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Katrina Results in Puppy Boom

Puppies are popping up everywhere amid the rubble left by Hurricane Katrina. Animal welfare workers are seeing the tip of what they fear will be a big boom in dog births in parts of Louisiana and Mississippi hammered by the storm. Officials say more than 6,000 pets were saved in the region after Katrina came ashore August 29, and many of them were relocated to new homes elsewhere in the country.

"I`ve never seen so many puppies in my life," said Manny Maciel, an animal control officer from New Bedford, Mass., who has made two trips south to help trap loose dogs and cats in New Orleans and Mississippi. An unknown number drowned in the floodwaters or died later of injuries. Maciel recently pulled 10 puppies and their mother from beneath a porch in a particularly hard-hit section of Biloxi.

But thousands of animals remain, and humane organizations are beginning to see the result of even small numbers of animals running loose for weeks in neighborhoods where fences were flattened and owners fled. Animals without owners often wind up at the shelter, where workers are overwhelmed despite the trickle of volunteers still coming through to help walk dogs and clean up.