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A dog separated from his owners during Hurricane Katrina was found wandering in North Carolina — and may be headed back to his original family.

A veterinarian in Cabarrus County  is asking for the public’s help in returning the dog, named Shorty, to his first family, even though Shorty has lived nearly seven years with new caretakers.

Shorty was spotted on a roadway in Cabarrus County about two weeks ago, according to NEWS14, and when the vet checked for a microchip Shorty’s original owner’s name came up.

“We traced the dog to Louisiana and thank goodness the gentleman did not change his cell phone number,” said Brenda Tortoreo, the receptionist at Cabarrus Animal Hospital.

That family had given Shorty up seven years ago when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, said said Dr. Blake Peurifoy, a veterinarian at Cabarrus Animal Hospital who has been treating the dog.

“They (the owners) were hit really hard during Katrina. They lost their home and didn’t have the ability to take care of their dog so they gave it away. They don’t know where it went from there,” Peurifoy told NBC.

Shorty is now 15, and has spent almost half of his life with his new owners, who  came forward when Shorty appeared on the TV news. They live in Concord, N.C.

WCNC reports that a teenager called the station on Sunday after seeing news reports about the found dog. Ta’layza Miller and her grandmother, Oclisha Miller, who adopted Shorty from a Concord shelter more than six years ago, said he’d been missing since September 10.

Unlike Shorty’s first family, the second didn’t have a microchip installed.

The family said they understand why Shorty’s original family in Louisiana wants him back and that, given the circumstances, they don’t object.

“Since they lost everything in Hurricane Katrina and they lost him … I wouldn’t mind them keeping him or anything because it was their dog first,” said 15-year-old Ta’layza said.

Given the second family’s agreement, the veterinary hospital plans to get Shorty back to the original family in Lousiana — but he needs some medical attention first.

Shorty was found with infected eyes, badly matted fur, dental disease that requires surgery and a heart murmur.

The hospital is treating Shorty free of charge, and is hoping someone will volunteer to help transport Shorty back to Louisiana when the time comes — probably around two weeks.

“I don’t want to add additional hardship to them … With it’s heart condition and the condition his mouth is in, it’s like saying, ‘Here. Here’s your sick dog back and you’ve got $2,000 worth of stuff to deal with in his mouth,’” said Peurifoy.

The hospital is interested in hearing from people who might be able to take Shorty to Louisiana.

“I know these people have had the past seven years or so a hard life. Thank God I’m not in their position, and we just hope this serves as a sort of a bright spot for them because they certainly deserve it,” said Peurifoy.

Will families of American military personnel in Japan be forced to leave their pets behind when they evacuate?

The Animal Legal Defense Fund is seeking the anwer to that question.

In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the non-profit organization asks for a clarification of the U.S. government’s policy on whether or not military families can bring their pets with them — or must be forced to choose between staying in harm’s way and abandoning a beloved companion.

Family members of military personnel stationed in Japan began evacuating today amid the increasing threat of radioactivity in the wake of last week’s earthquake and tsunami.

ALDF says it has received desperate emails from some of them, who say they’ve been informed pets will not be allowed on evacuation planes chartered by the U.S. Department of State.

“In a context of terrifying natural and nuclear disasters, with military personnel and their families already being separated from each other, we would hope that the U.S. government would not place an additional burden on military families by disregarding the very real bonds they have with their animal companions” said Carter Dillard, ALDF’s director of litigation.

“It is our hope that the tragedy of people forced to abandon beloved pets in order to evacuate to safety, which we saw play out on a heartbreaking scale during Hurricane Katrina, is not replicated during the current crisis in Japan.”

ALDF says it has heard from numerous families who say they are hesitant to evacuate from the escalating radiation danger if they are required to leave their pets behind.

Some families have turned to Facebook for help, including Mariaelena Rodriguez Geoffray, shown above with her dog, Bella. Seeking a commercial flight, she has been told by two airlines that temperatures are too cold to fly a pet.

Her dilemma is recounted on the blog Two Little Cavaliers.

There are about 43,000 dependents of American military personnel living in Japan.

It has been more than a month since our extended road trip took us through Louisiana’s St. Bernard Parish, where we reported on how cash-strapped fishing families were finding it hard to continue caring for their pets since the oil spill ruined their industry.

Now, we’re happy to report, more help has arrived, which could help stem the tide of people surrendering their dogs because they can no longer afford them.

