BATON ROUGE – At the Lamar Dixon Expo Center the sound of barking dogs reverberates around the building.
Some are pets there with their owners, waiting out the flood like everyone else. Others have been rescued and are being cared for until someone, hopefully, comes to claim them.
There have literally been hundreds and hundreds of calls to Baton Rouge animal rescue by people who had to leave their pets for one reason or another.
One woman who called rescue, said she had left her dog Prince at home because she couldn’t afford the $65 per night pet fee at a hotel.
Animal rescue went to her home where her chow mix was left with food and water inside a home that was warm from power being turned off.
“We’ve taken in about 200-250 animals in the past three days,” said Beth Brewster, the executive director of the Companion Animal Alliance.
The stories from the center are both uplifting, heartbreaking and sometimes, amusing.
One family came looking for a chocolate lab/Catahoula mix, who they say jumped out of their moving pickup on the way back home.
While another woman, who lost everything – her home and all of her possessions, had nothing but a smile on her face when she was reunited with her dog.
“Puppies are like children,” she said as her dog eagerly licked her in the face. “You gotta love them, because they only live once.”
The amusing came in the form of a goat that got loose and had to be chased down by animal control.