"We later learned it was a National Guard soldier who saw the dog there and wrote those words on the boat," likely in hopes the animal would be rescued, said Mejia. "He wasn't equipped to rescue the dog and never knew what happened to it. He even adopted a similar dog because he felt so bad about it."

Hurricane Katrina exposed a blind spot in the nation's response to disasters, Mejia said..

"There were all these people, thousands of the unseen and poor, who weren't evacuated. And there were thousands more pets that people weren't allowed to take with them when they were evacuated," Mejia recalled. "People battened down and thought they were leaving their pets behind with food and water, safe for a few days. They didn't know they wouldn't be allowed to go back. There was no plan for that."

Best Friends was the first organization on the scene to help rescue the animals and send appeals out to others for help.

"Nobody realized the extent of the problem," he said. "It was really a wake-up call. Since then, laws have been changed so that when you're evacuated, you can take your pet with you."

Hurricane Katrina "completely transformed" the face of Best Friends, Mejia says.

"We had been involved peripherally in some rescue operations, but since coming out of Katrina, we've developed a rapid response rescue team," he said. "If you want to be able to work with federal, state and local authorities during an emergency, you have to be able to speak the same language and have the same training."

Ultimately, Best Friends hopes to be able to "shadow" government agencies during emergencies and take rescued animals to a sanctuary located near the evacuation centers.

"There are still problems, still feral animals and thousands of people who can't return to New Orleans," said Mejia, who grew up there and now lives just outside of Kanab. "There wasn't a huge percentage of people who were reunited with their pets."

Mejia is hoping that everyone who sees the Ark will write a prayer for New Orleans and leave it behind as a permanent addition to the artwork. For information about Mejia and Best Friends, go online to bestfriends.org

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E-mail: nperkins@desnews.com