PORT ALLEGANY – Millie Williams is heading south again, taking
“Red Bear” home.

Only it turns out that Red Bear, an 8-year-oldðchow, is actually
named “Queen,” and her home is not where it was before Hurricane
Katrina.

After Katrina, Williams went to New Orleans with a load of
supplies for animals, ending up at the Broken Down Dog shelter in
Louisiana helping care for animals which had become separated from
their owners.

She gotðthe reddish chow, along with some other dogs, at an SPCA
intake center in a Winn-Dixie parking lot in New Orleans on Oct. 1
and took the animals back to the shelter in Alexandria.

Six weeks later, she headed north with Red Bear, as the dog had
been named, and 16 other dogs, three cats and a badly burned
kitten.

The cats and 14 of the dogs ended up in Ottawa, and she brought
the Chow and two other dogs back home to Wrights, where they joined
two new Orleans dogs her husband Mike had picked up in Butler.

Since that time, she has been trying to find the owners of the
animals, using the Internet and the wide community of animal rescue
people.

The dog she called Red Bear had a city dog license tag and a
rabies tag, but the veterinarian could not be located and the New
Orleans records were not available until recently.

A couple of weeks ago, though, she managed to get a phone call
through to a person who could access the New Orleans database and
found Queen’s real name and the name of her owner.

In one of those coincidences that make things more interesting,
the owner’s name is also Williams – in this case “Ollie”
Williams.

Finding her was another problem.

Ollie Williams and her husband, apparently both retired, had
fled their New Orleans home and gone to stay with Ollie’s sister in
Jackson, Miss., where Millie finally ran her down.

Millie’s first call was answered by Ollie’s nephew, who was
skeptical, but finally gave Millie the number of the apartment
Ollie now lives in.

The couple had pretty much given up hope of ever seeing their
dog again, and Millie’s call came as a big surprise, a particularly
welcome one as Ollie was miserable with the flu when it came.

Ollie and her husband lost one other dog, a spaniel, in the
storm, and their German Shepard apparently ended up in Canada,
where it still is.

While the call was welcome, Queen’s return home will present a
problem, because Ollie’s home is uninhabitable, and she and her
husband are living in a small apartment where they cannot keep a
pet.ð

They are not sure they will ever go back to New Orleans and are
hoping someone in their family will take Queen.

But Millie has her recreational vehicle home and animal rescue
station loaded and ready to go.

The van is packed with more supplies to make life better for
pets in the afflicted area.

She will be taking one of her dogs and a cat, but leaving behind
several other New Orleans dogs whose owners have still not been
located.

After she delivers Queen to Ollie, she will head for Camp Coast
Care in Long Beach Miss., where about 220 St. Bonaventure
University sstudents involved in BonaResonse are using their spring
break to help out.

How long she’ll be there and what she might bring back this time
we’ll have to wait to see.