Running Scared : Thunder, Lightning Help Jam Animal Shelter

Army Maj. Alan Cage scanned the row of gray metal cages at the Orange County Animal Shelter Wednesday night.

Inside, sad-eyed Dobermans, springer spaniels and a fluffy German shepherd puppy gazed back at him, but Shady Lady, the 12-year-old English sheepdog that his children adore, was nowhere to be seen.

“I would have thought we’d have found her by now. She’s such a friendly dog,” the 35-year-old Huntington Beach man said as he moved to another row of cages.

Tuesday night when Cage and his wife went to Los Angeles for dinner and a show, Shady Lady was safe in their yard, behind an 8-foot wooden fence. But at about midnight, a fast-moving storm brought pelting rain, lightning and drum rolls of thunder to Orange County. For Shady Lady, Cage said, it was if all hell had broken lose.

“There are two things that really upset her--fireworks and thunder,” he said. “Apparently she just chewed through the fence and was gone.”

By Wednesday afternoon many county residents had a similar tale to relate. The early morning storm left not only rain, but also more than 150 stray animals in its wake, county animal control officers said.

Shelter Filled

By 3 p.m. Wednesday, the county animal shelter in Orange had filled all 382 of its kennels and was jammed with more than 100 additional dogs and more than 50 additional stray cats, county veterinarian Dr. Nila Kelly said.

“We’re full,” she said. “And we have double dogs (two dogs per kennel instead of the usual one) in many of the kennels. . . . After the last thunderstorm on the Fourth of July, and this one too, we have just been overwhelmed with the number of animals.

“The animals are scared of the noise. They hear the loud noise. It scares them and they jump fences, go through gates, get under fences. They just run because they’re trying to get away from the noise.”

Kelly said that more of the county’s dogs and cats appear to be running away after storms this year than in previous years. She blamed recent earthquakes for their panic.

“We’ve also got the earth moving,” Kelly said. “That upsets the animals’ psychological well-being” and makes it more likely that when a storm hits, they will run.

There was little a pet owner could do to prevent a terrified animal from running away, Kelly said.

Tranquilizers May Help

“The best thing, if you know a storm is coming, is to put them in the garage or at least have some means of identification on them. And if you know they’re deathly afraid of thunder, you can have some tranquilizers handy if you know a storm is coming,” she said.

But even the best efforts to keep an animal safe don’t always work, Kelly said. One couple put their dog in the bathroom on the Fourth of July to keep him calm and he fell into the bathtub and broke his vertebrae, Kelly said.

On Wednesday, some dogs and cats were picked up five miles away from their homes, Kelly said. They will be kept at the county shelter for three days, then offered for adoption or destroyed. If a dog is licensed, county officers will call their owners, Kelly said.

But right now, “a lot of people don’t realize their dogs are missing yet,” said Lt. K.R. Whelan who is in charge of the 25 field officers who pick up strays. Many dog owners go to work in the morning thinking the dog is in the yard and won’t realize that he isn’t there until they come home from work and try to feed him, Whelan said.

Wide Range of Animals

Still, by Wednesday afternoon a stream of dog and cat owners had discovered that their animals were gone and had stopped by the shelter after work. There was a wide range of animals to look at--in one cage, a Doberman nursing two puppies, in another a Chinese sharpai, a muscular, beige-colored dog with folds of wrinkled skin around its neck. Whelan said it was a rare dog and could be worth as much as $1,000.

But for pet owners like Cage, the trip was an exercise in frustration. His wife had come by to look in the morning, his two children had scoured the neighborhood and posted signs. Now, accompanied by a friend, Cage was back at the pound after work and there was still no sheepdog.

“Are we missing any cages? I went through these twice,” Cage’s friend Neil Bailey asked as the two men worked their way up and down the rows.

At one point, Cage stopped, poking a few fingers through the mesh and shaking a German Shepherd-mix puppy by the paw. In another section, five dogs rushed to the front of their cages, wagging their tails and loudly barking. But Shady Lady, Cage’s silver and blue pedigreed sheepdog, wasn’t there.

“Well, that’s it. That’s it,” Cage said as he turned toward the gate. He would be back in the morning, Cage said, adding: “Since they only keep them three days, I plan to come back off and on over the next three days.”

Was he confident he would find his family’s dog?

“I hope so. I hope so,” Cage said.