If you’ve ever owned a pet—or considered yourself an animal’s loving guardian, or discovered that your best friend had more than two legs—you really might want to consider watching this dogs-and-their-masters documentary.  Given that the film follows several dogs (and their corresponding people) displaced in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, you might also want to turn flinchingly away.

Relative novice director Geralyn Pezanoski first became involved in this story as part of humanitarian relief efforts immediately following the destruction of New Orleans.  She furthered her involvement by adopting one of some 30,000 “unclaimed” dogs rescued from flooded Big Easy homes.  (Official estimates peg the number of deceased pets in the hundreds of thousands.)

As Pezanoski followed events related to her own dog’s troubled past, she became aware of other similar but much more wrenching tales:  owners who very much wanted to be reunited with their pets but who either had no resources to conduct such a search, or those who did find the means—only to be stymied by tracking systems overwhelmed by the scope of the disaster, belligerent rescuers who considered evacuees irresponsible pet abusers, or new owners who had no intention of returning pets in whom they had invested money, time, and love.

So Pezanoski drew on archival footage from her initial visits to New Orleans and combined that with new sequences she shot of interviews with several specific evacuees.  What she discovered—and I think you will, too—is that she had the kernel of a very satisfying and moving look at not only the natural and man-made disaster that was Katrina, but also the very knotty, thorny, and heart-warming issues that surround humanity’s better connections with the animal kingdom.

First issue:  Who owns an animal?  Is a dog the same thing as a chair, an automobile, or a cigarette lighter?  Does a pet enter into a consensual relationship of its own free will?  Is the human side of the relationship more akin to that of a guardian?  Or a friend?  Or soulmate?  One thing is certain: Pezanoski’s subjects all feel a special, inviolable bond with their dogs.  And they all feel, to a degree, that their rights have been violated—or that their sacred relationships have been disrespected.

Second issue:  Is there a statute of limitations on pet ownership and adoption?  The aftermath of Katrina, to be sure, is a special case.  But it highlights the more general problem.  How long is too long for a former owner to take in tracking down a lost pet?  How many potential pet rescuers would be discouraged from investing in an adoption if the former owner could swoop in and claim a pet in an open-ended fashion?  What’s the right thing to do when animals and humans have the chance to reconnect after forced separations?  In at least a couple cases, Pezanoski captures examples of what feels awfully just and fair.  In other cases, not so much—and tragically so.

Third issue:  What constitutes abandonment?  It’s easy to sit in the comfort of a cozy home, pause the DVD playback, turn to your wife and say, “Just to be clear: we’re never leaving our cats behind.”  It’s quite another thing to be eighty years old, part of a family of six, in possession of a single car, and be given a mandatory evacuation order… and then decide what to do with your ninety-pound dog.  Reality often invades our lofty ideals, and it’s pretty tough to judge the difficult decisions that others have had to make.  Pezanoski’s film looks at this issue in a very even-handed manner.

The specific stories that Pezanoski relates in Mine are each rich enough to warrant a brief synopsis… and yet to do so would spoil each of them.  I can only say “Thank you” to Film Movement for selecting this documentary as one of their feature films.  It’s well worth tracking down and spending some quality time with.

Mine is unrated, but is probably PG material just because of the harsh conditions which many of these former pets endure.

Courtesy of the film’s distributor, Greg screened a promotional copy of Mine.