Katrina Dog Gets Whole Lot of Local Love

By Barry Owens
MAY 2, 2006

There is a new dog in the neighborhood. His past is a bit murky, but his caretakers say he is from the South, appears to be a mix of German shepherd and Labrador retriever, and is probably around 10 years old. What they know for certain is that his name is Pancho and that he is one lucky dog.

		For the past month, more than a half-dozen Tribeca residents have been caring for Pancho, sharing duties such as walking, feeding, grooming and boarding him. Now they say they are reluctantly ready to see him move into a permanent home. Pancho was plucked from the streets of New Orleans, where he was either orphaned or abandoned by his owner during Hurricane Katrina. The dog rescue happened in October, well after floodwaters had receded. Still, Pancho arrived in New York City looking lean and waterlogged—his fur and skin so damaged by exposure that he had to be shaved.
Just how he turned up here is a mystery. A spokeswoman for Animal Care and Control of New York City said that the organization boarded fewer than six dogs from New Orleans in the months following the storm. The most likely scenario, she said, is that a local rescue worker returned from New Orleans with Pancho and brought him to the shelter. In any case, he did not remain there long.

Tribeca resident M.J. Bettenhausen was Pancho's ticket out. She paid the cost of adopting Pancho and other animals from the shelter, sight unseen, so that families might take them home. She feared that more animals were on the way from New Orleans and that overcrowding at the shelter would mean euthanasia for many of them.

A young couple in Brooklyn adopted Pancho, but when Bettenhausen got word that family troubles had put Pancho's home in jeopardy and that he might once again be headed for the shelter, she took him in. Bettenhausen did not have room in her Independence Plaza apartment to keep the dog for long, so Pancho moved in with Edith Katz, who also lives at IPN.

"He was immediately loving to me," Katz said. "Just the sweetest dog."
Katz said she would have kept him ("he's an angel"), but the daily walks were too much for her. So in late March Pancho moved in with yet another IPN resident, April Lang.

"The temptation is strong to keep him," said Lang. "But at some point, you have to let go."

Lang is putting out the word that Pancho is in need of a loving and permanent home. (Anyone interested in adopting the dog should call Lang at 212-577-1357.)
Pancho might be reluctant to leave Tribeca, given the level of attention he has received here.

Late last month a half-dozen of Pancho's caretakers got together, some of them meeting one another for the first time, for a group photo.

There was Laverne Campbell, a groomer at The Wagging Tail on Greenwich Street, who has donated weekly skin treatments that have restored Pancho's luster. There was Miya Gowdy and Vivian Outlaw, founders of a Tribeca-based dog-food business, who have been supplying Pancho with quarts of homemade food.

"You should smell it, it's delicious," said Gowdy.

There was Beth Rosaler, an IPN resident who gives Pancho daily walks, though she says she had never before been much of a dog person. "It's a community thing," she said.

And there was Bettenhausen, who noted that Pancho looked happy to see them all together at the same time.

"He thinks it's his adoption party," she said.