at least the first half hour of it. While it’s not “graphic” in any sense, I found the footage of animals being rescued from waterlogged New Orleans homes tragic and hard to watch. Fortunately, the filmmakers quickly move past that part of the story, and at the end, you’re rewarded with some truly heartwarming scenes of dogs greeting their owners after up to a year apart. Here’s the trailer:
For more on MINE, see the PBS website (don’t miss the “Update” portion on this page), and the MINE website which includes local showtimes in movie theaters.
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Didn’t T. Boone Pickens wife have a 737 flown in to rescue several hundred stranded dogs?
posted by joey on 2-16-2010 at 10:10 am
Anyone who rescues a pet under such circumstances is a hero. Anyone who adopts said pets in the absence of the owner is a kind soul. However, if the owner turns up to reclaim their lost pet, even after it has been adopted, and the adopting family doesn’t immediately turn it over, the adopting family are scumbags. Very simple, honest judgement. Claims of bonding, or attachment, by the adopting family is worthless, of absolutely no value. I’m an animal lover, so sue me.
posted by Bubba on 2-16-2010 at 12:06 pm
@Bubba
I wouldn’t say scumbags, but definitely selfish to not return a pet to it’s rightful owner. The only way I could see the owner having a beef is if they were not made aware this was a pet from New Orleans who may still have an owner out there.
apropo ReCaptcha: umbrages amount
posted by Big Jonny on 2-16-2010 at 4:47 pm
Thanks, Chris, I always appreciate these posts on upcoming PBS docs.
The other day, I was reading in my dog book about how legislation changed after Katrina. Only 15,000 of the 250,000 pets left behind were rescued. I believe half or more of the US states have animal disaster plans as of a result of the tragedy.
posted by Nerak on 2-16-2010 at 8:31 pm
@Bubba
I think it is a little more complicated then that. Granted, many people were FORCED to leave their pets behind in the Katrina disaster, and those people should have their pets returned. But what about those that DID have a choice and chose to leave their pets to fend for themselves. Should these people get their pet back after discovering the poor animal actually survived? And the most difficult question, how do you determin who left their pet voluntarily and who did not.
Will have to try to download this one.
posted by TheZed on 2-16-2010 at 8:40 pm
@Nerak — you’re correct; as a result of this whole fiasco, animal related legislation is now in place in more than 20 states. The documentary discusses this towards the end, and you can read a bit more about that here: http://www.humanesociety.org/news/news/2009/08/4_years_after_katrina_animal_welfare_in_gulf_region_looking_up082809.html
@Bubba & @TheZed – the documentary gets into this quite a bit. While some people clearly abandoned their animals, most were forced (for various reasons — mostly economic, but sometimes at gunpoint) to leave their animals behind, with the assumption that they’d return promptly. Remember, the evacuation was mandatory and most places available to evacuate to would not accept animals.
To complicate things, after the animals were spread around the country, sometimes the rescue agencies assumed the worst of the owners (or simply didn’t know that the owners wanted their animals back) and adopted out the animals. After that, it became a very tricky property issue — who had the right to the animal?
The problem here is not that one side or the other was ill-intentioned, or at least not uniformly so. In general, it seems that well-meaning people were forced to abandon their dogs, which were rescued by well-meaning people, who passed them on for adoption by yet more well-meaning people. The scope of the problem for the original owners was massive — the documentary covers the story of one woman trying to find a black lab who might be literally anywhere in the US. How do you even start to find the dog? And once you do, how do you convince the new family to give it back?
Anyway, it is certainly a complicated issue, which is why there’s a whole 90-minute awesome documentary about it. :)
posted by Chris Higgins on 2-16-2010 at 9:23 pm
I can’t say I’ll watch this one, as the whole situation is upsetting. The only light to come from it is the changes in the policy of evacueees being able to take their pets with them. It took hell to make officials realize people need their animals to help them through the rough times.
posted by helenann on 2-16-2010 at 9:25 pm
I had to turn this off. Those who are keeping someone’s pet because they believe themselves to be so much better than the owner should be more than ashamed of themselves. I love my pets, my dogs are well cared for and loved, but people, people, not animals come first. How self-righteous people to think otherwise. We watched in horror as people were herded into buses, do we toss people off for a dog or cat? NO NO NO. When animals are put above people, there’s problem.
