Pets rescued from Texas flood waters remain unclaimed as owners' fate is unknown
Around 20 pets members are now in the custody of the Hill County SPCA where they are being lovingly cared for after they were plucked from the waters of the Guadalupe River in Kerr County.
'If animals could talk, their stories would be incredible,' Andrew Davis, executive director of the Hill Country SPCA, told Daily Mail.
'We've had situations where a Chihuahua was up on a bookcase that was six or eight feet high, and the waterline was up to the next to last shelf.
The dog was up there just scared to death and tried to find the highest place it could, and fortunately the water didn't go all the way up so the dog was saved.'
Some of survival stories were made more incredible because the pets were pregnant.
'It's kind of a natural instinct that we see, which is the same with humans, is when the water rises, to get to the highest point possible,' Davis explained.
After being found on the tops of trees of underneath collapsed home, the creatures are checked medically and then sent to a foster home to await reunification.
However, many of the animals Hill County SPCA has taken have not been claimed.
As of now, there is no process or plan in place for how long the animals will be allowed to sit and wait for their owner.
Those owners may have drowned or may be so overwhelmed with grief and the loss of their home that they're unable to claim their pet back.
'We don't know, so right now, we're kind of in a limbo state,' he said.
'We're going to obviously hold on and help as long as we can, and when they tell us, from a governmental standpoint, that we're good to intake them us our own, then we'll definitely do everything we can to get them adopted.
But we don't know, timewise, what the legalities of that is and kind of taking it day by day.'
So far, at least 130 people declared dead and another 160 are missing, local officials said Monday morning.
Rescuers have refused to put a timeline on their efforts.
Additionally, these pets are under protective order, meaning the organizations that are currently sheltering them can't just adopt them out.
Donations from across the nation, in the form of Amazon orders, have flooded the Hill Country SPCA in the days after the July 4 floods, the organization told Daily Mail
Instead local officials will dictate when and what happens to them.
In other cases, the owners are alive, but don't have a place to live since their home was destroyed by the water.
'The cat was missing for a couple of days but fortunately returned, but the owner doesn't have a place to stay where she can keep the cat. So we took the cat in and the cat still had mud on its tail from coming through all the muck and mud it had to experience,' Davis recalled.'
In the meantime, donations and resources from people wanting to help have flooded in, the director of the SPCA added.
In the hours after the July 4 floods, the organization posted a wish list to its social media, asking for help caring for additional animals.
Within days, the entire Amazon wish list had been fulfilled, with mountains of boxes showing up to their offices.
'It's been so heartwarming,' the no-kill shelter stated.
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