(intercom voice) (cool country rock music) - [Doug] On August 27th, hurricane Laura made landfall in Louisiana as a category four storm.

(wind wooshes) One of the strongest to ever hit the state.

(wind wooshes) - [Jeff] This is one of those hurricanes that has many hazards.

So it's not just wind.

This one's creating storm surge and potentially catastrophic winds, though, you'll be dealing with debris that's thrown across roads.

Some homes might've collapsed.

Keep in mind the storm surge could have displaced many many objects or animals or anybody.

- [Doug] Pretty devastating then.

- [Jeff] By this time in the late summer, early fall the Gulf of Mexico is so warm.

It is just ready for hurricane to to suck all that energy and heat up and intensify.

And the damage done will spread far inland.

(guitar chord) - [Jeff] So you may experience complications and challenges before you even get to your destination.

- [Doug] So we're heading out to Louisiana near the Lake Charles area.

I kept getting more and more social media reports.

As every day went by, it looked like it was worse and worse.

I cannot begin to explain the heartbreaking animal situation that's going on in Louisiana.

There are loose animals.

Animals locked in houses, tied to trees.

It's over 90 degrees, no power.

The animal control facility in Lake Charles was destroyed.

I knew I had to go to this hurricane devastated area because I knew the drone could make a huge difference in finding the animals.

(electric music) (phone dial tone) - [Tony] What up?

- [Doug] Hey, is this Tony?

- [Tony] Yes, it is.

- [Doug] Hey Tony, this is Douglas, the guy with the infrared drone.

So we're going to go out and try and find your dog.

And we saw something posted that said that he was hit by a car or something like that recently.

- [Tony] Yeah, he was hit this morning.

- [Doug] Oh, geez.

Is he okay?

- [Tony] We don't know, he ran off.

- [Doug] We'll keep you posted and we'll do our best to try and find him tonight.

- [Tony] All right, I appreciate it.

- [Doug] We chose to look for this dog first cause it was hit.

So, you know, the fact that it just took off and ran off somewhere could mean it has some sort of internal bleeding or, you know might need immediate vet care.

So yeah, I think it's important for us to try and find him tonight.

(drone whirring) - [Doug] The first approach is to try the simplest areas, which would be any of the fields Southeast of where he said and then work our way into the woods after that.

(pensive electric music) We've got something running away probably a opossum.

(blows raspberry) A cow right there.

So here we got a big dog, right here.

This could potentially be him.

He's a good size.

So if we had rescue people with us, they could go get them or we can go over there ourselves right now, flashlights and see what we're seeing.

(drone whirring) (bugs chirping) So they were running up and down these streets in here.

That was interesting.

We're looking for a dog about a 110 pound one.

- [Man] Hey, shining your light when it's dark aint a good idea.

- [Doug] Okay.

The dog guy... what's that?

- [Man] I don't give a **** about your dog.

- [Doug] No, it's the fire, it's the fireman's dog.

- [Man] All right, be careful doing what you're doing.

I don't care who you are.

You're snooping around with a flashlight at night.

- [Doug] Okay.

- [Man] I'm gonna come after you.

Quit that ****.

- [Doug] Okay.

The hard part of just showing up here in the middle of the night is, you know, we don't really know who was still in their homes, who kind of has an old ranch dog that kind of roams around the neighborhood.

I mean, I can see how he might wonder what the hell we're up to.

So that's the tough part about looking for animals at night with an infrared drone and a spotlight and everything else, you know, it's kind of a fine balance of looking for the animal and then, you know not startling people.

- [Doug] I was kinda more eager to get going but yeah, I was kind of wondering like how the hell are we going to find the dog?

If this is our first welcoming to Louisiana.

(guitar chord) (bugs chirping) - Of course, people that have just lost their homes.

We're going to wait until the morning to speak with Tony and kind of get a feel for the land and assess the situation better and then start flying after that.

(slow, sad bluegrass music) - [Tony] I really appreciate you coming out and doing this.

- [Doug] Oh yeah.

You're welcome.

Yeah.

I see his pattern is like white and then the kind of... - [Tony] That could possibly be him.

- [Doug] Yeah.

I can play it multiple times.

- [Tony] My name's Tony Thrower.

I'm firefighter for ward seven fire department just outside of Venton Louisiana.

Yesterday morning, me and the dog went out as I was reaching for the leash, a SUV come flying through and hit the dog.

As I was running over there and the dog jumped up and ran off at a high rate of speed.

And we've been searching for him since.

