help cats rescued from hurricane harvey
#AdorableAdoptables & Shelter Stories,  Cats,  Shelter Cats

How To Help Cats Rescued From Hurricane Harvey

September 3, 2017 / 19 Comments
If you love cats, sharing makes us purrrr :-)

H is for Hurricane Harvey, Houston, Hope and Help for Cats rescued. That’s our rally cry and firm intention.

This comprehensive guide shows how you can help cats rescued from Hurricane Harvey+

In a time of unprecedented catastrophe there has been an unprecedented level of support. On GoFundMe, 4 billion has been raised and the American Red Cross is always a safe bet but generous hearts need to use caution. Please note: The Red Cross does not allow pets in their emergency shelters. Update: they changed their policy to allow pets.

  • Beware of requests for donations by unfamiliar organizations or people. Some leading relief charities now accept donations via cell phone, but unsolicited text messages, like unsolicited telephone and email communications, should be viewed with suspicion and handled with caution.

If you feel confused about where or how to help, read on.

 

Thousands of cats have been displaced since Hurricane Harvey hit the gulf coast of Texas on August 25th. In the first couple days, news coverage showed images of dogs being rescued but no cats. Cats are more likely to hide in an emergency. In a flooding situation, their natural instinct would be to avoid water and seek higher ground. Most don’t like going into carriers and are not trained to come on command. While there is a movement towards more cat training, few are leash-trained. More cat lives could have been saved with basic training. If you ever need to evacuate, please do not leave your pet behind. Keep cat carriers handy. A recent tragic story involved a young man who died trying to check up on his sister’s cat after she evacuated. She didn’t have a carrier and had left the cat with food and water.

September is Pet Emergency Preparedness Month. Read our tips.

Some Harvey-rescued animals are being sent to shelters in other cities within Texas and out of state. Some dogs are being flown as far away as New Jersey. The level of devastation means it could be weeks or months before many pets can be returned back to their homes. The lucky ones who have ID and have been rescued like the six cats in the video below, will return home. Many others will have lost their homes forever and will need temporary (short or long term) foster homes or permanent adoption. On a positive note, many stray pets will be rescued that otherwise would have remained abandoned. All Texas shelters are in desperate need of help, donations, supplies, volunteers and foster homes.

Get creative. We created shareable, Pinnable posters. Make something to sell. Can you offer to send healing Reiki long-distance? Collect. Our local funeral home is serving free breakfast and collecting pet products to ship to Texas on their dime. Everyone has a useful skill or resource. Writer Gwen Cooper has raised over 16K on Go Fund Me

As displaced pets arrive at shelters, the adoption rate of current pets MUST GO UP. If you can’t adopt, please consider fostering.

We are donating 100% of net proceeds of our Black Cats Tell All books sales from Gumroad this week for disaster relief. Gumroad is a safe and secure platform but we also have an SSL certificate which provides an extra layer of security. Click to purchase our book right meow.
BUY our nonprofit book Black Cats Tell All: True Tales And Inspiring Images

or simply donate any amount now. We are a 501 (c) 3 and donate only to no-kill shelters/rescue groups. Thank you!

We’re featuring adoptables are usual on Instagram but our focus has shifted to shelters with greatest need. We are long time supporters of the Helen Woodward Center in San Diego and their annual awareness event Remember Me Thursday, which shines the light on shelter pets who need a home and light a candle for those who died before being adopted. We’ll be blogging about the event on September 28 as we have for the past five years.

On Tuesday, a team will be flying @ 80 rescued pets from Texas to San Diego on South West Airlines and that means they need to more adoptions NOW to make more space.

Our adoption feature are two amazing and bonded pairs of black cats. Tarzan and Jane are 2 years old. Robin Hood and Maid Marion are kittens about 5 months old. Look at Robin Hood’s lucky white whisker! Please share or Pin this graphic.

help cats rescued hurricane Harvey

 

There are 5 KILL SHELTERS in Houston with data courtesy of nokillhouston.org. We’re including the list to inform and we reserve judgment. The need is great there too. There are details of their save rates to help make up your mind.

Whatever you decide to do or where to donate, is up to you to help rescued Harvey cats. But please do something even if it’s simply sharing this post.

1. BARC – Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care i.e. Houston’s animal control or city pound

2. Harris County Animal Control

3. Houston SPCA

4. Houston Humane Society

They have “euthanasia only” contracts with surrounding counties, meaning that they take in animals from surrounding communities and kill them for a fee.

