When the two puppies arrived at a makeshift shelter in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, their bony legs gave out after hours of struggling to survive as floodwaters submerged the city and turned streets into rivers.
“We try to get them to walk, but they can’t,” said Dr. Daniel Guimaraes Gerardi, a volunteer veterinarian at the shelter. “At times like this, your heart hurts because these poor animals are suffering.”
Two days after being rescued, the six-month-old mixed breed dogs (one brindle, the other jet-black) mostly dozed on donated blankets and chew toys, still exhausted from the ordeal they'd been in. When they woke up, they staggered around the shelter on unsteady legs, their tails wagging and their ears tucked tightly back.
They were not wearing name tags and no one has come looking for them since they were found on May 21. “We hope that if they have caregivers, they will be found,” Dr. Guimaraes said. If not, he added, the goal is to find them a good, safe home.
More than a month after the devastating flood Brazil's south remains in turmoil after the worst flooding in recent years. Floodwaters have inundated entire towns, destroyed bridges, closed an international airport and displaced nearly 600,000 people in Rio Grande do Sul state. At least 169 people have died and 56 are missing.
Amid the chaos, thousands of animals were separated from their owners and trapped by floodwaters. Dramatic scenes of dogs struggling to save themselves Climbing onto the roof Flooded homes and firefighters rescue trapped animals, Among them was a horse named Caramelomaking headlines around the world. (Caramelo was eventually reunited with his owner.)
Although floodwaters have receded, tens of thousands of people remain stranded in temporary shelters, unable to return to destroyed or damaged homes. According to the state government, more than 12,500 livestock have been rescued since the crisis began.
Fabiana de Araújo Ribeiro, head of Porto Alegre's animal welfare office, said many of the animals were without owners.
Even if they did, Ms. Ribeiro said, “they would have nowhere to go back to” because their homes had been destroyed.
With water levels covering street signs and house numbers, it was difficult for rescuers to record exactly where pets were rescued or who owned them.
It is common to see a surge in homeless animals following natural disasters around the world as owners are killed, separated from their pets or forced into makeshift shelters that do not allow animals.
However, returning displaced animals is more complicated in countries such as Brazil than in the United States, where best practices often include systematic registration of locations where animals are found and centralized hotlines to help owners find their pets, said Joaquin de la Torre Ponce, Latin America director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, a Washington-based nonprofit.
Animal welfare advocates say it is also more common in the United States than in many parts of Latin America for owners to implant tracking chips in their pets, making it easier to reunite them.
Mr. Ponce said stray animals were more common in Latin America, where they were often fed and cared for by entire neighborhoods.
“These dogs and cats in these communities don’t have a specific owner,” he said. “So in these situations, no one is coming to them.”
Under the leaky roof of an abandoned warehouse in Canoas, a city near Porto Alegre, about 800 rescued dogs shifted, whimpered and barked in makeshift kennels made of wooden boards.
Volunteers have turned the place into a makeshift shelter, taking turns registering, feeding, medicate and caring for the animals. Few of the animals have names, but each box has a number scribbled on a piece of cardboard by shelter staff.
Many people were trapped on rooftops, in trees and in flooded homes, and were not rescued until days or even weeks later. Some were injured or sick, and most were severely malnourished.
Several, like Gigante, an older Labrador wearing a pink shirt with red hearts, were abandoned by owners who were prohibited from bringing their pets to the makeshift shelter they now call home.
In one corner, a muscular brown-and-white mongrel tugged at a chain, baring sharp teeth. Volunteers said it had mostly recovered from a wound on its nose but had been anxious since flooding inundated its home and sent its owner to the hospital.
Deep inside the warehouse, a depressed Rottweiler huddled in the corner of its kennel, head resting on its paws. Firefighters found it shaking and agitated on the street in Canoas two weeks ago.
Another heavy rain in recent days caused a commotion at the shelter. When the rain came, the dogs tried to climb onto the roof of the kennel. “They got nervous when they saw the water,” said Celso Luis Vieira, a 74-year-old volunteer. “They thought the place was going to be flooded.”
On a recent weekday morning, Sergio Hoff was searching the warehouse for his missing pets. When he, his wife and 9-year-old daughter were evacuated from their home in Canoas in early May, the family had to leave behind five dogs and three cats.
“My wife was panicking, she didn't want to leave them,” said Hoff, 39, a banker. “But we couldn't take them. It was chaos.”
The family kept the animals in the yard, hoping they would crawl to higher ground when the water rose. They didn't expect the flood to submerge their entire house.
Mr. Hoff eventually found two dogs at a shelter on the other side of Canoas, giving him hope that the others might have survived. But after weeks of searching, which included scouring other animal shelters and social media pages, he still hadn’t found the remaining pets.
“Frustrating is the only word to describe this situation,” he said after another failed visit to the shelter. “But we will not give up.”
Back at the shelter in Porto Alegre, a 2-year-old black mongrel named Ticolé had better luck.
The dog was so frightened by the floodwaters that were rushing into its neighborhood that it broke free from its home and ran away, just as its owner was about to flee. Two weeks later, its owner, Jorge Caldeira Santos, finally found it.
“I found him,” he said, leading Tikorai out of the shelter.
