PANTHINO:
What’s the unkindest tide?

LAUNCE:
Why, he that’s tied here, Crab, my dog.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act II, Sc. iii

PRAGUE (Czech Republic) — The "unkindest tide" in over 200 years is currently ravaging much of central Europe, where loss of life is into the 100s, loss of home is into the 100,000s and loss of property is into the $1,000,000,000s.  Elsewhere in the world—Japan, India, South Asia, and parts of North & South America—the high waters are no less brutal, owing to heavy rains and freakish weather conditions around the globe.  But if any silver lining can be found in these clouds, it's that all over the planet, even while facing devastating loss, people are willing to take a moment to help the dogs.

Safe behind an emergency wall,
a Czechoslovakian pooch surveys the deluge in Prague on Aug. 14.
(Photo: Jan Trestik / AP / CTK)

In Germany, thousands of emergency workers, soldiers and volunteers worked round the clock to pile tons of sandbags onto sodden dikes along the Elbe and Mulde rivers to protect outlying towns.  In Dresden, the biggest German city hit so far, a police officer finds the time to lend a helping hand to a few paws, August 13, 2002. Europe-wide, the death toll has reached 108, while an estimated 80,000 people have been evacuated from the regions along the Czech border.  Cleanup costs have been estimated at 20 billion (Euros/USD).  A ray of sunlight: forecasters in Germany predict generally dry weather over the next few days, signaling that the worst may be over.  (Photo: Tobias Schwarz / Reuters)

In the village of Nizhnaya Baksanskaya, 1000km south of Moscow,
Yevdokia Aksyonova, 72, stands in front of her home which was destroyed, like many others, when the Black Sea washed into the Ukraine, August 9, 2002.
 "How can I live now," she says, "I've lost everything I've saved during my life."
Well, maybe not everything.  Woof.  (Photo: Alexander Merkushev / AP)

Left: An "arm" escort
for a little dog in the South Bohemian capital of Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic, Aug. 8th. (Photo: Petr Josek / Reuters)

Different flood, same planet.
Right: In the Americas, Venezuela was hit hard late last month.  This is not the Amazon; it's a street in Guasdualito, 375 mi (560 km) southwest of Caracas.  Manuel Aranguren escapes the flood with his dog and his bike.  More than 32,000 people were displaced by floods in Apure state, July 23, 2002.
(Photo: Fernando Llano / AP)

Left: As Typhoon Phanfone approaches
the Pacific coast of Japan, water levels continue to rise.  This anonymous photo of a man saving a dog was submitted to us late last year when similar floods ravaged Tokyo.