To judge a woman who took her mom over her dog is just beyond me. I don’t know if she got her dog back but the people who have her dog and won’t return it will meet up someday with some calamity as we all do. And when their tragedy comes may they be met with the same judgement and attitude they have shown. I say that for all of these people who have kept these dogs from their owners.
posted by Ann on 2-16-2010 at 11:31 pm
i watched last night in complete disbelief. alot of these people were forced to leave their pets as many of the posts before stated. also alot of these residents didn’t have phone and/or computer access to try and track their pets. assuming that a pet owner doesn’t want their pets back is just wrong. people should never assume or judge other people with getting all of the facts regarding a situation. if people took the time to look for their animals they obviously care enough. of course some people to mistreat their animals but not everyone should be lumped into that category in this situation. they were not allowed to take their animals, the shelters were not accepting them, what were they to do??? i love my animals and can’t imagine going through what these people went through. there are alot of animals that need homes, the animals should be returned to their rightful owners and the others should go and adopt again. the lady that had MAX really irritated me and also the lady that Jesee had to speak with on the phone, i had to turn the channel, i couldn’t finish watching the last half an hour.
posted by gen on 2-19-2010 at 11:54 am
the same thing is going to happen in haiti after the arthquake. abandoned children adopted by affluent nations while relatives fight a battle for the chance to get them back… the arguments will be the same…
posted by cajun bob on 2-19-2010 at 5:08 pm
i think that the decisions on the part of animal welfare groups to adopt out pets that were rescued in the aftermath of katrina had more to do with shelters lacking the room and resources to care for these animals for several years, awaiting an owner. i completely sympathize with the plights of the owners who were in some cases denied the return of their pets and in some cases had to undergo a long and emotional process to have their pets returned, but i do not think anyone should point the finger at animal welfare volunteers. it is because of their work that the animals survived the hurricane in the first place, and, if we allow non-profit animal rescue to take the fall here, it is certain that less people will get involved in the event of another catastrophe. most certainly, this is another case where the government is at fault for not providing the resources to evacuate these pets with their owners. there were so many different groups involved in the hurricane katrina pet relief effort that an effective database would have been nearly impossible, and the chaos and overwhelming amount of work that these people faced probably made paperwork seem inconsequential to say the least. it did irritate me to see the adoptive owners of katrina pets acting so selfishly in the faces of those who lost all they had in the wake of the disaster. for myself, though, returning a pet adopted after this ordeal would depend on the circumstances the pet was found in. Yes, there are many health concerns that were caused by the conditions the hurricane created, and should therefore be overlooked when deciding whether an animal should be returned, but there were also animals that showed evidence of being fought or otherwise deliberately cruelly treated, and these pets should clearly not be returned. i guess the bottom line is that i can see both sides, and i do not think that non-profit organizations that stepped in to rescue these animals should be held responsible for this chaos that ensued in katrina’s wake. if not for the actions of volunteers, the animals would not have survived the ordeal at all, and allowing these organizations to be penalized for adopting out the animals in their care may cause less emergency response in the event that something this tragic unfolds again.
posted by Ginger on 2-21-2010 at 3:24 pm
My Mom’s friend adopted a Katrina dog. Since then, this dog has become her life. Dog also developed cancer and the woman paid to have all tumors removed. This dog was chipped, but no one ever claimed him. I would hate for her to lose this dog, but I also have pets and I would hate for others to take them if there was an emergency.
posted by mercury973 on 3-6-2010 at 10:54 pm
so sad, i can’t imagine being forced to leave my dog behind in an emergency. being forced to leave a dog behind is clearly different than abandoning the dog which somehow people were implying after the fact. i understand it was due to the generosity of adopters that the pets even survived, but even if i adopted a katrina dog and there was a loving caring previous owner who had been forced to leave them behind, i would hope i would have enough empathy for the depth of their loss to not take the one non-material thing that probably had the most meaning to them. of course circumstances would be different if they were mistreated but if they were forced i would give him back because i would want my dog back, it would be my only hope after losing everything
posted by doglover on 5-23-2010 at 2:01 am
I would never leave my pet.. EVER. My dogs are my babies, they’re elderly. I love them. I understand many people are forced to leave their pets behind, i could not imagine making a decision like that. I have great respect for all of these heroes.
posted by Tina on 7-11-2011 at 9:27 pm