As Venezuela counts its dead, clears away collapsed buildings and begins its long recovery from last month’s devastating earthquakes, another consequence of the disaster has emerged: the pets left injured, orphaned or separated from their owners.
Volunteers are reuniting cats and dogs with families who may have lost relatives, homes and nearly everything else. Others are caring for pets with missing or deceased owners, or trying to help families who have no way to care for their animals.
“Everyone was focusing on rescues, but there are also people who managed to escape with their pets and don’t have the means to feed them,” said Nieves Peña, director of an animal rescue organization, Mi Primer Rescate.
In the coastal state of La Guaira, which was hardest hit by the quakes, “everything is closed, everything is destroyed,” Ms. Peña said. “There’s nowhere to buy dog food.”
Her organization, based in the city of Valencia, traveled to La Guaira the day after the June 24 earthquakes to treat injured animals, distribute pet food to displaced families and create a foster network while they searched for owners of pets.
Even as people who survived the disaster are coping with the trauma of losing loved ones and having no home, surviving pets also face challenges.
“There is a lot of stress on the animals,” Ms. Peña said. “Changes in weather and spaces can weaken their immune systems and bring about viral diseases.”
Dr. Ludeimar Rosendo, a veterinarian who traveled from the western city of Barquisimeto to volunteer at a makeshift clinic at a McDonald’s restaurant in La Guaira, said she had treated or performed surgeries on about 700 animals since the disaster, with 20 to 30 arriving every day.
Some reunions between owners and their pets came after days of uncertainty.
When the earthquakes struck, Osdalys Santana, her husband and teenage son were coming home from their food stand at Los Cocos beach in La Guaira. Their two younger children were at home on the eighth floor of an apartment building with the family’s two dogs, Luna and Canela.
Though the building collapsed, the two children were rescued, but the dogs were nowhere to be found. Ms. Santana worried about Luna, her 5-year-old pinscher mix who trembled at the sound of firecrackers and had never liked being outside. At home, she said, Luna was a pampered family pet who loved to sleep and cuddle, even climbing into a chair to eat at the family table.
She had no idea that rescuers had pulled Luna from the rubble.
While Ms. Santana was spending her days in a hospital in Caracas with her son, who had a fractured leg, Luna was treated by volunteers and placed with a foster family.
Ms. Santana posted photographs online, hoping someone had seen Luna. Eventually, someone recognized her.
“Ever since Luna came into our lives, she’s been like another daughter. We love her so much, with my children it’s something else entirely — it’s special,” she said. “Thank God, we are so happy to have her back.”
Canela remains missing.
“I have faith that at some point, I will find her and get her back,” said Ms. Santana.
While trained rescue dogs have played a crucial role in the search effort, one family’s pet in La Guaira may have also helped save a life.
When a 1-year-old dog named Toby escaped from the rubble of a building, he kept evading rescuers despite being injured, instead repeatedly running back to the same spot in the debris, according to building residents.
They searched there and discovered an 11-year-old boy, Kenger García, trapped beneath the collapsed building where he had survived for 78 hours, dehydrated and bruised but alive.
Toby was the García family’s dog.
Kenger’s aunt, María Sandoval, posted photos of Toby on social media until he was identified. Ms. Peña, the director of Mi Primer Rescate, returned the dog herself to Ms. Sandoval.
“Toby was truly the one who helped save his owner,” said Ms. Sandoval. “He is the reason that they suspected that someone was still alive amid all that rubble.”
For Andrea Villasana, 24, a physiotherapist who traveled from eastern Venezuela to La Guaira with a volunteer convoy delivering donations, one frightened puppy became a rare source of relief after days surrounded by devastation.
She found the dog darting through traffic and damaged buildings before other volunteers caught her. As they searched unsuccessfully for the dog’s owner, residents began stopping to pet her. One man insisted on giving her half of the arepa he was eating.
Later that evening, exhausted residents gathered around the dog, pulling out flashlights to see her and feeding her pieces of tuna and dog food.
“It really changed everyone’s expression. It’s like being all day waiting for good news or just wanting to see something that gives you a little bit of hope,” said Ms. Villasana. “They were smiling despite everything.”
