On a normal news day, it can be cool to work in a television newsroom. After all, I see feeds of news stories all day long from the network and its stations around the country. I see more footage than most typical viewers, because most local stations don’t have enough news programming to use everything that is available. Unless you keep your eyes glued to CNN or MSNBC…or even Fox News…you probably wouldn’t see everything that I see passing by.

On days like the past few, working in a newsroom is nothing short of a curse. Like 9/11, those terrible images, each one worse than the one before, keep coming. There’s no end in sight. Those are the days that people who don’t work in a newsroom should be glad that they don’t.

Tonight, I saw a story about boats pulling people from flooded neighborhoods in the New Orleans area. In particular, there was footage of three adults and a dog — a labradore retriever mix, as far as I could tell — all stranded on the small section of a roof that wasn’t submerged. The people were pulled onto the boat one by one.

The dog was not.

The boat began to pull away, and a cameraman, who had been allowed to come along on the boat to document the rescue efforts, zoomed in on the helpless animal, who kept looking at the water and then back at the boat and (possibly) his owner who was leaving him there. His face showed a clear expression of fear. If he could have spoken, I suspect he would have been asking, “Where do I go? What do I do to get out of here?”

I wish I hadn’t seen it. I wish even more than I could forget that I had.

The people who were in the boat, didn’t seem to even look back at the dog. Maybe the dog was a stray and just happened to end up on the same roof as these newly-homeless residents. Maybe the dog’s real owner is hoping that another boat will come along and pick up his pet.

I sure hope someone will.

On a related note, an organization called Noah’s Wish is on its way to the area. It is their mission to do just that: to rescue abandoned or stranded animals in disasters like this one. A lot of people are directing their readers to the websites of the American Red Cross and other organizations to help the human victims. Not nearly as many are asking that you remember the animals; I’m one of them.

If you feel compelled to donate to the Red Cross or other organizations, for every dollar you send to them, I wish you’d consider sending at least 50¢ to Noah’s Wish. Every penny helps, no matter who the victims are.