Twenty tons of Kibbles ‘n Bits (for large dogs) – donated by Del Monte Foods and transported by Best Friends — was dropped off earlier this month.

Large dogs, you’ll recall, are numerous in the parish southeast of New Orleans because many residents used them to guard their properties while rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina.

“The people who are coming in have big dogs,” says Beth Brewster, director of the St. Bernard Parish Animal Shelter. “They can’t afford to feed them.”

Brewster told Best Friends that many families picking up free dog food bring photos of their dogs with them, and share their dog’s story. “They have tears in their eyes. They’re very, very thankful,” she says. “It’s one less thing they have to worry about.”

The Louisiana SPCA has collaborated with Brewster and Best Friends, as a part of Best Friends’ First Home Forever Home campaign, and is setting up distribution sites, in St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Orleans and Jefferson parishes.

To get the food, residents fill out an application, present a commercial fishing license or proof that they work as charter boat operators or in another field affected by the spill.

“These families have not only lost their livelihoods, but also their way of life practically overnight. They shouldn’t have to face losing members of their families, too. It’s just too much to expect anybody to bear,” said Ellen Gilmore, campaign specialist for Best Friends’ First Home Forever Home.

This trip, whatever else it’s about, is also about nostalgia, and I got a big dose of it on the drive to Houston – most of it induced by the long-distance driver’s best friend, the radio.

Music, like old friends revisited and roads previously traveled, can be a powerful memory trigger.

Music and roads, in fact, have a lot in common.

The road itself has a rhythm – the steady thwack-thwack percussion of cracks in the highway, the different humming tones produced by different road surfaces, the rat-a-tat drum roll when you accidentally veer across those lane divider bumps, which always causes Ace to, ever so briefly, wake up.

Then, on the Interstate at least, there is the familiar chorus: Exit ahead … Food, Gas, Lodging … Shoney’s, Cracker Barrel, Taco Bell.

When it comes to roads, some are pop roads, also known as Interstate highways, where you’re not likely to see anything you haven’t seen before. There are classical roads, like Route 66; and blues roads, which are dark and swampy with moss hanging from the trees. There are jazz roads, which meander, make abrupt turns and have unpredictable curves and riffs. There are alternate, or alternative highways, which often lead to something interesting; and of course there are country roads, which may or may not take you home … to the place … you belong.

On Friday, with the radio blasting, I traveled a swampy stretch of I-10 – a combination blues/pop road — from Baton Rouge to Lafayette, crossing a piece of the Atchafalaya Swamp, whose name itself is almost musical. During the drive I had four flashbacks, three of them music-induced.

Blame the first on the Red Hot Chili Peppers – the musical group that, like the vegetable, tends to come back and haunt me.

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If you don’t think dogs are being hurt by the BP oil spill, perhaps you need a lesson in the trickle down – or, in this case, ooze down – theory of disaster economics.

And there may be no better place to learn it than St. Bernard Parish, southeast of New Orleans, a community that was struggling to survive to begin with, left underwater by Hurricane Katrina and, with more than half of its families owing their incomes to fishing, is now feeling the rippling ramifications of the oil spill.

They evacuated during the hurricane, came back and have been rebuilding ever since. Now, the oil rig explosion and subsequent contamination of the gulf means a loss of work and more sacrificing.

Right down to the family dog.

This one statistic pretty much sums it up: The St. Bernard Parish animal shelter took in 60 dogs in May 2009; this May it saw 288 come in, many of them surrendered by owners who, having at least temporarily lost their livelihoods to the oil spill, said they could no longer afford to provide care for their dogs.

That sad-eyed girl above, named Abby, arrived at the shelter a week ago, surrendered by a family that subsisted on harvesting seafood from the gulf – only a few pockets of which are still open to shrimping, crabbing, and oyster harvesting.

While some fisherman have turned to working on the cleanup, “they’re not making nowhere near what they were making before,” said Shannon Asevedo, a St. Bernard Parish animal control officer.

Another occupant of the shelter, Sasha, was owned by a BP employee who turned her over to his mother-in-law because he was being called upon to travel so much. When Sasha had ten pups last month, it was more than she could handle. Now all 11 are at the shelter, where the BP employee’s ex-wife works as a volunteer – partly so she can see her former dog. Due to financial and legal problems, she’s unable to care for Sasha as well.

