When the two puppies arrived at their temporary shelter in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, their spindly legs were bent from exhaustion. They walked on water for hours to survive as floods submerged the city and turned streets into rivers.
“We tried to get them to walk, but they couldn’t,” said Dr. Daniel Guimarães Gerardi, a veterinarian who volunteers at the shelter. “It often breaks my heart to see these poor animals suffering.”
Two days after being rescued, the six-month-old mutts – one with tiger stripes and the other jet black – were mostly snoozing on donated blankets among chew toys, but were still exhausted from their ordeal. When they wake up, they stumble around the shelter on unsteady legs, tails wagging and ears pinned tightly.
They had no name tags and no one had come looking for them since they were discovered on May 21. “Hopefully, if there is a caregiver, it can be found,” Dr. Guimarães said. If not, he added, the goal would be to find them good, safe homes.
More than a month after devastating floods struck southern Brazil, the worst disaster in recent history, the region is still reeling. The floods have submerged entire villages, destroyed bridges, closed international airports and displaced an estimated 600,000 people across the state of Rio Grande do Sul. At least 169 people were killed and 56 were missing.
Amid the chaos, thousands of animals were separated from their owners and trapped in the floodwaters. Dramatic scenes of firefighters rescuing stranded animals, including dogs struggling to save themselves by climbing onto the roofs of submerged homes and a horse named Caramello, made headlines around the world. (Caramello was eventually reunited with his owner.)
Even as the flood waters recede, tens of thousands of people remain in temporary shelters, unable to return to their destroyed or damaged homes. And more than 12,500 livestock have been rescued since the crisis began, according to state officials.
Fabiana de Araújo Ribeiro, who manages Porto Alegre’s animal welfare office, said many of these animals are unclaimed.
Even if they did that, Ribeiro said, because their house was damaged, “there was nowhere to go.”
And with water levels covering street signs and house numbers, rescuers have had trouble recording exactly where the pets were rescued from and who they belong to.
Spikes in homeless animals are common following natural disasters around the world. Their owners die, they are separated from their pets, or they are forced into temporary shelters that do not allow animals.
But returning homeless animals is more complicated in countries like Brazil than in the United States. Best practices in Brazil often include systematically registering where animals are found and setting up centralized hotlines to help owners find their pets. The International Fund for Animal Welfare is a non-profit organization based in Washington.
Animal welfare advocates also say it is more common in the United States for owners to implant tracking chips in their pets than in many parts of Latin America.
And stray animals are more prevalent in Latin America, where animals are often fed and cared for in entire blocks, Mr. Ponce said.
“These community dogs and cats do not have a specific owner,” he said. “So in this scenario, no one is going to come looking for them.”
Under the leaky roof of an abandoned warehouse in Canoas, a city near Porto Alegre, about 800 rescued dogs shuffled, whined and barked in makeshift kennels built from wooden pallets.
The space was turned into an impromptu shelter by volunteers who worked in shifts to register, feed, medicate and care for the animals. Few of the animals had names, but each box had a number written on a piece of cardboard by shelter staff.
Many people were rescued by rescuers after being stranded on roofs, trees and in flooded homes for days or weeks. Some arrived injured or sick, and most were severely malnourished.
Some, like Gigante, an elderly Labrador wearing a pink shirt with a red heart, were put down by owners who were prohibited from taking their pets to the temporary shelter they now call home.
In one corner, a muscular white and brown mutt was pulling at a chain link, his sharp teeth bared. He has mostly recovered from a cut on his snout, volunteers said. But he became anxious after floods submerged his home and sent the owner to hospital.
Deeper in the warehouse, a calm Rottweiler was curled up in the back corner of his kennel, his head resting on his paws. Firefighters found him shivering and agitated swimming in the streets of Canoas two weeks ago.
Recently, heavy rain poured down again, creating a commotion at the shelter. When heavy rain began to fall, the dogs tried to climb onto the roof of the kennel. “They get nervous when they see water,” said volunteer Celso Luis Vieira, 74. “They think the place is going to flood soon.”
On a recent weekday morning, Sérgio Hoff was rummaging through a warehouse looking for his missing pet. When he was evacuated from his home in Canoas with his wife and nine-year-old daughter in early May, his family had to leave behind five dogs and three cats.
“My wife was embarrassed. She didn’t want to leave them,” said Ms Hope, 39, a banker. “But we couldn’t take them with us. “It was chaos.”
The family released the animals into the yard in the hope that as the water rose, they would be able to climb to higher ground. They never imagined that the flood would submerge their entire home.
Mr Hope eventually found two of his dogs at a shelter on the other side of Canoas, which gave him hope that the others might have survived as well. But after weeks of searching other animal shelters and scouring social media pages, he still hasn’t found the rest of his pets.
“Frustration is the only word to describe this,” he said after another failed visit to the shelter. “But we won’t give up.”
A two-year-old black mutt named Ticolé, who returned to the Porto Alegre shelter, had better luck.
The dog, frightened by the rush of water invading his neighbourhood, broke free from the house and escaped as his owner was preparing to flee. Two weeks later, his owner, Jorge Caldeira Santos, finally tracked him down.
“I found him.” He said as he led Ticole out of the shelter.
