CNN: "Two dogs waited for months in rubble for their masters who died in Haiti's earthquake"

First aid groups treat Haiti's injured animals
By Daphne Sashin, for CNN
August 9, 2010 10:44 p.m. EDT

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/08/06/haiti.animals/index.html?hpt=C1



Two dogs waited for months in the rubble of their home for their masters who died in Haiti's earthquake. "Animal welfare is a new concept in Haiti," said Max Millien, director of animal health at the Haiti Ministry of Agriculture.

(CNN) -- More than six months since the earthquake in Haiti, family dogs and pigs paw through garbage and rubble in search of food, putting them at risk of infections, abscesses and parasites, according to animal welfare groups.

Owners want to help their pets and livestock, but they have little to give. With 1.5 million people still living in tents and the nation in the middle of hurricane season, animals are the lowest priority, animal rescue groups say.

Despite this, tens of thousands of animals have been treated while a public service campaign features a Creole-speaking dog telling families to include their animals in evacuation plans.

"The animal situation is only a reflection of the people's situation," Gerardo Huertas, of the UK-based World Society for the Protection of Animals, told CNN from Costa Rica.

"They live together. Until the whole shelter situation resolves, all you can do is help them with little veterinary support that we can provide," added Huertas, the society's Director of Disaster Management for the Americas.

But animal welfare groups are hopeful that in time they can actually give the nation and its people something it didn't have before the earthquake -- equipment, training and an awareness that animal welfare is critical to their own survival.

"Often in disasters we try and only deal with the problems caused by the disaster and not the underlying problems ... but Haiti was a special case," said Ian Robinson, Emergency Relief Program Director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, based in Massachusetts.

"To put it back like it was before the earthquake wasn't good enough."

There wasn't a single animal welfare organization in Haiti before the earthquake. The government was focused on preventing the spread of animal-to-human diseases like anthrax, rabies and classical swine fever.

Hachiko: The World’s Most Loyal Dog

http://gimundo.com/news/article/hachiko-the-worlds-most-loyal-dog/

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Hachiko was brought to Tokyo in 1924 by his owner, a college professor named Hidesamuro Ueno. Each day, when Ueno left for work, Hachiko would stand by the door to watch him go. When the professor came home at 4 o’clock, Hachiko would go to the Shibuya Station to meet him.

Though this simple act alone shows a tremendous amount of loyalty, that’s not the end of it: The following year, Ueno died of a stroke while at the university. Hachiko didn’t realize that he was gone, and so the dog returned to the train station every single day to await his master. He became such a familiar presence there, in fact, that the station master set out food for the dog and gave him a bed in the station. Even so, Hachiko never shifted loyalties –every day at 4 o’clock, he hopefully waited by the tracks as the train pulled in, searching for his best friend’s face among the people getting off.

Hachiko’s love for his master impressed many people who passed through the station, including one of Ueno’s former students, who became fascinated by the Akita breed after seeing Hachiko. He discovered that there were only 30 Akitas living in Japan, and began to write articles about Hachiko and his remarkable breed, turning the world’s most loyal dog into a household name, and creating a resurgence in popularity for the Akita.

Hachiko died in 1935, after 10 long years of waiting for his master. But the dog would not be forgotten –a year before his death, Shibuya Station installed a bronze statue of the aging dog, to honor its mascot. Though the statue was melted down during World War II, a new version was created in 1948 by the son of the original artist. Go to the station now, and you’ll be able to see the bronze statue of Hachiko – still waiting, as ever, for his master to come home.