(intense electric music) - [Doug] Looks like he's got a darkest stripe on the top but it's broken in the middle.

- [Tony] Mhmm.

- [Doug] Is that like yours?

- Yep.

He's got dark hair on top.

I bet you that's the buckle on his collar and the leash.

- [Doug] That looks like a leash right there to his right.

Huh?

- [Tony] Yeah.

- [Doug] Like he's dragging something.

- [Tony] Did he hook around when he went into the trees?

Yeah.

He's circling the area.

That's his MO.

He's a livestock guardian dog.

- Oh.

- [Tony] I'm almost willing to bet that's him.

- [Tony] Jackson!

Where ya at buddy?

Me and the dog actually rode the storm out in the fire station.

Just me and him.

(wind whoosing) 183 mile an hour gusts.

151 mile an hour sustained winds.

It was straight three hours of nothing but wind and rain.

Jackson!

- [Doug] Definitely not under here right now.

- [Tony] I'm just, I'm just worried about my dog.

We've, we've got pretty attached to each other.

- [Doug] So it's possible Jackson is acting really skiddish now because of trauma from the hurricane and being hit by a car.

And thankfully I've just gotten really good advice on how to deal with dogs just like this.

- [Zoe] Hi.

- Hey there.

- How's it going?

- Going good.

- Nice to see you.

- Good to see you.

- Come on in.

Come on girlfriend, move your butt.

My name is Zoe Sandor.

- [Doug] Oh, come here me Biscuit.

- [Zoe] This is Biscuit.

- That's a cute little name.

- I've got two companies here in San Diego.

Pack Method Prep, which is a preparatory school for dogs.

And then I have Zoe's dog training which does private lessons all around San Diego County.

- [Doug] I don't know if I've seen one with green ears.

What type of breed is that?

The green haired dog, or yellow haired.

- [Zoe] Oh yes, I know, it's the Troll breed.

(Zoe laughs) - [Doug] Hello Biscuit.

- [Zoe] I think some of the dogs that you're going to be coming in contact with are terrified, potentially traumatized.

- [Doug] Yeah.

- And so I'm going to bring out a dog that's a bit more sort of in line with that.

(dog barks) - [Zoe] One of the things that I sort of studied in preparation for this visit actually was this concept of survival mode and how dogs and trauma can kind of flip that switch into survival mode and won't even come back to their owner.

- [Zoe] If a dog is a hurricane survivor, what we'll see sometimes is that dog associate associate that trauma with anything else that was in the room at the same time.

I'm associating with this spot.

I'm associating with the fact that it was nighttime when it happened.

They could come back and not want to go inside the house because the windows were rattling.

And now they're like nope.

- [Zoe] Sit.

Good.

Let's go.

- [Zoe] With natural disasters, they're just thinking about staying alive.

And if you're just thinking about staying alive then everything pretty much is perceived as a threat that could potentially catch you, kill you, whatever.

- [Zoe] Hi Sunny.

Oh, thank you.

- [Zoe] It's not a rehab facility, but we can see even minor moments of trauma kind of set.

Each one of those moments, they're going to have some sort of association with and then we have to sort of piece out those associations.

- [Doug] Sit.

Come here Riley.

Sit.

Okay, that's it.

No more.

- [Zoe] Sometimes you have to feed them, come back the next day, feed them again, come back the next day and sort of get them out of that survival mode before they are capable of even sort of recognizing that somebody is here to help them, even their own parent.

- [Doug] So we met up this morning with Tony.

I showed him footage of a dog that we had found about 3000 feet away.

He strongly felt like it was his dog.

We can see the leash dangling off of him.

And that's the part that's really concerning because that's kind of like playing Russian roulette for a dog because at any given point, going through the woods and crawling around under houses and stuff, the dog can get stuck.

So we're going to go back out there with the thermal drone.

If we get some decent rain for a bit and it clears up that will actually help us cause it will cool the ground quicker.

- [Tony] Jackson!

I'm feeling real hopeful that we're going to find him tonight.

(drone whirring) (Doug blows raspberry) - Damn.

- [Doug] See a deer.

God, some of the worst mosquitoes I've ever been in.

- [Doug] That look like him?

That looks like him, doesn't it?

- [Tony] Kinda.

- [Doug] You want to jump in your truck and see what that is maybe?

- [Tony] Okay.

- [Doug] I don't want to scare it.

But it's some sort of animal right?

- Maybe, but just in case it could be a dog stuck.

- [Tony] Jackson!

- [Tony] Nope, it's a cat.

