An animal rescue is helping to identify missing and deceased pets after the Central Texas floods and helping rescuers find missing people.
KERRVILLE, Texas — As three puppies are unloaded at an animal rescue in Kerrville, their faces mirror that of most people here now: a mix of shock, apprehension, and fear.
They’re slightly shaking and a bit overwhelmed by all the activity around them. The man who brought them in told us he found the puppies huddled next to their mother’s body, in the wreckage of the flood.
“I saw the mom just lying there,” he said, so he scooped up the pups and called it in.
A few minutes earlier, a little boy named Mauricio arrived with his parents, holding a black cat. He found it near their home, and unlike most, it didn’t even try to run away. He doesn’t know who the cat belongs to, but when the rescue workers asked him, Mauricio says he named him “Lucky.”
The woman who runs Pets Alive Kerrville says these are the fortunate ones.
“Unfortunately, we’re seeing many deceased animals, mainly dogs,” Karen Guerriero said.
She told us that most of the pets that survived suffered various injuries, some more serious than others.
“We just had one dog come out of surgery. She was in bad shape, and they had to amputate her foot and tail,” Guerriero said.
While the primary focus has been and will continue to be finding missing people, the volunteers who go out looking for animals may also be helping in that search.
“This is a retirement community. We saw through COVID and the big freeze, a lot of people here living in their cars with their pets, because those are their only companions, Guerriero said.
The volunteers always document the exact location where a dog or cat’s body is found, knowing a lot of people here won’t leave them, even during a catastrophic flood.
“There’s a real connection there. We’re finding some of these deceased pets, and we try to reach out to rescuers to come look in that area, to see if they can find some missing people,” Guerriero said.
In the few hours we spent at the rescue, we lost count of the number of deliveries. As one UPS truck left, a FedEx driver arrived, followed by Amazon unloading box after box of supplies. Guerriero believes well-meaning Americans are looking for ways to help and have been going online to send food, kennels, chew toys and cleaning supplies.
“We’ve had to take a moment to decompress from the outpouring of generosity, from all over the country, really. With all the supplies and donations, it’s just been incredible,” Guerriero said.
Pets Alive Kerrville partnered with its sister agency in Austin to create a database of missing or deceased pets.
“Whenever a pet is reported lost, if we get a picture, we upload that photo and all the relevant information,” Guerriero said. That way, people can go online and see if their pet has been found. Or it can work the other way around, with the agency trying to match a dog to its owner.
“There was a situation where an entire family lost their lives, and we found their dog. The dog was microchipped, so we were able to find a family member. And that dog was flown back to Houston to be reunited with a relative,” Guerriero says. “That was the one thing left that we could send back to part of the family.”
The black cat that Mauricio nicknamed “Lucky” has already been placed with a foster mom, who’ll take care of it until the area returns to a more normal atmosphere and they can process an adoption.
As for the three puppies, they’ve lost their mother and most likely, the people they were living with. But knowing how many families in Kerr County need comfort right now, it’s hard to imagine they won’t find a home.