When South Florida families lose their homes to foreclosure or seek smaller and cheaper places to live, they sometimes leave everything behind, including the family pet.
''We have a 10-month-old puppy who we are desperately looking for a good family to love,'' Angela Ledea of Miami's Roads neighborhood wrote in a recent online posting. ``Our neighbor's house went to foreclosure and the adorable, loving, playful puppy has been left behind.''
When Broward real estate agent Barry Krischer visited a recently foreclosed home in Hallandale Beach on behalf of the lender, he heard a bird screeching inside.
''I called a locksmith. I stayed while he came, then I called the Humane Society,'' Krischer said. ``People are just up and leaving dogs, cats, furniture . . . whatever is there.''
Rescue groups say they also are getting more calls. And dozens of pets were left behind as residents moved out of several trailer parks in Miami-Dade and Broward that were closed so that the land could be developed.
''We're finding more and more dogs are being abandoned in foreclosed houses,'' said Dee Chess, the founder of Friends Forever Rescue in Palmetto Bay. She said the number of abandoned pets in South Dade has gone up noticeably in the last six months.
''It used to be only big dogs and mixes,'' she said. ``Now we're seeing purebreds, small dogs, medium. We're getting everything now. Also, a lot of pregnant dogs.''
Four months ago, FPL called her about an abandoned parrot. ''The bird had to have been there for months,'' she said. ``The bird was emaciated, in a cage with no food or water. We got it out and found a home for it. I call and check up on it all the time.''
HARD TO TELL
It's difficult to document whether more pets are being abandoned at shelters because of economic problems. Government-run shelters receive only about a third of their animals from people who bring them to the door. When owners show up to surrender their pets, the shelters ask why. The No. 1 reason given nationally is moving, says Dr. Sara Pizano, director of Miami-Dade County's Animal Services.
Pizano said she takes in 100 animals every day. Last year, 34,163 animals went through the shelter; it has space for 300 at a time. The animals are either adopted, taken by rescue groups or euthanized. ''We're not dealing with 50 animals a year,'' she said. ``It is horrible that we have to euthanize, but we don't have a choice.''
In Broward County, about 30,000 animals were euthanized last year. Beth Chavez, acting director of Broward County Animal Care and Regulation, said that in addition to strays and pets surrendered by their owners to the shelter, 267 dogs were abandoned in 2007, up from 198 in 2006.
The Humane Society of Greater Miami has seen a spike in the number of people calling, asking to leave their dogs and cats, but pets are not accepted if the shelter is full.
Nancy Peterson, issues specialist with the Humane Society of the United States in Washington, D.C., said pets being abandoned because of home foreclosures ``seems to be a growing concern. In general, when times are hard for people, times are subsequently hard for animals as well.''
LOTS OF CALLS
Elena Mavros, who runs Pets in Distress in Fort Lauderdale, which places homeless pets in foster care, said, ``We do get a lot of calls from people moving, or being forced to move or from foreclosures. They're moving to places that don't allow pets. I think increasingly foreclosures will be a factor.''
The closings of trailer parks have resulted in high numbers of cats left behind. At one Davie trailer park, 50 or 60 cats were abandoned, Mavros said. In Naranja last year, 13 dogs were rescued from a closed trailer park; a Chihuahua refused to leave its vacated trailer and starved to death.
Laura Pinto, an independent script supervisor for film and TV, and another woman in the Homestead area, have rescued 36 cats in the last two or three months because of people leaving and because South Miami-Dade County, with its farms and rural atmosphere, is a favorite dumping ground for animals.
Not everyone suffering from economic hardship kicks out the pet, however.
Alma Artiaga, who followed her fiance to Miami Beach from Charlotte, N.C., only to break up and lose her job, is searching for a home for her two cats she's had for more than eight years. Without enough money to pay rent next month, she put an ad on the craigslist website seeking someone to take in her cats. She has taken a job in the yachting industry, which will provide her with housing on a ship, but no pets are allowed.
''If someone can foster them until I get back,'' she said wistfully. ``I have until the first of March, but I know how tough it is to get adult cats adopted.''
LeeMarie Dorsey ended up living in a car after being evicted from a trailer in Fort Lauderdale. She called many rescue organizations, trying to find someone to take in her mixed-breed dog, Pippi Longstocking, whom she had had for seven years.
She found pet rescuer Lara Greisman, who took the dog temporarily and then placed her with Claudia Morel in Pompano Beach.
''I visited her yesterday and she has a nice yard to play in,'' said Dorsey, who carries a photo of Pippi in her purse.
Sometimes a neighbor or other animal lover ends up saving an abandoned pet.
Miamian Antonieta Tio got a call from her attorney about a man trying to find a home for a male dachsund left in a backyard without food or water. Tio took Mickey home with her. When her male dachshund threw fits about the new dog, Tio took Mickey, a pillow and a blanket outside and slept in the car. She ultimately found Mickey a home.
Silvia Valles runs the nonprofit Octavio Feline Foundation in Miami-Dade as well as Mobile Cat Services, which includes nail clipping, ear cleaning and vaccinations. She took in two cats down the street after the owner died, and she traps stray cats and has them vaccinated and neutered and then looks for homes.
''Cat adoptions are way, way below dogs,'' said Valles, who has 16 cats available for adoption.
South Florida has always had a problem with pets who are abandoned or discarded. Too many are animals aren't spayed and neutered, Pizano said.
Carol Caridad, who runs the rescue group Paws4You in the South Miami area, said, ``Some of [the pet abandonment] is from moving and the economy, but the overall picture remains as grim as it was. People don't have the patience and they dump pets on rescues and solve the problem that way.''
