Angora Fire -- missing pets

Unedited version that ran in August 07 Tahoe Mountain News

By Kathryn Reed

Knowing people kicked in doors when they heard barking dogs gives Noel McKeon hope that her golden retriever and sheltie mix will be found.
Even though it’s been more than a month since McKeon’s Lake Tahoe Boulevard home burned to the ground in the Angora firestorm, she is trying to stay positive. Part is gut instinct knowing they could be out there. Part is being told stories by firefighters who fought the 1991 Oakland Hills Fire of animals being rescued months after that inferno.
Riley is her 5-year-old golden retriever who requires medication for his pancreatic condition. Kelsea is a 12-year-old sheltie mix. She is white, with brown markings. She has an “S” tattoo in one ear that she had when McKeon got her from the shelter at 7 months.
“I can’t help but feel they’re still out there. I know they know how to survive even though they had more creature comforts than some people have. Instinct takes over,” McKeon said.
She has fliers all over town. Calls are made regularly to her veterinarian and animal control. Nothing so far.
McKeon found out about the fire while sitting on the tarmac in Philadelphia waiting for her plane to pull up to the gate. Her dog sitter was hysterical trying to explain what happened. The sitter had left the house for a bike ride. By the time she returned that fateful Sunday afternoon she was denied access despite her frantic pleas to be allowed to rescue the dogs.
As is typical in these situations, human life is assessed a much higher value than that of four-legged family members.
McKeon does not blame her sitter, knowing that she could have just as easily been in town but away from the house and been in the same set of circumstances.
To add insult to injury, while she was nearly 3,000 miles away from home she watched the house across the street burn on CNN. She called the fire department. They told her her house suffered the same fate.
“The way I look at it is a I lost stuff. I don’t care about it. The first thing is the dogs,” McKeon said.
She is in a strange predicament. Her house was for sell because she was being relocated by her company to St. Louis. She’s there now – trying to find closure surrounding her missing animals.
The phone number on the dog tags is still valid. McKeon wants to pay that bill in case her pets wander out of the woods.
El Dorado County Animal Control in Meyers in early August listed 11 cats and three dogs still missing from the fire.
“They might still be out there hiding and have not come out yet, but a lot of them were in the homes and the homes are no longer there,” said Karen Camp, public services assistant. “We rescued some dogs and cats and birds. All but one cat has been returned to its owners.”
The owners can’t take the kitty now, but they visit often.
McKeon asks anyone who finds her dogs to call David Monroe at Sierra Veterinary Hospital, (530) 542-1952.