G.I. Joe for Animals

Dogs were living in shopping carts.

Two, in particular, were trapped under an overturned cart in the backyard — a propane tank weighing it down to keep the dogs inside.

Other dogs hopped in and out of a doorless clothes dryer, their only shade from the sun.

Rescuers pulled on respirators before stepping inside the house. The acrid reek of dog urine from 369 American Eskimos was just too much to stomach.

Janis Christensen was there last May when authorities responded to neighbors’ complaints of animal cruelty at the Kennewick puppy mill, just like she was there after Hurricane Katrina ruptured New Orleans.

Or when wildfires consumed Dishman Hills last summer.

Or when a horse trailer flips or an animal gets stuck in raging floodwater. Christensen and HEART are there — and they’ll do anything they can to get where they’re needed. Jobs put on hold. Kids and spouses left miles away. Lives stopped.

The Humane Evacuation Animal Rescue Team (HEART) is one organization that the American Humane Association calls in times of crisis. The Spokane-based group sends FEMA-trained volunteers when disaster strikes — not to help people, but to help the animals and pets that mean so much to the victims of disaster.

“We don’t just have a bunch of people just running into a fire to save a puppy — we don’t want to become another problem in the middle of a disaster,” says Christensen, who acts as HEART’s president.

Christensen, 41, produces volunteers who aren’t just trained animal lovers. They are soldiers. They can rescue an animal from rushing water using ropes and pulleys. Or get a 1,200-pound horse out of a ravine without getting themselves killed. And the Humane Society, SCRAPS, SpokAnimal — even emergency responders — know it.

Organizations like HEART became increasingly important after Hurricane Katrina struck. Pet owners were forced — sometimes physically — to leave their animals behind. When the floodwaters drained, people whose pets weren’t lucky enough to be found by volunteers like Christensen were devastated.

The Pets Act — which ensures that when a crisis hits, state and local emergency preparedness plans are ready to set up shelters for people’s pets — keeps HEART busy.

“Katrina is the perfect example that if you don’t let people with their pets evacuate, they aren’t going to leave,” Christensen says. “People had to literally get on a bus and leave their dogs standing on the side on the road. Those were the rules.”

“If they leave their pets behind, in a couple of days they are going to start doing what they have to do to get their animal,” she says. “If you have the plans in place, you’re not going to have the problem of people trying to sneak back in.”

Christensen is one of a few HEART members with a “go bag” sitting by her front door at all times. That’s a bag packed with everything she needs to survive for two weeks in a post-disaster situation, a forest fire or a flood: a bag filled with military-quality gear, all-purpose tools, a few MREs (meals ready to eat).

“There are a few of us in Spokane with those sitting by their front door, waiting for the call,” she says. “It’s kind of being like a little G.I. Joe.”

A G.I. Joe for animals.

“Your life becomes very simple. Your primary goal of the day is your assignment. You work like crazy with like-minded people. You work hard,” she says. “By 9, 10 o’clock at night, you’re exhausted. But you don’t have to deal with the e-mails and the cell phone calls and the cable bill. Your life becomes very simple… You’re being helpful.”

But it’s not always army fatigues and military boots for HEART.

When the Kennewick puppy mill was busted, Christensen and her volunteers set up shop at the Benton County Fairgrounds to give each and every dog an identification number, a safe and warm place to get sleep, food, water — things they had seen little of before. It’s something the HEART team can whip together fairly quickly and on short notice, but it doesn’t make the reality of the situation any easier to experience.

“I don’t get angry, but I had my moments down there,” Christensen says. “There were a few times I had to hold my tears back.

“I’m just glad to do it and I’m happy to get those animals out of that situation. They are going to be better off.”

The American Humane Association even called Christensen when a guinea pig hoarding case surfaced. Could they set up a shelter for 43 guinea pigs, a handful of rabbits, some chinchillas and a degu (a Chilean rodent)?

“Sometimes you see something you’ve never seen before that you didn’t think you’d ever see,” she says.

Like a pit bull who’s lost 50 pounds after being trapped in a house for three weeks. It’s animals like those she rescued during Katrina that stick with her as she passes that go bag on her way out the door each day.

“The resilience of the animals was amazing. To see a dog that has been locked in a house for three weeks. You bring it out and it’s basically a skeleton,” she says.

“It’s amazing it’s alive, and it comes out with its tail wagging.”

Find out more about HEART at pnw-heart.org.