After Katrina, struggle to find some loved ones

Malvin Cavalier lost plenty when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005. But when the 86-year-old finally made it back to a FEMA trailer, it was without his dog, Bandit. And he wasn’t alone — in the process of evacuating the city, many owners were separated, sometimes forcibly, from their pets, which were then placed in shelters across the country.

“A lot of people echoed a hope about their dog — they hoped he survived and he’s with someone who can care for him,” says Geralyn Pezanoski, who profiles residents struggling to locate their pets in her new documentary, “Mine.” “But then a lot of people needed to know, or get them back.”

While some, such as Cavalier, were eventually reunited, others lost — or are still engaged in — legal battles to regain what, as far as the law was concerned, was “property” that now belonged to someone else.

But to Pezanoski, it’s not surprising that, five years later, some people are still trying to bring their missing companions home. “In the face of the loss, and everything being turned totally upside down, the pets were this beacon of hope,” she says. “It’s about having lost everything, and wanting to hold on to something from their life before Katrina.”