Mobile shelter will house pets after disaster

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) - Catherine Vogelweid witnessed families searching Joplin's animal shelters for missing pets after the May 2011 tornado and leaving grief-stricken when their beloved companions could not be found.

Now, Vogelweid is hopeful that if such a catastrophe should strike the Columbia area, Boone County's new pet disaster relief trailer will raise chances of reuniting people and their pets.

"Keeping the family together is what it's all about," the veterinary medicine instructor said as Boone County took delivery recently of the first such mobile shelter in Missouri.

Purchase of the $22,000 American Kennel Club Pet Disaster Relief trailer was financed with donations from the AKC's lost pet recovery service and a Columbia-based nonprofit called the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals, the Columbia Daily Tribune reported.

The foundation's Eddie Dziuk said the trailer can be used to supplement an existing animal shelter that fills up in a disaster. It also can be used as a stand-alone lost-and-found shelter, where people can go to find their lost pets after a disaster.

"They've been lost," Dziuk said of the animals involved in disasters. "They're scared."

The trailer can accommodate around 65 animals, depending on size, and is equipped with crates, collars, leashes, a generator, a printer, microchips and other supplies.

It won't treat injured animals and doesn't hold medications, because they are perishable, Dziuk said.

Boone County emergency manager Scott Olsen said he saw the need for assistance for pets after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the Joplin tornado and last year's Colorado floods. The displaced pets in Colorado included cats and dogs but also spiders and snakes, he said.

"This is a capability I think is needed not only in Boone County but around the state," Olsen said.

Vogelweid, an associate professor in the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, assisted at an animal shelter in Joplin after the tornado.

"Disasters are chaos and confusion," she said. "It's very easy for people and their pets to become separated."