By SONYA KIMBRELL skimbrell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Advocate staff writer GONZALES -- When Phillip and Janice Manuel evacuated their Gentilly home for Hurricane Katrina, they thought they'd be back in a couple of days. They went with their 16-year-old son and Janice Manuel's mother to Atlanta. They left their two Doberman pinschers in the utility room with enough food and water for about four days. Tears streamed down Janice Manuel's face as she waited outside Barn One at the Lamar- Dixon Exposition Center on Sunday where 2,400 animals are being held after being rescued in New Orleans. She stood back as her husband looked through the dog kennels. "We're looking for a mother and son," Phillip Manuel said. Janice Manuel described her pets. Diva, 4, is elegant and poised. Valentino was born on Valentine's Day. He's already as big as his mother. "I helped deliver her puppies. There were five. Two lived. We gave one to friends and kept Valentino," Janice Manuel said. Ascension Parish Sheriff Jeff Wiley on Saturday closed the shelter at Lamar-Dixon to receiving new animals. David Dorfman, public information officer for the Humane Society of the United States, said the closure was because Lamar-Dixon is at capacity. But, Dorfman said, about 400 animals were shipped out Sunday to other locations in the U.S., so they should be able to accept more rescues from New Orleans today. Dorfman estimated about 11,000 pets displaced from the hurricane are being housed at various locations. He said the only animals being euthanized are ones with extreme aggression or that are diseased. Several organizations are involved with the rescue effort and the effort to reunite pets with owners, including the Humane Society, the SPCA and other smaller rescue organizations and shelter groups from all over the country. Hundreds of volunteers are working at Lamar-Dixon to clean cages, walk dogs, feed animals, handle paperwork and all the tasks that go along with caring for cats, dogs, pigs, rabbits, goats and other pets. "We've never handled so many," Dorfman said. "After Hurricane Andrew, I think, there were 400 animals." The rescue efforts in New Orleans are continuing and volunteers are trying to get as much information about the animals as possible to include on microchips being embedded in the animals. Information about the rescued animals will be on the Web at http://www.petfinder.com. The effort is not without glitches. Jessica Williams evacuated New Orleans to Houston, leaving her dog behind with her sister. Williams got an e-mail on Thursday that her dog, a Shih Tzu named Honey Bunny, had been rescued with tags intact and was at Lamar-Dixon. Williams drove back to Houston Sunday afternoon without her dog and with new frustration. She found a picture of her dog that had been taken with two other dogs in a kennel at Lamar-Dixon, so she knows the dog was there at some point. "The other two dogs were there, but mine was not," Williams said. She looked several times through the hundreds of kennels with no luck. A veterinarian remembered treating a Shih Tzu that was sent to Parker Coliseum, so Williams headed there. She said she understands that nobody expected to deal with thousands of animals, but the confusion was frustrating. Williams said one worker suggested that her dog had been stolen, and even more disturbing for Williams, a volunteer offered her another dog. "She said, 'Look at this one; it's cute.' I told her I didn't want that dog; I wanted my dog," Williams said. Although the U.S. Department of Agriculture is overseeing the animal rescue effort, at Lamar-Dixon there's no clear central command. Sharon McClellan works with a Baton Rouge group called Homeward Bound that tries to match lost animals with their owners. She's been volunteering at Lamar-Dixon since Sept. 2. She said Sunday that she was asked to stop scanning animals for microchips that might contain information about owners. "I'm just worried about the lack of a unified effort.," McClellan said. "It's just heartbreaking. Some of these people have lost everything. Their pets are all they might have left." Dorfman said he wasn't aware of that situation, and said he would have to investigate the problems. Meanwhile, the Manuels had no luck finding their pets in the first barn and were on their way to look through more. "My husband says he's never leaving the house again," Janice Manuel said Cathleen Bennett _www.crossroadsgsd.com_ (http://www.crossroadsgsd.com/) We have puppies ============================================================================ POST is Copyrighted 2005. 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