Man's best friend: the forgotten victims

JOHN SELKIRK/Stuff.co.nz

WHERE'S MY MASTER?: A lone dog waits for its owner, but he will not return. The village of Poutasi, on Samoa's tsunami-stricken southern coastline, was largely destroyed in last week's disaster.

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Among the pulverised concrete and timber, a lone dog stands guard, awaiting a master who will never return.

When the Poutasi villagers file back to the deserted disaster scene to attend church, other dogs suddenly emerge from the bush, drawn by the possibility of scraps.

A skinny black pup whimpers as a young girl whacks it on the nose with a broomstick to get it out of the way of the church steps.

They are the often-forgotten disaster victims.

Across Samoa's tsunami-stricken southern coastline, up to 3000 dogs are estimated to need emergency food.

A team of three New Zealanders from MAF and the SPCA flew to Samoa to help Juan Carlos Murillo, the World Society for the Protection of Animals disaster management co-ordinator, and its New Zealand programme manager, Bridget Vercoe, devise a plan to save the animals.

It is more than just looking after orphaned pets – about 80 per cent of families rely on backyard livestock.

In the worst-affected southeast of Upolu island, most domestic animals kept on beachfront properties were killed in the tsunami, Ms Vercoe says.

"There was one man who had two really young 12-week-old piglets. They got washed out. When he went back the next day one was stuck in the mud, still all OK."

But some villages kept their pigs and chickens in communal plots in the inland jungle – where the families have now retreated for safety.

With every new job, there's a new cultural challenge, says Mr Murillo, who has worked in the Afghanistan war, the Boxing Day tsunami and numerous Caribbean hurricanes and this year's Costa Rican earthquake.

One of the biggest problems in Samoa is changing the psyche that animals can simply look after themselves.

Normally they live off scraps, but when people are surviving on aid food, scraps are hard to come by.

WSPA has a budget to feed 2000 to 3000 dogs for a week.