It's a cat against a tree.

- [Doug] When you're trying to find one specific animal it's similar like that saying, looking for a needle in a haystack.

- Oh we got something here, see it?

- [Doug] The drone can find the animal, if the animal's there.

But you know, you've got dozens of houses here and barns and all sorts of hiding places where the animal can be hidden.

So, you know, you just keep flying all different areas and hoping that the animal will be roaming around.

(drone whirring) - I got a dog on the run.

Oh, two.

- [Tony] Where at?

- [Doug] We're not messing around.

We find some sort of detection and we know that it's not a deer or a rabbit.

- [Tony] Jackson!

- [Doug] We're sending Tony out immediately to go.

- [Tony] That's a little dog.

- [Doug] We found several more dogs.

Some cats.

- [Tony] Cat.

- [Doug] It's a white one.

That's it!

That's it, run!.

- [Tony] That's not him.

- [Doug] But not the dog that we're looking for.

I'm definitely feeling sleepy now.

Had about half hour, maybe an hour's worth of sleep in the past two days.

I'm definitely ready to take a nap.

- [Tony] I don't know, man.

I think we're just spinning our wheels.

- [Doug] Yeah.

- [Tony] I hate to say it.

- [Doug] Yeah it's just not out and about right at the moment.

- [Tony] No.

(drone whirring) - [Doug] It's about six in the morning.

I think we've got about an hour and a half of searching this morning before it starts to get too hot.

Oh, there's some sort of looks like it could be an animal bedded down right here.

There's a dog right here.

We're going to run right over there to him.

****, he's moving.

Get Tony!

Jackson!

(Doug whistles) We got close to him.

We gotta change batteries though.

Okay now we gotta bee-line it for a landing spot.

(drone whirring) - [Doug] We had him, he went further in.

- [Tony] Jackson!

Jackson!

This is a some of Jackson's hair.

- [Doug] Nothing.

Huh?

- [Tony] Some hair.

- [Doug] Yeah?

So that was him, huh?

- That was him.

- [Doug] Yeah.

- [Tony] I don't want to run him.

- [Doug] Yeah.

- [Tony] He's that close to here, he's making his way back.

- [Doug] Mhmm.

Well, he's alive and well.

We know that at least.

- [Tony] I appreciate y'all coming out.

- Yeah.

- Giving me the peace of mind.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- Onward to Lake Charles, I guess.

I'm feeling pretty hopeful now.

We've got a definite visual on Tony's dog.

Tony's going to put out some articles of his clothing, put some food out.

But yeah, after days of being mauled by mosquitoes I was certainly hoping that we'd have a dog in hand for him but that's just going to take a little more time.

- Dogs need calm confidence from people especially when they're in a traumatic place.

If they're injured, we'll fix it.

- Yeah.

- [Zoe] Give them a good workout.

We'll figure it out.

We'll take the little quirks, let's say, - Mhmm.

- [Zoe] that they develop from that experience.

And then we'll take each one of those quirks one at a time until we can figure it out.

(radar beeping) (intense electric music) - [Doug] Hurricane Laura was one of the most destructive storms in years.

Fences were torn down by the wind.

People had to evacuate quickly.

And that makes for a ton of lost cats and dogs.

Fortunately, I'm not out here working all alone.

- [Doug] Hey, long time no see.

- How are you?

Good to see you too.

- Good to see you as well.

Been a while.

- Yes.

This is it.

- [Doug] Yeah.

Oh, this is perfect.

- I'm Aja-Nikiya Estro.

I basically go to wherever there's some beings suffering.

It could be, you know, small animal up to large animal and it could be people, it's just disaster work.

Developing country work.

Basically wherever help is needed most is, is where I'm at.

My foundation is Compassion Kind and it really stands for compassion for all kinds.

We have projects in several different countries.

Right now we're building a clinic in Malawi.

We have programs in Belize.

We have a wild dog project in Tanzania.

We also have just, you know, our adoption programs within the U S. We'll get a rescue from New York sometimes or a large case in California.

And then we're always on, on call for any disasters within the U S. I have a ladle in all of the pots.

(drone whirring) - [Doug] You see how the dogs will show up right there?

- [Aja] Mhmm.

That is just so cool.

First time we worked with Doug, I met him in The Bahamas and he was looking for a dog that he had seen in the parking lot.

And we just met, said, hi.

He told me what he was doing.

And we just went out a few nights looking for this dog.

- So then, like if we spot that, then switched to visible and then you shine the light because you can get false ratings of heat too.

