As a child growing up in South Africa under apartheid, Amanda St. John was surrounded by animals. "My uncles and grandfather owned game reserves in Zululand," she says. There were giraffes, elephants, and springboks, plus her family had their own three dogs - a collie, a border collie, and a dachshund. "Fires would constantly break out in the kraals," St. John explains. "The call would go out among my family’s hundred or so friends, and we’d have long lines of people helping to put out the fires. So I grew up surrounded by wildlife and rescue."
Despite - or perhaps because of - the arid conditions of her homeland, St. John had recurring nightmares about water since early childhood. "I dreamt of flooding," she recalls, "and in my dreams there were these long bridges that cars couldn’t get over. It was very traumatic; I would wake up screaming."
Those early experiences prepared her for an event nobody could have predicted. After graduating from college, St. John worked in Africa as a journalist, and later moved to the United States to attend law school. "The first American city I saw was New Orleans – it was 1985, exactly 20 years before Hurricane Katrina," she says. "I recognized the bridges from my dreams."
Later, St. John relocated to Los Angeles, got married, and became active in local animal rescue and volunteer work, doing everything from walking shelter dogs to making blankets for them. In April of 2005, she and her husband Marty, a business consultant, established a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation in Los Angeles, an international network of foster volunteers dedicated to helping shelter animals find permanent homes. They called it Muttshack Animal Rescue Foundation in honor of their own three rescued mixed-breeds, Muttley, Roxy, and Cujo.
For the animals displaced by Hurricane Katrina – including the Pug who survived by swimming to the top of his family’s refrigerator and eating mold off the kitchen walls as the flood waters receded - the St. Johns’ timing could not have been more perfect. Muttshack volunteers arrived on the scene immediately, the only rescue group with a medical facility working inside the devastated city of New Orleans. With no medical supplies, no electricity or waste management system, the "Muttshackers" managed to clean out the classrooms in a local school, Lake Castle School, to set up a MASH unit – a clinic for veterinary triage.
"The day I arrived and saw the city flooded, I realized that’s what I’d been dreaming about my whole life – it was one of those incredible things," St. John says. "The first few days we were overrun with dogs, but the animals we rescued got immediate care," she adds. "Over 3,000 animals came in, dehydrated and covered in toxic substances: Dogs, cats, swans, ducks, snakes, birds of every feather, turtles, iguanas …" Muttshack took in hundreds of dogs at high risk for heartworm due to the swampy, mosquito-infested conditions.
Thankfully, soon after came backup: volunteer vets from California, New York, Alaska, New Zealand, the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine, Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, all turned up to help. "The Florida AKC sent in a 50,000 gallon tanker of water," St. John recalls, "and when that truck pulled up, everybody cried. Until then, we’d had no way to clean the dogs, who were covered in toxins that burned their skin."
In triage, snap decisions need to be made – and Muttshack volunteers were assisted in making those decisions by the SNAP test, which reveals whether a dog is heartworm-positive in just 15 minutes. IDEXX Laboratories, the Maine-based biotech company, set up an on-site lab at Lake Castle School, donating its diagnostic equipment to perform that test, as well as other blood chemistry profiles; IDEXX also provided Heartgard heartworm preventive and flea control (Frontline TopSpot), as well as critical vaccines, to the canine patients.
"IDEXX filled an urgent need," St. John explains. "The lives of the animals depended on those blood tests. If we had to quarantine a dog, we needed to know that right away, because putting one sick animal in with the healthy ones means everybody dies. IDEXX made it possible for us to establish a totally operational MASH unit. Thanks to IDEXX, we had no outbreaks of any kind, and no animals had to be euthanized. They really took care of our dogs. I can’t tell you how deeply touched we were by them."
Muttshack stayed in New Orleans through Hurricanes Rita and Wilma, saving some 3,000 animals in all. And when she was finally able to get some sleep, St. John saw something very different in her dreams: "For the first time, I had a water dream that didn’t terrify me," she says. "I saw ships come in."
Inspired, she helped coordinate an effort with state and federal authorities as well as the parish governments of Louisiana to arrange safe transport for pets out of the city in the event of the next natural disaster. "We will be bringing in between 60 and 100 temperature-controlled trucks, and the state Department of Transportation will help us convoy pets from coastal parishes to Shreveport, where they will be housed in shelters right next to the shelters for people," St. John concludes. "The people of Louisiana will never be separated from their dogs again."
