Please join (and ask others to join) FB page Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support. This is a coalition of independent animal rescues/shelters which are being forced to act as animal disaster shelters AND field animal SAR teams.
Japan does not have many local animal disaster rescue organizations, so shelters are the only entities with volunteers to do the work. They have a ChipIn set up for funds to be shared among the local groups, and they are already being overwhelmed by residents forced to otherwise leave their animals behind in their homes. (**ON PAYPAL PAGE in Japanese connected to ChipIn, GO TO TOP RT CORNER & CLICK ON 3 VERTICAL BARS, then click on "English" on resulting drop-down menu: page will convert to English. Form is made for Japanese donations, but fill in what you can and press SEND. Blank spaces will trigger form asking for country of origin, and when you select U.S.A. for your country, press SEND, form will convert to supply spaces for remainder of U.S. address info).
And Japan does not have pounds/municipal shelters like we have: while animal control agents usually give cats a pass, all stray dogs found are taken to a facility to be almost IMMEDIATELY gassed. There is no 10-day waiting period. So these independent rescues are the ONLY CHANCE for displaced dogs to be found & stay alive and have a chance of being found by their people again. PLEASE send them encouragement & $$ if you can manage.
