Customer Reviews

Pawprints of Katrina: Pets Saved and Lessons Learned

5 star:		(16)
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3 star:		(1)
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Scott's book is completely absorbing. She reveals the astounding dedication to animals by humans who dedicate themselves to finding the separated and abandoned animals of the Katrina disaster and reuniting them with their bereft owners. This is an important social document. Above all, the book celebrates the human/animal bond. It's a must-read.

This book is amazing.....I was overwhelmed by the stories of the rescues ,some with happy endings some not....I cried at the end of almost every chapter...a lot of happy tears. Cathy Scott told of the devastation in New Orleans and about the volunteers who gave up part of their lives, time and sometimes jobs to care for these poor animals and owners. Then, she told about the changes in law and mindset since then .........very well written

I bought this book as soon as I read about it on the Best Friends Sanctuary website. The story of Marina, the dog first named "Survivor" is inspiring and was--at first--my primary reason for reading it. I cried tears of sadness for the people and animals who didn't make it through Katrina and Rita and tears of happiness for the selflessness of rescuers both locally and from all over North America who stayed to help the people and pets of Louisiana and Mississippi. In this book there is an acknowledgement of the "remote reunion" volunteers who spent many hours on the internet and the telephone linking families and their pets or sharing the grief of those whose pets didn't make it. I was one of those volunteers and it changed my life.

I loved reading these great stories of real people who love animals as much as I do. It made me wish that I had been there helping to rescue the animals that need us so much. This is a GREAT book for any animal lover.

This book probes the depths of misery and rises to the heights of joy. I often felt myself in the boats cruising the murky floodwaters looking for signs of life in New Orleans' deserted neighborhoods. The bugs and humidity were real. So was the satisfaction of spotting a desperate animal and the joy of pulling it to safety. And the bone-weariness of the long days and uncomfortable nights.

"Pawprints of Katrina" is a testament to the survival instincts of our animal companions and the compassion of countless humans who value them enough to risk themselves to help the helpless.

I bought this book thinking it would be really validating for me to read about myself, as I was a volunteer who was given some narrative in the book.

However, after beginning to read the book from the beginning, I discovered that I was unable to read more than a few pages at a time without becoming teary-eyed. Cathy did a fabulous job of telling it the way it happened, and I would recommend this book to all. The stories are moving and all true, and will evoke your entire gamut of emotions.

Thank you, Cathy Scott...

Cathy Scott has written an amazing account of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, combined with Clay Myers' moving photographs that documented this tragedy. I was honored to work with Cathy and so many of the other humans and animals in Tylertown that fill the pages of this book. Pawprints of Katrina is a wonderful tribute to the animal victims of the disaster and the people dedicated to saving them.

Over the past year, I've had the privilege of listening to Cathy read special parts of the book Pawprints of Katrina before she would finish a chapter and send it to her publisher. With each story or chapter, Cathy and I were reliving those days spent in NOLA. As we talked, our memories were brought to the surface and some of those memories are found in this book. It is with great pleasure and anxious anticipation that I am traveling with my daughter and one of the rescues to Cathy's book signing this Saturday at the Welcome Center of Best Friends Animals Sanctuary in Kanab. Utah. Precious, a terrier mix who was humanely trapped on a street in Gentilly, February 3, 2006 - yes, five months after Hurricane Katrina will be flying with us to Kanab (Precious had with her six puppies she had kept alive since their birth approx 9 weeks prior to their rescue - my daughter adopted one of the puppies, Puxley Madison, I adopted Precious, the pups mother). CONGRATULATIONS CATHY on a book that is destined to be a "Best Seller". Thank you for validating the lives of those we saved and those we could not. Your book is AWESOME!!! Barb

As a dispute resolution professional and writer, I talk a lot about community and the importance of understanding that when you drill a hole in the other guy's side of the boat, you sink too. There's something about disaster on a grand scale that brings the best out in us, creating heroes. If you're inclined to ask why "bad things happen to good people" the answer is that we need to be reminded of our common humanity; common fragility; and, our common obligation to serve as stewards of the planet and all life on it.

So it is with more than a small amount of pleasure that I give my highest recommendation to Cathy Scott's important and moving account of the heroic pet rescues that took place in the wake of Katrina.

Cathy was one of the "kids" in my neighborhood fom the time I was five years old until we all left the old neighborhood for our adult lives. She was also a member of the first writers' group I ever joined -- Sisters of the Pen -- a neighborhood "club" we started when I was in the sixth grade and Cathy just entering high school.

Only Cathy has fully fulfilled the dreams of that small group of children and teenagers. This is her sixth or seventh book (I've just released my first[ [ASIN:0986766607 A is for A**hole: The Grownups' ABCs of Conflict Resolution]]) and I know that this touching memoir of pets saved and lessons learned is the one that will justly make her famous.

If you care about animals and the importance of our caring relationship to them, you will buy and cherish this book for yourself, urge your friends to purchase it, and read it again and again.

5 years ago, I was there too. I met Cathy and Lois Lane when I worked in the heat and the bugs at Best Friend's Tylertown shelter, and I experienced firsthand what she writes about so eloquently.

This book brought back a lot of emotions & memories and brought me to tears - both happy ones and sad ones. Definitely worth reading for anyone who experienced Katrina, has any curiousity about what it was like or anyone who has ever loved an animal!