'We keep on going back out there': The race to save Houston's abandoned pets

Behind some buildings in Rockport, Texas, close enough to a main road that you can still hear the traffic, are two dogs in a cage.

Last Friday night, a Category 4 hurricane swept through this city. It looks as though these dogshave been here ever since.

Someone dumped some dog food in the cage and filled two buckets with water. There's urine and feces everywhere. The medium-sized brown dog nibbles on some food that has mixed with its own excrement, ground in by its paws. There they wait for their owners' return.

Those leading the rescue effortssay there's no way of knowing how manypets are lost, abandonedor dead followingHurricane Harvey.

Sometimes pet owners come back, but often they don't, orcan't.

That's whya group of volunteers in San Antonio was packing up Thursdayand getting ready to board a bus headed320 kilometres east to Houston, much of which remains under water.

Mission to pick up stray animals

In the back were 70 cages, ready to receive the animals that hadbeen rescued by animal welfare workers in Houston who now needrescuing themselves.

"The water has risen and they're having to close their doors," says MaureenO'Nell, executive director of San Antonio Pets Alive!"The animals that they were protecting before the storm hit are now without any home at all."

Now, a tiny shelter in San Antonio will betheir temporary home.

San Antonio Pets Alive! is located at the back of a suburban mini-mall, next to aZumbastudio.

Inside, the sound of barking is deafening andthe smell of dog excrement is overpowering.The small cages vibrate with agitated dogs. Tails protrude from the bars.

Theshelter wasn't built to accommodate so many animals, but shelter staff dowhat they can with what theyhave. For these dogs, crammed is better than wet, or worse.

The shelteris staffed by only three people, but dozens of volunteers have answered the call.

Chantal Gabaldonof the U.S. Coast Guard saves humans during the day, and fosters Houston pets like Midnight on her own time.

"I feel it's the least I can do, to get them off to good homes," she says.

Volunteers walk dogs at crowded shelter

Outside, all across the mall's green islands, dogs were being walked, straining on their leashes. One volunteertried to get a small brown dogto go back in its cage.

"She's scared," she says. "Shedoesn't want to go inorout."

In a corner of the shelter, sitting on the ground, volunteer Nicole Neemiastroked thehead of a rescued pit pull.

"It breaks our heart," she says. "If it was up to me, we'd be down in the water in a boat rescuing dogs."

Shealready hasthree dogs; adopting more, she says, is out of the question. So she and her husband volunteer instead.

Behind the shelter, a volunteer sat in the grass, scratching the belly of a tiny dog namedLady. Finally,a wag. The first, he says, since Lady arrived from Houston.

After what they've been through, O'Nellsays, half of the rescued pets are suffering from stress illnesses.

"These are not animals that can fend for themselves very often. And when that attachment gets broken it can break their heart," she says. "They need their families, they need their packs, they need their people to take care of them."

A judgment call on abandoned pets

And what of abandoned pets like the two caged dogs inRockport?Should passersby assume their owners will come back eventually, or should they let them out?

"It's always a judgment call and that's part of a natural disaster," O'Nell says. "It would be no different than if it were an elderly person or a child who cannot fend for themselves. There's no hard-and-fast rule other than follow your heart and your common sense."

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San Antonio has taken in more than a 1,000 evacuees from badly hitareas, and is expecting more, including many pets.

Those leading the rescue effort learned some important lessons from Hurricane Katrina back in 2005.

"During Katrina, families were not allowed to stay with their pets,"O'Nellsays. "We have evolved.I can't say enough good things about our mayor who has made sure that ourhuman shelters have allowed pets to come in."

And soon, help will be arriving from north of the border.

Redemption Dogs, a pet advocacy organization based in Toronto, has raised $12,000 to fund a rescue mission.

Next week, they will be taking two vans full of supplies to Houston and returning with up to two dozen dogs. Founder Nicole Simone is trying to recruit volunteers to help drive the dogs across the border, and then she hopes Canadians willopen their homes.

"People can apply to foster [Hurricane]Harvey dogs with Black Dog Rescue, Canine Haven, Safe Home Rescue, so that when the dogs arrive they'll go into foster care," she says.

Getting pets out of the danger zone

Texas animal welfare advocates say they need all the help they can get.

The Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care in Houston estimates there were approximately 300,000 stray dogs in the citybefore the hurricane hit. That's why organizations like San Antonio Pets Alive! are heading back to Houston for more dogs.

"And we keep on going back out there to get the flow away from the danger area," O'Nell says.

As Sylvia Johnson cleaned yet another dirty cage and replaced its pee pad, she acknowledgedthe accommodations for these pets aren't ideal. But, she says, "We're doing the best we can."

This is just a way station. Soon these dogs will be on the move again.

An hour later, a truckpulled up out back. The dogs were loaded, some of them reluctantly, into cages. They were about to begin a52-hour journey to aspacious shelter in Spokane, Wash., where they'll be put up for adoption.

But there's a problem.

"Gas stations are running out of fuel," ClareCallison says while printingID placards for the dogs' crates."Is thereanybodythat owns a gas station that we know of?"

With so many relief vehicles on the road to Houston, there's a shortage of diesel.

So Pets Alive! willkeep going back to Houston for more dogs until they run out of fuel.