Thousands of animals warehoused together, (c) Kinship Circle — I Am Crying

I Am Crying

Displaced animals are cramped in shelter (c) Kinship Circle — Rescues are cramped inside a warehouse that serves as shelter for animals displaced in Brazil's floods and landslides. This Teresopolis site has housed over 1000 animals at a time.

© Kinship Circle / Jan Cabral, Teresopolis

I Am Crying As I Write These Words. Photos and information show animals in desperate need! IDA-Kinship Circle team member Jan Cabral lives in Posse Petropolis, Brazil. About 30 miles away is utter despair. In Santa Rita, a mountain crumbled over the city. Today, Jan visits the warehouse in Meudon, a suburb of Teresopolis, that serves as a makeshift shelter for thousands of animals. Jan reveals that she is in tears as she writes her field report for Kinship Circle. “I have seen despair. This is worse.”

TeresopolisToday 250 animals are at the Teresopolis warehouse. Brazilian Bebete Filpi leads a handful of local volunteers. Bebete is weary and frazzled. There are never enough hands to heal broken bones, sores and sickness. Bebete, who lost five of her own animals to the floods, has relocated 700 animals on her rural property. Another emergency shelter houses hundreds more. Animals are dying, sick, injured. We see untreated broken bones, lack of medication, overcrowding and fights among stressed and disoriented animals. Support is critical right now. Today Jan sees a dog arrive with burns over his entire body. Another is maggot-infested. Teresopolis lost 27 residential districts to this disaster. Dead people were pulled from trees. Many animals belong to humans who will never return. Please reach into your heart and give what you can for these forgotten animals.

A sick dog rescued from mudslides, (c) Kinship Circle — Cheri Deatsch checks on a sick pup, rescued from mudslides. Though this poor dog survives the disaster, she later dies from pneumonia.

© Kinship Circle, Brazil

A dog with pneumonia later dies (c) Kinship Circle

Drawers double as animal beds, Kinship Circle — Drawers double as beds in the overcrowded Teresopolis shelter where IDA-Kinship Circle work.

© Kinship Circle, Brazil

Dog heals from flesh-eating maggots, (c) Kinship Circle — Many animals have bicheira (flesh-eating maggots), a condition rampant among animals injured in the disaster. We need funds to buy medication.

© Kinship Circle, Brazil

A lucky dog with bicheira is adopted, Kinship Circle — Happy endings for a dog with bicheira! Saved from mudslides and medically treated, this dog gets a forever home. The dog, with Cheri Deatsch, waits for his new family to arrive.

© Kinship Circle, Brazil

Cheri awaits new family for this dog (c) Kinship Circle

PLEASE DONATE FOR RESCUE AND VETERINARY

Xilazina
Ketamina
Zoletil
IV Stands, IV Sets (4ft 14-gauge x1)
IV Fluids, Catheters

IV Stands & IV Sets (4 ft 14 gauge x 1)
IV Fluids, Catheters
Adrenalina
Capstar
Disposable Syringes
Giardia Medication

Capstar
Disposable Syringes
Giardia Medication

A dog is adopted by a family in Rio, (c) Kinship Circle

A dog heals from severe bicheira, (c) Kinship Circle

A dog loses his eye to bicheira, (c) Kinship Circle — The left side of this dog's face was mostly gone. He has *bicheira*: Flies lay eggs inside a wound. Maggots hatch that eat flesh surrounding the wound. It was presumed this dog would die, but treatment and eye removal saved his life.

© Kinship Circle / Brazil

Nicky's Story

Jan and Carlos adopted Nicky, (c) Kinship Circle — Nicky's Story

Nicky's Story

Mabel means: I matter (c) Kinship Circle

News from Teresopolis is not good. Animals stream into the warehouse that shelters thousands displaced by floods. Today a dog arrives with so many maggots, his tail falls off during treatment. A German Shepherd is also treated for the flesh-eating maggots, bicheira, that afflict many animals wounded in flash floods and mudslides. IDA-Kinship Circle need donations to send more veterinary responders. IDA-Kinship Circle responders Carlos and Jan Cabral assist Bebete Filpi, who leads volunteers from NGO EstimAcao. Animals are stressed. Fights erupt. NICKY'S STORY, A Thousand Times OverJan learns that the dog her family adopted from the Teresopolis shelter belonged to humans swallowed alive in a landslide. She bathes Nicky in love, even as she hears similar stories about the next six arrivals. At home, Nicky grieves for the family she lost. The frail dog clings to Jan — perhaps afraid her new family will vanish too. Jan Cabral writes: “Nicky is very insecure. We think she is still in shock.” Nicky is 10, crippled, a GSD mix. She hobbled into the shelter in a mud-caked collar, sad and thin. One leg dangles uselessly. A toe is gone. A pad is also absent from her foot, leaving bone to heal atop bone. Still, she moves about. At the moment, her sorrow seems more crippling. Jan and Carlos had vowed to adopt the animal no one else would take. With Nicky, they found the heart of a nation in mourning. And they found love.

Where Are You?

