Couple reunited with dog
Published: October 29, 2005
Phillip Manuel can’t begin to describe the anguish and guilt he and his wife felt in the days after Hurricane Katrina.
The couple evacuated their house in New Orleans’ Gentilly neighborhood a day or so before the storm hit, leaving their two Doberman pinschers in their laundry room, thinking they’d be gone only a couple of days.
They had left enough food and water to last three or four days, Janice Manuel has said.
The couple returned from Atlanta a week after Hurricane Katrina and started their search for Diva, 4, and 6-month-old Valentino at Lamar-Dixon Exposition Center on Sept. 11.
They searched every shelter in the Baton Rouge area hoping that the dogs had been rescued by one of the many organizations involved with rescuing pets from New Orleans. Some officials estimated that there were as many as 11,000 pets displaced by the hurricane.
“We couldn’t talk about it. My wife was crying all the time. Finally, after about four days of looking, I broke down and cried,” Manuel said Friday afternoon. “After about four days, I knew I had to get back into New Orleans to the house. I knew they must still be there.”
Going alone on Sept. 16 and wearing one of two shirts his son loaned him, Manuel set off to New Orleans. He was wearing an Entergy shirt from when his son had worked during Hurricane Lili.
“I was ready with all kinds of stories, but the guard looked at the shirt and just waved me through,” Manuel said.
When he got near his neighborhood, the area was too flooded to drive, so he got out and walked. Some National Guard soldiers gave him a pair of hip waders. He got within 10 blocks of his house and was in water up to his chest when he realized he could trip and fall on anything, so he backed out.
Then animal rescue workers with a boat came along and rode him to his house, where there had evidently been 8 to 10 inches of water.
“I broke open the laundry room door,” he said.
Diva, the adult female, was fine, Manuel said.
“She wagged her tail, jumped on the dryer and peed,” he said.
Valentino was another story. He was immobile. There were open sores all over his body and yellow mucous covered his eyes and nose.
“I didn’t think he would make it, to be honest,” he said.
Manuel took him to a triage area for treatment and called the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine to say he was on his way.
Veterinarian Mark Acierno remembers the call.
“We didn’t know what to expect,” Acierno said.
Valentino was not aggressive, Acierno said. In fact, he was completely unresponsive. He was so skinny and his wounds were so horrendous, at least one vet technician had to leave the room.
The vets on duty were divided on what should be done with Valentino. One group said the animal was in too much pain and should be euthanized. The other said they should try to save him.
“I was in the group who said save him,” Acierno said. “I made a bet that he would walk out of here. There’s still somebody around here who owes me a case of beer.”
After six weeks of medical and surgical treatment, Valentino went home Friday afternoon with his owner. Wearing an Elizabethan collar to keep him from reopening any of his wounds, Valentino is back to a normal weight; and other than scars and one wound not quite closed, he’s healed.
Acierno said Valentino’s conditions included severe malnutrition, dehydration, shock and open wounds that he characterized as “pressure wounds,” which are the equivalent of bed sores. He also had been soaked in flood water, so he had to be decontaminated.
Fortunately, Acierno said, Valentino was not septic, which means that the wounds had not infected his blood or organs.
“There was fear that the decontamination would kill him,” he said.
The medical staff treated Valentino with antibiotics, and teams from both surgery and dermatology started working on treating the wounds on the second day.
Within four days though, Valentino was showing signs of recovery. Acierno said the dog was gentle and reveled in attention, seeming to enjoy the attention he got when his bandages were replaced so much that he would pull them off and wag his tail.
“He’s a miracle dog,” Acierno said.
Cynthia Cash of the Gulf Coast Doberman Rescue Organization met Phillip Manuel and Valentino for the first time Friday afternoon. She first learned about Diva and Valentino from a Sept. 12 article in The Advocate that described the Manuels’ and others’ search for pets.
“We wanted to help. Obviously, we’re crazy about Dobermans,” she said.
To that end, the group had arranged for the Doberman Pinscher Association and the American Kennel Club to foot the $5,000 medical bill that Valentino’s care amassed, but LSU paid for the bill. Cash’s group also helped find shelter at Sherwood South Animal Hospital for Diva until she was ready to go home. Manuel was on his way to pick up Diva when he left LSU Vet School Friday.
“I have a lot of love to go around right now, for the National Guard, for the rescue workers, for LSU,” Manuel said.
For now, the Manuels are living in a one-bedroom apartment in Gretna and plan to move to the French Quarter in a few weeks where they will stay until their house is habitable again. Phillip Manuel, a jazz singer, built a 20-foot dog run and a two-bedroom doghouse at their Gentilly home where the dogs will spend their days. He’ll take them home at night.
The experience has changed how Manuel sees his dogs.
“I’ve always been strict … had my dogs trained professionally. Now, my wife has made me promise to never raise my voice to the dogs again,” he said.
Cash said she thinks some people have the impression that the pets left behind are “yard dogs,” and she hopes this case will disprove that idea. Valentino’s great-grandfather is Repo Man, a Champion Doberman who has won 55 Best in Show awards.
“So you could say he’s Doberman royalty,” she said with a laugh.
As for Manuel, he said he’ll never again leave his dogs behind in an evacuation.
“I would tell anybody to take them with you and make the best of it,” he said. “What we went through was awful.”
Advocate staff photo by Arthur D. Lauck
Phillip Manuel talks with Maria Delaup, a senior veterinary student at LSU, while picking up his Doberman pinscher puppy, Valentino, on Friday. The dog spent six weeks at LSU School of Veterinary Medicine after being without food and water for at least 11 days after Hurricane Katrina.
Advocate staff photo by Arthur D. Lauck
Phillip Manuel gets a kiss from his dog, Valentino, on Friday at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine. The two were reunited after Valentino spent six weeks being treated for wounds, malnutrition and dehydration after his owners left him at home during Hurricane Katrina.
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