Abandoned123

Every so often, I’ll get a call because of a house fire.  Recently, upon inspecting a home which had fire damage I noticed that the renters left a cat behind claiming that they couldn’t catch it.  But when I was on the second floor without any knowledge that anyone or thing was in the house, the cat came right up to me.  What to do?  Understanding first that the fire department cuts the electric and water supply to the home, so the cat is the dark, alone and without heat.  Second, there’s no care for this poor animal in regards to water, food or a litter change, not to mention any contact.  After contacting the home owner, I put food out for the cat, bought a bottle of water and waited to see if someone was picking him up.  Two days later, I’m changing the water and still no one was there and now the renters claim the cat is not theirs.  It’s then that I stumbled across an organization called Red Paw.  The Red Paw Emergency Relief Team is an emergency services, nonprofit organization that works in conjunction with the American Red Cross, SEPA Chapter and other public and private disaster relief, social service, and animal welfare organizations to provide emergency transport, shelter, and veterinary care to animals involved in residential fires and other disasters.  After calling them and showing them the email where the family states the cat is not there’s, someone came by and picked the cat up for care.

There’s basically three points to this blog.  One, is that if you own a pet and forgot your responsibility to care for it no matter what, you don’t leave it behind, because there are options!!!  Two, you should have an exit plan not only for yourself, but also for your animals in case of a disaster.  And Three, if you ever considered donating any monies to any organization, this would be one.

Visit our site at biowashing.com

To make a donation to Red Paw click here:  http://redpawemergencyreliefteam.com/donate/

About the author: Joe Fiorilli