Many first responders deployed from Colorado to help with many disasters around the country. From Montana to Houston, firefighters and EMTs are helping people who need it the most. A group in Colorado made a similar commitment. They dropped everything and headed to Houston to rescue pets.
No Kill Colorado sent 18 people and more than 20,000 pounds of supplies to Houston. Most of it for humans, but a lot of it was for pets. They sent out rescue missions to find animals stranded on roofs and in flooded homes.
"[A board member] said, Dave... I have skills and experience. I need to do something," said Davyd Smith, president of No Kill Colorado. "I said absolutely let's do it. And so we went out of our mission in Colorado because there are a lot of pets in need there."
Rescuers in Houston went out in trucks and on boats to find abandoned pets. They found close to 200 of them.
"[It's] a little bit of shock and awe, but positive and negative right," said Smith. "What they saw they couldn't believe."
There were dogs, cats, and even horses and goats, all soaked and hungry from the storm. They rescued them, brought them to a staging area where they can take care of any immediate medical needs. From there, it's all about finding the pets' families.
"You know how much your pet is your family and...how important it is to make sure these families stay together with their pets," said Kiren Shingadia, who's in Houston now rescuing animals. "It's this overwhelming feeling of we're going to be okay."
Many families who lost everything told the rescuers to keep their pets. Shingadia says they told her they couldn't take care of their pet anymore, and they'd rather see them go somewhere safe.
"We didn't really know the magnitude of it," Shingadia said. "It kind of became this situation where it was like... we all need to come together."
The group from Colorado and several from around Texas are working to find the owners of the pets they've rescued. If they can't find the families in a month or so, the pets can be adopted from several different rescues.