KC-DART & IDACheri Deatsch, Jan & Carlos Cabral
LocationNova Friburgo, Rio de Janeiro, Teresopolis Brazil
Field LogBrenda Shoss Feb 7 2011

ANIMALS LOOK FOR GUARDIANS KILLED OR DISPLACEDTheir eyes ask, “Where are my people?” IDA-Kinship responders Cheri Deatsch and Jan and Carlos Cabral head to Nova Friburo. Sections of road are washed out, bridges still down. The team arrives at COOBEA (Coordenadoria de Bem-Estar Animal) a city government office that oversees animal welfare and is part of Nova Friburgo's Town Hall structure. Carla Freire coordinates a makeshift shelter here, with 40 dogs and cats whose families were killed or displaced in mudslides. Carla has already adopted out 170 mudslide animals and hopes to rehome them all, to make room for more still wandering in the rubble. Carla asks Kinship Circle-IDA to assist with implementation of a spay-neuter clinic, along with adoption, education, vaccination drives for mudslide survivors. She hopes to rotate animals from street to shelter to spay-neuter and vaccination, then on to new homes. If the process moves forward, more orphaned animals can be helped. Unfortunately, as disaster aid responders, we must assess and go to the most dire areas that require search and rescue and crisis sheltering. Tomorrow we travel to Terespolis, where thousands of animals have passed through a single shelter. In nearby Santa Rita, a destroyed and vacated city, search and rescue is still underway. If we get more funding, we can send volunteers to cover both areas. At present, we do not have the means to be in two places at once.

Jan Cabral with rescued Nicky, (c) Kinship Circle — Sliding mud swallowed Nicky's family alive. Kinship-IDA volunteers Jan and Carlos Cabral adopt the sad dog and work with her daily, to speed healing.

© Kinship Circle, Brazil

Nicky lost her entire family, (c) Kinship Circle

Nicky heals with Jan Cabral, (c) Kinship Circle — Sliding mud swallowed Nicky's family alive. Kinship-IDA volunteers Jan and Carlos Cabral adopt the sad dog and work with her daily, to speed emotional and physical healing.

© Kinship Circle, Brazil

Kittens at Nova Friburo shelter, (c) Kinship Circle

A dog loses his tail to bicheira (c) Kinship Circle — This rescued dog has so many breeding maggots, his tail falls off before he can be treated for bicheira, a flesh-eating condition epidemic among injured animals in Brazil disaster areas.

© Kinship Circle, Brazil

Mud and rock swallow mountainsides, (c) Kinship Circle — Sea Of Mud

Sea Of Mud

Rosie Mary reunites with Bebete, Kinship Circle — Bebete thought she'd never see Rosie Mary again. She'd adopted out the stray with a broken femur years ago. Yet somehow, Rosie finds her way back to Bebete after her person dies in mud avalanches.

© Kinship Circle, Brazil

KC-DART & IDACheri Deatsch, Jan & Carlos Cabral, Sister Michael Marie, Dennis Pickersgill
LocationTeresopolis and countryside, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Field LogBrenda Shoss Feb 8-11 2011

Where humans flee, animals are found. Kinship Circle's Sister Michael, a vet tech, helps Bebete Filipi administer antibiotics, Metronidazole, antacids, anti-emetics, Capstar… Since mid-January, Bebete, with NGO EstimAcao, has found refuge for animals made homeless by floods and landslides. The shelter is full of animals with bloody diarrhea, dry cough, bicheira (flesh-eating maggots, “miiase” in Portugese), skin infections. IDA-Kinship's Dennis Pickersgill departs for search-rescue with Brazil volunteers Tony, Flavia and Marie. They look for animals at 10 mudslide sites in Teresopolis countryside where communities have vanished under mud and rubble. At least 500 people remain missing. Locals report a 25-pound mutt penned up at a damaged cantina. We locate the dog and bring him back to the shelter. They have nowhere else to go.

HOT, DIRTY, CRAMPED. WE NEED VETERINARIANS HEREAbout 200 dogs occupy the Teresopolis shelter run by NGO EstimAcao, under Bebete Filpi's leadership. Another 300 dogs, plus 400-500 cats, are at Bebete's property. We enter through a tarp-covered area. Dogs are chained to various posts, often so close together that skirmishes erupt in the oppressive heat. Every inch of space is occupied. Multiple dogs in cages. Dogs chained to slats outside of cages. Small anterooms branch off this main area. One houses unaltered females, another keeps puppies old enough to be weaned, one more contains nursing mothers and litters.

SOME HEARTS HEAL IN THE ARMS OF NEW CAREGIVERSEmergency shelter manager Bebete Filipi, two vets, EstimAcao volunteers, and our team get vitamin B injectibles to frail animals. At warehouse two, dogs with bicheira (flesh-eating maggots) are under treatment. A family brings in a 4-5 month old dog with a broken tail. A second pup is admitted with ticks and bicheira on her jaw. In the “maternity ward,” a small terrier mothers her prematurely born pup. A large black dog tends to her four-puppy litter. Another dog looks ready to whelp any time. The landlord wants everyone out by month's end. No one knows where to go. Despite a backdrop of despair, little miracles happen. Bebete never expected to see Rosie Mary again. She'd adopted out the scraggly street dog with the broken femur two years ago. Yet here Rosie sits, goofy grin intact. Somehow, the dog finds her way back to Bebete after her guardian perishes in the avalanches. Bebete blankets the sweet girl in love and secures her adoption into a new forever family. A Rio engineer, here to photograph animal relief efforts, spends most of his time with Rosie Mary. By day's end, he adopts Rosie. Bebete sends the pair off with vitamins, Flagyl and supplies. Rosie Mary looks pleased as punch, riding shotgun with her new best friend.