- Okay.

- Or if it's like somebody's pet dog or whatever you want to make sure.

- Right, right, right.

- So you switch on the spotlight and then you go, oh, that's cinnamon.

(both laugh) - [Aja] I think with the infrared drone that there are just so many capabilities.

It feels like you have some crazy, like CSI type stuff to work with.

It's something new.

And it's something that we've never had before to be able to find these animals.

I just geek out on it.

I think it's really cool.

And I love that we can save more animals with it.

(drone whirring) - [Doug] It gets rid of mosquitoes.

- [Aja] That's awesome.

- [Doug] And cools you off.

- [Aja] That's awesome.

- So where do we go?

- All right.

- [Doug] So we just got a call from an insurance adjuster that said that he heard desperate sounding howling and barking from dogs in a nearby house.

So we're going to go out there to see if there are people that might be occupying the house.

Make sure the dogs aren't dogs that got trapped.

It's basically this right in here.

- [Aja] Mhmm.

- [Doug] There it is.

(drone whirring) - [Doug] It could be any one of these.

I see many generators in the neighborhood.

- [Aja] Yeah.

(drone whirring) - Oh, there's a dog.

See him?

- [Aja] Mhmm.

- He's just wandering too.

You guys wanna go right to him?

- Mhmm.

Yeah.

- Okay.

(dog barking) - [Doug] There he is.

(drone whirring) (dog barking) - [Aja] Hi, come here.

- [Doug] Hi pup pup.

- [Aja] Hi.

Oh.

Hello.

Oh my word.

Hi, sweet boy.

I don't think anybody's brought him any food or water.

There's no sign of a bowl.

There's no sign of a human.

And he's clearly lost a ton of weight.

You can see his ribs.

- [Aja] What is this?

Oh.

Come here.

Here baby.

He's like, are you scared of the lights?

- [Doug] Want me take the light from you?

Oh I'll grab the light... - [Aja] yeah, let me ...

Okay definitely need some light.

(Aja puckers lips) - [Doug] You see him?

- [Aja] Buddy?

Come here.

- [Doug] Do you see him Aja?

- [Aja] No.

Yeah.

- [Doug] Oh, he's here.

- [Aja] Okay, coming.

Something spooked him.

(Aja puckers lips) - [Aja] Oh, he's going faster.

I see him.

- [Doug] If I get ahead of him will he possibly come to you?

- [Aja] Yeah.

I think he's scared of the lights but we need to, we can't see him.

So it's a catch 22.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Let me go around.

Hi baby.

Come here.

Come here.

Hi.

(Aja clicks teeth) It's okay.

- [Doug] Tell me when you got him.

- [Aja] Good job.

You want some of this?

Look.

Yes.

It's good.

Yeah.

He's very tense.

Okay, shh shh shh shh shh shh shh.

Okay.

You're good.

You're good.

Good job.

Yup.

You got him?

- [Lady] Yup.

- [Doug] Are you feeding him lead bricks or something?

(Aja laghs) - And he's missing like a good 10 pounds.

- Jesus he's pretty heavy.

- He's a tank.

Yeah.

- Bricks is actually a pretty cute name.

- Yeah bricks.

- Bricks, oh no.

- [Aja] Okay we have a new name, Bricks.

Done.

- [Aja] I think something that's really important in these situations is having people that you can laugh with.

It's very, very heavy work.

And I think that Doug really handles that well.

Sometimes people that are very technical and with that many credentials and all the crazy things that he can do, can be a little stuffy and it's not the easiest to work with.

And I really, I really liked that about him, that he's, you know he's up for the jokes and he's up for the, the humor.

- Take your time.

- Other side.

Why?

Is he heavy?

(Doug laughs) - [Aja] It makes it that much better to be able to kind of survive the days of going through these disaster zones.

And these, you know, these situations with animals that are very hard to deal with.

- [Aja] Limousine service.

- [Doug] It feels great to get this rescue done but there's so many pets that need our help out here.

- [Doug] He's pretty chill now.

- [Aja] Yeah, he is.

- [Doug] We've got some long nights ahead of us.

(police siren wails) - Whoa.

- Okay.

This is not good, like we're all going to jail tonight.

- [Doug] Yes!

That is, as far as I know, the first kitten found by infrared drone.

(dog barks) - [Doug] Holy ****, ****.

- [Aja] I don't think he's had any water or food since the storm.

- [Doug] So he's been out there for like weeks with no food and water?

- [Aja] Mhmm.

(dog barks)