“Our intakes have probably doubled if not tripled since the oil spill,” Asevedo said. “They may not all be related to it. Most people just say they can’t afford to take care of them anymore. It’s a shame. More are here because their parents can’t take care of them. At the same time, adoption rates are down, too. So where do they go?”

St. Bernard Parish Animal Services Director Beth Brewster says the shelter attempts to place all dogs in adoptive homes, ships some to rescue groups and tries to put down only those deemed aggressive.

Interestingly, the shelter sees a large number of large dogs and pit bulls. Families returning to rebuild after Katrina often bought large dogs and left them at their homes at night to protect against the theft of construction materials.

Brewster, in the job for two years now, said the parish’s previous shelter, with a capacity of 26 dogs, “was a dump.” The parish opened its new facility this January, with financial help from the Humane Society of the United States and FEMA.

The old shelter had reopened shortly after Katrina, but went nearly two years without electricity or running water. It strung together hoses to bring in water, and used extension cords to supply electricity. It, unlike the new facility, had no air conditioning, which took a toll on dogs and humans alike.

The shelter was so shoddy that the shelter bought an old school bus and would load it with adoptable dogs, parking in front of the Home Depot and trying to find them homes.

Now they have a gleaming new shelter, and a new air-conditioned mobile unit. But they also have more dogs than even their new and expanded capacity can handle, with more and more dogs being surrendered for economic reasons.

“This is not a wealthy community to begin with,” Brewster said. “Most of these people grew up on the water and more than half make their living on it.”

Recognizing the parish’s problems, the Humane Society of the United States has sent a shipment of dog food to the area, to be distributed to pet owners facing hardships associated with the gulf oil spill. The food is also being distributed in Plaquemines Parish.

“The Humane Society of the United States was saddened to hear that animals inland from the shoreline are also suffering from this disaster,” said Julia Breaux, the organization’s Louisiana director.

St. Bernard Parish, as you’ve probably guessed, is not named after the dog breed, but after the actual saint — Saint Bernard, who devoted himself to the conversion of the people of the Alps and is known as the patron saint of mountaineering.

But the determined people of the parish may have more in common with the dog breed, which is named after St. Bernard’s Pass in the Alps (which is named after the Saint). The dogs were brought to a famous hospice there in the 1600s, where they developed their reputation for mountain rescues and where, it is said, rugged and adverse conditions honed their strong instinct for survival.

We didn’t cover too much ground yesterday — progressing only from Biloxi to New Orleans, but we did get in some beach time in a town called Waveland, Mississippi.

Good thing, too, because it was a sweltering day on the gulf. As Ace splashed about on an isolated sliver of beach in Hancock County — where dogs, on leashes, are allowed and unleashed ones don’t raise too many eyebrows — I wondered, between the oil approaching our shores and global warning, if the day might come when seafood can be hauled out of the gulf pre-fried and ready to eat. For our side order, we could toss in a basket of fries, which would emerge golden brown, salted and only slightly toxic.

But seeing the ominous sight of spill workers combing the beaches with large plastic bags, just a few hundred yards from where children played, I realized it’s clearly no laughing matter. It’s truly a hellish one.

The suffering already caused, to both wildlife and humans, and, as we’ll see tomorrow — even dogs — has likely just begun.

Hancock County’s beaches haven’t been hit — yet — and the hordes of worker are mostly picking up beach trash as they wait to see what comes ashore.

But for parts of Mississippi, and much of the rest of the gulf, particularly New Orleans and other areas still getting over Hurricane Katrina, the combination of natural and man-made disasters is almost too much to bear.

For a little relief, people make jokes.

As I checked into another Motel 6 on the edge of New Orleans yesterday afternoon, a storm appeared to be on the way.

“What’s next?” the motel manager was saying to the front desk staff. “Maybe a sandstorm? Or a rockstorm. That’s what it’ll be, a rockstorm.”

(For all of our continuing series, “Dog’s Country,” click here.)

Jay Jay and Jessie are together again.

Jessie Pullins, separated from his dog Jay Jay during Hurricane Katrina, was reunited with the Akita mix yesterday — nearly four years later.

Pullins, busy helping 10 of his relatives evacuate, couldn’t take his dog with him when he left his house in New Orleans in 2005. Once he returned, weeks later, the dog was gone.

About a year later he saw his dog on TV, appearing, with a new owner, on an episode of the National Geographic Channel program, The Dog Whisperer.