5. CAP – Citizens for Animal Protection

They also have “euthanasia only” contracts

Purr_pray_#harveypets

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19 Comments

  • Skeeter & Izzy

    September 5, 2017 at 2:41 PM Reply

    It is so very overwhelming just to think of the magnitude of these kinds of disasters. We are donating all we can and we are praying and purring continuously for those impacted. Many of the people can make choices and decisions but the animals cannot especially those left chained and crated where the water is. We as a whole have got to figure out a better way to prepare for, endure and recover from these disasters. They will only continue to worsen with increases in population and construction and destruction of natural barriers and controls.
    Thank you for sharing the wonderful information here.
    Luvs Purrs and Prayers for all that have a need and we all do, it is just a question of magnitude.
    Skeeter and Izzy and the Feral Gang + Twig & Peanut & Romeo & the Angels >^..^^..^<~

  • easyweimaraner

    September 4, 2017 at 1:37 AM Reply

    I’m so glad that the rules are changed now… it’s so sad to imagine such a case… think I would stay outside with my pets if a shelter will not accept them…
    we pray that there is a solution for pets… and we pray that all this heavy rain what came with the evil harvey will stop now…

  • ellen

    September 3, 2017 at 9:05 PM Reply

    I am glad to see the shelters are now accepting flood victims pets in affected areas. In the past it wasnt the case and it was terrible.
    I may get flack here for this, but I am compelled to say it… in the past flooding situations, I know shelters here in our town and nearby towns took in animals. While many do it with the best intentions, there were people searching for their pets, and since the records are never that great ‘took in black cat’ for example, many pets never got their humans back. Even those chipped didnt get to go home.
    Last time, a woman who was in the flood had finally found her dog in an Iowa shelter after months of searching. Of course her info had changed, if it was ever checked. She came to Iowa and played hell getting the animal returned. All her pictures, info about her pet had been destroyed, all she had was her name on it’s chip, you would think that would have been enough, but it got far more complicated.
    Her dog in fact had been ‘adopted’ by a family who only knew it was one of the Katrina dogs, they werent to blame. The shelter had even been asking for funds just a few days after Katrina, they knew they were getting animals. The woman by the way did finally get her dog back, and the shelter was warned by a court to do better ‘next time’ I hope they are.
    I do hope this time around, more precautions are taken, that it will be easier for those who have lost everything to find their pets, and to get them home. For well meaning shelters to keep meticulous records as to the location of the animals (where found or rescued) and the local shelters in affected areas to cross reference so there will be happy endings.
    I hope the strays are able to be rescued, and given the homes they deserve and all the pets reunited with owners who couldnt get them out in time. There are already Texas dogs here……… and seeing many of them, they certainly werent strays. I pray and hope their humans can find them again you can see how lost and afraid these animals are. I havent seen anyone with Texas cats yet, there are so many here I dont think there is even one more foster that can take them in :/

  • Cathy Keisha

    September 3, 2017 at 8:41 PM Reply

    I hadn’t read about the Red Cross change of policy and was refusing to send them anything. We are doing an auction for Austin Pets Alive! this week and I’m also collection on FB for Victoria Janssen Animal Shelter. Our friend lives in Bastrop, TX and told us that they were taking all the area animals of evacuees. This is great resource. Thank you.

  • Tamago

    September 3, 2017 at 7:19 PM Reply

    Thank you for the info. I’ve contributed what I could and hope the animals affected by the hurricane would be rescued. Glad Red Cross has changed the policy about animals.

  • Andrea Dorn

    September 3, 2017 at 2:07 PM Reply

    I’m happy to say that two of our local shelters went down to Texas the first day after the hurricane and took some of the animals that were already in shelters to free up space for the hurricane refugees. Now we need people here to adopt them. I watch the videos of rescues and almost cheer when I see cats rescued. I pray for them all.

  • Kathryn

    September 3, 2017 at 1:14 PM Reply

    I am so happy The Red Cross changed their policy to allow pets in their shelters.

    I have a cousin in Houston. Last I heard his neighborhood was not affected. I need to contact him again. He lost his wife, recently, from infections suffered as a result of a TBI sustained in a bicycle accident in Moab, Utah in 2015. She was an expert cyclist, but one shouldn’t bike through a slick-rock canyon, although many do.

    This disaster is unprecedented. It is a wake up call, and I hope that officials worldwide take heed and learn from the many issues that have arisen since then.

    Climate Change. Denialists should stop trying to deny.

    This is going to happen again and again. All cities near water — which is most large cities, since humans always set up camp near water — should spend big bucks on preventive measures.

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