Koda

Newborn and His Six Siblings Get a Second Chance

Veterinary technician Jennifer Hammond of Prince George's County volunteered with Montgomery County Humane Society (MCHS), which sheltered about 100 dogs rescued from Katrina. She spent much of her time at Lamar-Dixon, a private facility in Gonzales, Louisiana, about 60 miles northwest of New Orleans, that up to that point had been primarily used as an equestrian center.

For thousands of dogs, their first stop after escaping the disaster area was this facility. A large part of Hammond's job was assessing which of these dogs were healthy enough to send elsewhere for adoption and which were too critical to be transported any further.

She said the center was woefully unprepared, as it consisted mostly of horse and cattle stalls and had no air conditioning, which caused serious hardships during the hot and humid Louisiana summer. There also wasn't enough room for the 65 to 70 animals that came in every hour.

One of the toughest episodes Hammond had to tackle was when a litter of very young and sickly puppies that were rescued from a flooded backyard in a poor part of New Orleans arrived in dire condition just days after the storm.

The seven puppies displayed what Hammond described as "puzzling" characteristics: two had no tails and the others had tails of varying lengths. She quickly learned that these dogs' tails had been removed because they were being raised as pit bull bait.

"When I found that out, I was thoroughly disturbed and I was very determined to make sure they got back with us," she says.

She vowed to bring them to MCHS to give them a second shot at life. But a series of unfortunate circumstances nearly prevented the litter from getting that opportunity.

Nearly all of Hammond's medical supplies had been lost in the chaos, the mobile adoption unit being used to transport the puppies broke down, and the puppies were struggling in the stifling heat and most were not eating.

Hammond and a team of volunteers from MCHS stopped at a tiny animal shelter right along the Louisiana Line where they received heart-breaking news. The small shelter's owner said the smallest, sickest puppy wouldn't make it and should be put to sleep so it would not contaminate the others. Hammond refused to even consider it.

"With everything he had been through and having survived, I thought he deserved something of a chance," she says.

The tiny black lab-coonhound mix and his six siblings all survived the trip to Maryland. He soon got a new name "Koda" and a new home - with Hammond and her husband.

"We didn't plan on taking in any, I was just going to help," she says. "But Koda was a special case."