MINE - a Documentary Review

On Halloween I stayed home with my dogs and watched several movies, including the independent film, MINE. This eye opening movie spun the tale of the thousands of animals that were left behind during Hurricane Katrina, and how hard many of their owners fought to try and find them after the storm - many of whom were criticized for abandoning their animals in the first place.

It's easy to condemn others for their actions. It's easy to say that you'd never leave your own animals behind during a catastrophe. That is, until it happens to you.

Unfortunately, sometimes things happen beyond our control. Many of the residents of New Orleans had no transportation of their own, and they could not remove their animals from the city because the emergency shelters would not take them. Desperate to save their own lives, (please don't forget that almost 2000 people died in Katrina's wake), the evacuees had to make a choice between their animals and their human family members. In order to save their children, their spouses, their aging parents, they left their fur kids behind - with extra food, water, and a promise to return for them as soon as the storm passed. Still others were pulled from their homes by rescue agencies, separated from their pets not through choice, but through force.

And when each of these owners tried to return for their precious pets, they found the city closed. The government would not let them back in to save their four legged friends.

Since the pet owners were not allowed to enter the city, rescue groups stepped in and began removing as many animals as possible. But there were only a handful of volunteers, and thousands of pets had been left behind. As fast as the rescuers could remove animals, others were running out of food and water, or found themselves trapped in dangerous situations due to the rising tide.

Thousands of animals died before help could arrive.

The ones that were rescued were carted off to local shelters, and when those filled, they began shipping animals off to other shelters all over the country. A few here, a few there, anywhere there was an empty crate. They tried to photograph the animals, to document where each came from, but the task was impossible due to the sheer numbers. Worse, as the weeks went by, the owners were not claiming their animals as fast as the rescuers had originally hoped. Temporarily homeless themselves, they had no means of finding out where their animals had gone.

A database was set up on Petfinder.com, in hopes of reuniting animals with their owners, but many of these families didn't even have access to the internet, a luxury which a lot of us take for granted.

Soon, due to lack of funds and resources to house them all, the shelters began adopting the animals out to new homes. According to the Lousiana SPCA, of the animals that were lucky enough to be rescued, only about 15 to 20 percent of them ever found their way back to their original owners. Worse, some owners eventually located their pets, only to discover that their new adoptive families refused to relinquish them.

Unbelievable? You betcha. Want to learn more? Take the time to watch MINE, which you can conveniently stream from Netflix. But be forewarned - if you love animals as much as I do, have a box of tissues on hand.