Sept. 13, 2005 — A pair of makeshift animal shelters outside of New Orleans is taking care of thousands of pets separated from their owners by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, according to recent news reports.

Cage after cage of lost, abandoned or temporarily sheltered pets fill the John M. Parker Coliseum, located on the Louisiana State University (LSU) campus, and the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center and 4-H Center in Gonzales, La.

A menagerie of pets that includes nearly 1,200 companion animals sits in limbo at the Parker Coliseum, said the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine on their Web site.

Nearly 700 dogs, 425 cats and assorted guinea pigs, rabbits, pigs, ferrets, hamsters, gerbils, mice, tortoises and birds are being sheltered at the facility.

At the Expo Center, there are 200 dogs, 50 cats, parrots, cockatoos, guinea pigs, snakes, goats, a pot-bellied pig, a pet rat and even a flying squirrel, said a recent report by the Los Angeles Times.

The Expo Center is also taking care of more than 220 of New Orleans' horses and mules, said the report, including chestnut miniatures, Belgian draft horses, Arabian racers and white stallions formerly used to pull newlyweds through the French Quarter.

As of Monday, at least 4,000 cats and dogs and 500 other animals have been rescued in Louisiana since Sept. 2, the state's Department of Animal Health told the Houston Chronicle. Many of these have been shipped to permanent animal shelters outside of Louisiana, some as far away as San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

The flood of pets hasn't stopped. According to reports, hundreds of animals are still arriving at shelters near New Orleans each day, far exceeding the numbers discharged to owners.

As of Monday, there had been only 200 reunions at the Parker Coliseum, accounting for around 15 percent of the animals sheltered there, said the LSU Veterinary School of Medicine's Web site.

A reunion, however, is no guarantee that the animal will go home. Many owners are staying in hotels and shelters that don't allow animals, so they're forced to find alternative housing for their pets.

At the Expo Center, scores of pets are being looked after for owners staying at a nearby evacuation center, according to the Los Angeles Times report.

At the Parker Coliseum, owners staying in nearby shelters and hotels visit daily to take care of some 120 pets.

The rest are receiving care and attention from hundreds of volunteers, who feed and water the pets twice daily and walk those that need it several times a day.

At the Expo Center, volunteers hose down dogs to prevent overheating, and vets check the animals regularly, stroking horses' noses and making sure sleeping animals are still alive, said the Los Angeles Times report.

Many animals arrive at the shelters with various ailments, most of which can be attributed to stress, according to the report in the Houston Chronicle. Vets are seeing lots of diarrhea, nausea and colds. Scrapes and bruises are also common among animals that escaped their homes after being locked inside.

Though thousands of animals have been rescued from New Orleans floodwaters, the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine still receives "thousands of calls a day from people who had to leave their pets behind," Dr. Becky Adcock, a vet with the school, told the Houston Chronicle.

"They're asking us to do what they can't, to rescue their pets. We tell them we will do what we can."

The school's Web site is encouraging people searching for pets, those wishing to shelter their pets, those who have found lost pets, those wishing to foster pets and those who'd like to volunteer to help pets in need to visit the Animal Emergency Response Network's Web site at http://www.pets911.com/services/katrina/index.php.