dog and chicken carcasses floated in the water...

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October 6th 2009 10:11 am
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About a week ago, Typhoon Ketsana (known in the Phillippines as "Ondoy") made landfall and dropped 17.9 inches of rain on Metro Manila in a span of 24 hours - the most in 42 years. A month's worth of rainfall in a single day washed away homes and flooded large areas, stranding thousands on rooftops in the city and elsewhere. Ketsana later crossed over to Vietnam and Cambodia, where it is still active. Over 360 people are known to have been killed, and damage estimates are reaching $100 million. Unfortunately, another tropical storm may be headed toward the southern Philippines on Wednesday but is still 600 miles off the coast.

Elsewhere, dog and chicken carcasses floated in the water as rescuers in rubber boats tried to navigate a mountain of debris.

First photo is courtesy of the Philippine Animal Welfare Society. The rest of the photos are from onlovinganimals.blogspot.

http://home.pacbell.net/maiolo/paws.gif

http://home.pacbell.net/maiolo/dogs1.jpg

http://home.pacbe ll.net/maiolo/dogswimming.jpg

http://home.pacbell.net/maiolo/dogmudroof.jpg

http://home.pacbell.net/maiolo/dogonfloat.jpg

ht tp://home.pacbell.net/maiolo/dogcarried.jpg

http://home.pacbell. net/maiolo/deaddog.jpg

http://home.pacbell.net/maiolo/dogs.jpg

Related stories from:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/09/typhoon_ketsana_o ndoy.html

http://www.philstar.com/microsite/operation_ondoy/home.h tml

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20 090928 -227339/Pets_left_homeless_too_by_%91Ondoy%92

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The government of the Philippines has declared the country in a State of Calamity as hundreds of human lives (and countless thousands of domesticated pets and livestock) have been lost due to Typhoon Ketsana.

I have been corresponding with Mr. Ted Rheingold/ Dogster CEO, who mentioned that he will ask Dogster's writer to cover the story, but I'm afraid we don't have any ideas on how we can get the point across to ALL of Dogster's 500,000+ members especially if they don't read the Blog section of the website.

I already began a post about it here:
http://www.dogster.com/forums/Dogs_in_the_News/thread/6417 22
it's the #2 post, but no responses mean no one will pay attention to the story.

Do any of you have any ideas you can share on how we as a collective, can help?

I've been corresponding with a local San Francisco television reporter who is interested on covering the animal welfare angle to this story, but there isn't a 100% hook yet on how he can make this a headline type story. Dogster's involvement can certainly put this over the top, but the response has to be in great numbers and we need to be able to demonstrate some type of results in order to make this truly newsworthy.

I really need to hear FRESH INPUT and IDEAS on this subject. I'm kinda running out of steam

Soooo, absolutely any suggestions or answers would be very much welcome! In order to centralize the ideas, (besides pushing the link up so that more people can learn about this), please post your response on the above link.

This absolutely means so much right now, as this is truly one of the darkest hours for the Philippines, and every little bit can be of tremendous help.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Rhodora de Jesus-Maiolo
(aka Luc's mom)