An animal rescue group had saved Jay Jay from the home, and he was shuffled between different animal groups before being adopted in California.

After tracking Jay Jay down, Pullins entered a long legal battle, with assistance from the Katrina Animal Reunion Team, to try and get him back.

The legal wrangling ended recently when the woman who adopted Jay Jay decided to return him, WWL-TV in New Orleans, reported Tuesday. You can see a video here.

Pullins, who is one of the pet owners featured in the documentary, Mine: Taken by Katrina,  said he has no hard feelings toward the woman for resisting his attempts to get Jay Jay back.

“Everybody falls in love with Jay Jay. He’s lovable. I don’t fault them.”

An American Opera “Jane’s Trailer”

Tom McPhee and his award-winning documentary about pets during Hurricane Katrina — “An American Opera: The Greatest Pet Rescue Ever!” — are hitting the road on a year-long 80-city tour.

“The Rescue Party Tour” starts this month and will highlight local animal organizations in each city it visits (Baltimore’s not on the list yet).

The documentary is described as a “visceral, operatic vision of what happened to the pet owners of New Orleans who were forced to evacuate after Hurricane Katrina without their beloved pets, and the volunteers who came from all over the world to help.

“America suffered its worst domestic animal crisis in history when tens of thousands of animals were left to perish in neighborhoods all across the gulf. This heartfelt story follows the pets, vets, owners, officials, rescuers, and adopters of animals as they work through the chaos to do what is right, only to discover not everyone is working toward the same goal.”

For more information about the movie, visit its website.

For more information about the tour, see www.RescuePartyTour.com.

Local animal groups interested in showcasing the movie and their work in the community, can email rescuepartyinfo@mansmilingmovingpictures.com

As the Humane Society of the United States and other organizations continue their rescue efforts, crews are finding that improved evacuation procedures — and a bit of luck — helped many of the area’s animals weather Hurricane Ike, according to National Geographic.

Shelters set up to accommodate pets and livestock offered relief to people who were forced to evacuate while providing a safe haven for their animals.

“The sheltering process went really well. There was a place for the animals and they were all cared for,” said Angela Clendenin, director of communications at Texas A&M University’s College of Veterinary Medicine in College Station. “Overall I think the preparations paid off.”

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With Gustav and Hanna behind us, and Ike still ahead, the American Humane Association is urging pet owners to review how prepared they are for this hurricane season and other natural disasters.

The Humane Association is the organization behind he “no animals were hurt” disclaimer on movie and television production — and it also brought us last year’s pet owner survey that confirmed what Hurricane Katrina vividly showed: many people love their pets too much to evacuate their homes without them.

The association’s 2007 study of pet owners found that 47 percent of Americans would refuse rescue assistance if it meant leaving their pet behind.

Nearly three out of four people surveyed (72 percent) agreed that there should be formal evacuation plans for pets — with support being strongest in the South and West, the areas most closely associated with hurricanes and wildfires.

“During Hurricane Katrina, American Humane and others rescued nearly 10,000 animals,” said Marie Belew Wheatley, president and CEO of American Humane. “…Now, with hurricane season in full swing, it’s important that the lessons and successes applied in Louisiana are applied elsewhere.”

The 2007 study surveyed 1,000 adults to gauge their attitudes and level of preparedness surrounding disasters and the steps people have taken to prepare their pets for a disaster.

While nearly half of all surveyed said they wouldn’t leave their pet behind, people with children were more likely to evacuate without their pet — 60 percent said they would. Among pet owners without children, only 37 percent said they would leave their pet behind.

Most respondents agreed that rescuing pets was a secondary objective, after rescuing people — 45 percent said animals should be rescued only after all humans have been, 34 percent said animals could be rescued along with humans “if time and space permits,” and 16 percent said animals and humans should be considered equals and pets should be “rescued at all costs.”

Survey takers showed a greater loyalty to dogs than cats — 55 percent of dog owners would refuse evacuation efforts, compared to 43 percent of cat owners.

“These findings really demonstrate the incredible power of the human-animal bond and make it clear that people believe animals should be considered in rescue efforts,” said Wheatley. “Now, we need to continue using this information to construct safe, fair and feasible plans for rescue situations.”

Founded in 1877, the association is the only national organization dedicated to protecting both children and animals. Based in Denver, it develops policies, legislation, curricula and training programs to protect children and animals from abuse, neglect and exploitation.

The association recommends the following steps for pet owners:

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