Pet-care programs available for deployed military personnel
Advertiser Staff
As thousands of Hawai'i soldiers prepare to be deployed to the Middle East, some organizations are offering ways to help them find care for their pets while they are gone.
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The Hawaiian Humane Society has set up a Pets of Patriots program designed to provide pet-care assistance for military personnel who are to be deployed. Available services include pet foster care in the homes of community volunteers who contact the Humane Society. The pet's financial needs are usually handled by the pet owner.
Places such as the Hawaiian Humane Society provide pet foster care and other services for those left behind when their masters are deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Humane Society will also help secure flights at the lowest available price to send a pet to a friend or relative on the Mainland.
To sign up for the Pets of Patriots program or for details, call Kelli Nitahara, Humane Society outreach programs coordinator, at 946-2187, ext. 217.
There is also the Military Pets Foster Project, an international network of individual foster homes, including in Hawai'i, that will house and care for dogs, cats and birds of military personnel.
Project president and founder Steve Albin said about 100 military personnel from Hawai'i have contacted him since he began the project a week after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but that he was only able to provide one pet with a foster home in Hawai'i because there are not enough volunteers here.
Maj. Stacy Bathrick, a spokeswoman for the 25th Infantry Division (Light), said finding someone to care for soldiers' pets has not come up as an issue and noted that soldiers who live in the barracks are not allowed to have any pets. Other soldiers would likely leave their pets with their families, she said.
About 8,000 25th Infantry soldiers will be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan next year. About 390 Hawai'i Army reservists with the 411th Engineer Battalion will also be reporting to Schofield for training before a 12-month deployment in Iraq, and about 200 Hawai'i Army National Guard troops are expected to report to Schofield for activation and likely deployment.
