IWATE PREFECTURE, JAPANOur convoy, stocked with animal food in a two-ton truck, travels eight hours to Iwate Prefecture where no U.S. animal groups have been. Three-story high rubble lines roads on the way to Rikuzentakatashi city. Here, a monster tsunami wave sliced a hotel, leaving an intact sixth floor atop five washed out floors. North of Cat Island and Sendai Bay, we look for evacuation centers. At one no-pets site in Rikuzentakatashi, a man is too upset to speak about his dog. The animal gets by with a small kennel and scrappy blanket in the frigid air. Kinship Circle's Courtney Chandel feeds and comforts the dog, who mostly waits on a mat for his person. We offer to shelter the dog, but the man is too upset to decide. We leave him with food and a number to call. Inside the center, flyers about lost people and pets cover an entire wall.
BURIED ALIVE FOR 11 DAYSA terrier mix survives 11 days trapped in rubble north of Sendai. A passerby finally frees her. But her guardians no longer want her, so the dog is impounded at a government Aigo center (animal control) in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture. A Kinship-JEARS team goes there to save the dog from euthanasia. We jump through lots of bureaucratic hoops: An official requires a local resident and veterinarian to sign for the dog's release. Miraculously, a couple and a vet are willing to meet us at the center. Still not good enough. When it appears the dog will be killed, the woman present to sign for her bursts into tears. The veterinarian demands the dog. A scene ensues until the bureaucrat's boss intervenes to scold his underling. The dog is ours! Aggressive? She is 30 inches long, timid, yet eager for treats and water from our hands.
FOOD AND REFUGEFor two weeks my dog lives on scraps. No food for dogs, nothing, a woman weeps as she walks her Shiba Inu at an evacuation site in Rikuzentakatashi. When Kinship IC Ron Presley asks if she needs dog food, her grief spills over. Many in this remote, icy area evacuated with animals who are now chained outside no-pet shelters. A few huddle in kennels. Some live in cars. We leave large stacks of food at each stop. We even scrounge up rabbit food for a teary-eyed teen's bunny. Another woman tells her beloved cats good bye, as she stays behind at a no-pets evacuation center in Rikuzentakatashi. Kinship Circle's Ron Presley pets an orange-white fluffball, one of three cats who had nowhere to live but outdoors in an unheated car, in order to stay with their human mom. We offer to care for them until the woman is back on her feet. Susan Roberts of Japan Cat Network, one of three local NGOs united as Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue-Support (JEARS), arranges shelter for the cats.
