The pup to the left is Snowball.
You may remember Snowball because of his heart-wrenching story:
Among the thousands of crushing moments from last week’s deadly
hurricane, one image brought the anguish home to many: a tearful little
boy torn from his dog while being shuttled to safety."Everyone wants to know about Snowball," said Laura Maloney,
executive director of the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals.The boy was among the thousands sheltered at the Superdome after the
hurricane. But when he went to board a bus to be evacuated to Houston, a
police officer took the dog away. The boy cried out — "Snowball!
Snowball!" — then vomited in distress. The confrontation was first
reported by The Associated Press. Authorities say they don’t know where
the boy or his family ended up.
But now there’s a ray of hope!
The United Animal Nations said
Snowball was safe, citing news from the state veterinarian’s office.
However, the information could not be immediately verified.
VERIFICATION FROM THE AMERICAN VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCATION!
The search is now on for the boy:
Reuniting Snowball and his owner will require work, patience and luck.
Volunteers planned to make visits to shelters in the Houston area
looking for the dog’s owners. They were considering walking around
carrying signs with Snowball’s photo."I don’t know how hopeful I am," Jones said. "They probably
don’t know anything about this — that there’s a reward out there and we’re
trying to look for them.
A big CHT to the readers who e-mailed, one of whom wrote:
I, like everyone else, was dumbfounded at the aftereffects of the hurricane last week. I was so shaken that I couldn’t even cry. For some reason, your relating of this story was what enabled me to cry — not only for the little boy and his dog, but for the tens of thousands directly affected by this disaster.
Efforts Made to Reunite Boy and His Dog
Among the thousands of crushing moments from last weeks deadly hurricane, one image brought th
Did the press get a picture of the little boy?
What gets me is the boy VOMITED over the dog. It’d be right about then I’d expect the parents to think that maybe they should let the boy know that it’s just a dog. Allowing your kids to develop a tendency to get drunk on emotion isn’t good for anyone.
Link to the video didn’t work.
John,
My nephew used to vomit from fear of thunder. It is something that they grow out of, but you can’t just order a child to be more emotionally mature – it’s something that takes lots of time and lots of discussion, and then some more time. Sometimes we are not altogether rational beings.
When I was a kid an incident with my sister & an older brother caused me to cry until I vomited. I was 5 or so & they were 12 & 10 years older, respectively. They should have known better than to pin me down & draw on my face with an indellible green marker. But they didn’t. It’s the most helpless, emotionally & physically, I can remember ever having felt in my life. Hippo is right, I simply did not have the emotional maturity or rationality to deal with that situation.
I very much related to the poor little boy & Snowball. When I first read the story, I felt as if I’d been kicked in the gut. Then, I saw that Jimmy had posted it later & felt the same kick all over again.
In a very emotionally trying time during a catastrophic event, this little boy had no idea how to react to what was happening. Kids can pick up on the emotional state of their parents, too. He had a lot on his plate. He clung to his dog; sometimes kids have need of a pet or a teddy bear that provides comfort in a way that a parent somehow can’t. (Won’t go into why at the moment.) When the dog was taken from him, he broke down. Reuniting the boy & Snowball will, hopefully, be a very important step toward resolving the very real & major stress & trauma he experienced last week. I hope to read that story very soon!
Barbara: I think you may have some kind of blocking software in place. The link still works for me. Perhaps it’s something your employer is doing if you’re looking at the page from work.
“What gets me is the boy VOMITED over the dog.”
Yeah; not like the kid had any other stressors in life at the moment or anything.
What Whimsy said.
In this situation Snowball was the kid’s security blanket, and if ever a kid needed a security blanket it was last week in New Orleans. They took away the one thing that he was focusing on that was keeping everything else at arm’s length. Somehow I doubt the kid would have vomited if a policeman had just shown up at his house some bright, sunny day when nothing else was wrong and taken the dog.
And even if it were true, which it isn’t, that the boy suffered under some excessive concupiscent attachment to the dog that the parents needed to address, somehow as a parent I feel that while the kid is vomiting as the policeman takes away his dog and they’re being put on a bus to be evacuated to Houston isn’t the moment.
John,
Maybe you need to find something to be attached to. Snowball is just not a dog, he is part of that little boys family. You should try to be a little more sensitive.
JUST a dog? Excuse me…but for many their animal companions are FAMILY. You obviously have not had a meaningful relationship w/a dog or any other pet. I would be most unwilling to surrender any of my furred family members in the case of crisis. I seriously doubt telling the boy “its JUST a dog” would do much good. Geez.
Can you provide any information that would help locate the family? I am a journalist and professor of journalism at UT at Austin. Have you tried calling print and broadcast journalists to do a newsbrief that Snowball is found? That might locate the little boy and his family. There are several professional journalist associations in Houston that I imagine would help get the word out. Let me know if I can help.