This e-mail is From Jeanine Curcione with Bichons and Buddies, one of the rescue groups that participated in the first rescue at Centinela Feed. In a few paragraphs, it reinforces the mission of RFR in reuniting the animals with their owners and not just in finding them new homes in Los Angeles.

I received the most heartbreaking call anyone can imagine. Diane Brown, a Louisiana resident, called me after seeing our group listed as one who received a Katrina poodle in the hopes that it was her dog. She told me the horror story of how she, her husband and their young daughter we stuck on the freeway and the buses were sent in to rescue people. The national guard and police were just shoving people on the bus with no concern for families beings separated and of course were not allowing pets. They passed up the first couple of buses not wishing to risk being separated from each other and desparately wanting to take their 8 year old poodle. Max was a rescue from a shelter a couple of years earlier when they lived in Michagan. They sold everything they had and moved to Louisiana in May!

They spent the night on the wet grass on the side of the freeway (along with many other stranded people) and she told of how Max protected them all night and would bark anytime someone came near them. That morning another bus came and she pleaded with the driver to let them take their small poodle on. He consented and she got on the bus with her daughter and her husband who was holding the poodle was behind her. She walked past a national guardsman down the aisle and as her husband got on the bus, he said "I'm not giving up my seat for that dog!" He refused to let the husband on with the dog. When Diane tried to get off the bus with her daughter they refused to let her off and while standing in the doorway of the bus with other people crowded behind him, the husband had to make the onerous choice between his wife and child and his beloved Max. A man standing behind him said, "hand him to me." Feeling he had no choice, he handed over Max and got on the bus. That was the last they saw of him.

He was wearing Michigan tags still and is an apricot neutered poodle about 8 years old with cloudy eyes. He was shaved pretty short unlike this picture when they first got him. She has been searching through thousands of pics in an attempt to find him and they are now back in MI staying temporarily until allowed back to their home which is most likely completely destroyed.

Hearing her story and the anguish in her voice AND the recounting of the callous treatment they received ripped my heart out. I still can't stop crying every time I think about. It's one thing to read all the stories and to know hers is but one of a thousand similar tragedies....it's another to talk to a person and feel that kinship.

When I told her with tears in my voice that I was SO VERY SORRY for all she lost, she said quite simply that all they wanted was their dog back - that everything else can be replaced, but not Max. She told me her husband feels horrible and is terribly depressed because he let Max down. He had promised him that night on the wet grass that they would get through this.

Please, help her find out if Max is alive somewhere. She knows about Petfinder database and mentioned another. What are all the sources that she can look to? Attached is a flyer she made with the picture. Can this be posted ...... where?? Please tell me how to get the word out EVERYWHERE and I'll help this person in any way I can.

Jeanine Curcione
Bichons and Buddies
(www.bichonsandbuddies.com)