[Rhodes22-list] P - Washington is going to the dogs!

[brad haslett]

Oh my, it had to happen.  My dog Gracie is pleased
that we have idiots in Washington.  Does anyone but me
wonder how much this is going to run the tab up?

Brad

ELIZABETH WHITE, Associated Press Writer 
Thu Sep 22, 1:43 PM ET


WASHINGTON - Federal disaster grants to state and
local governments should be conditioned on how they
accommodate pets in their evacuation plans, say
lawmakers disturbed that some Hurricane Katrina
victims refused to leave home because they couldn't
take their animals with them. 
 
"I cannot help but wonder how many more people could
have been saved had they been able to take their
pets," Rep. Tom Lantos (news, bio, voting record),
D-Calif., said Thursday.

Lantos and Reps. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and
Barney Frank, D-Mass., are sponsoring a bill that
would require that state and local disaster
preparedness plans required for     Federal Emergency
Management Agency funding include provisions for
household pets and service animals.

More than 6,000 pets have been saved in Mississippi
and Louisiana, said Michael Markarian, executive vice
president of the Humane Society of the United States,
but tens of thousands more could still be in New
Orleans alone. Texas, he said, has been better at
allowing people to take their pets with them ahead of
Hurricane Rita but a formal policy is still needed.

"We cannot rely on individual acts of compassion,"
Markarian said.

Holly Hazard, executive director of the Doris Day
Animal League, said there are 4,000 outstanding
requests to rescue pets more than three weeks after
Katrina hit.

While the legislation may draw attention to the issue,
it doesn't "have any real meat in it," said Sara
Spaulding, a spokeswoman for the American Humane
Association. She said uniform protocols on rescuing
and sheltering animals, for example, should be
formulated at the federal level with consultation from
animal welfare groups.

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