I’ve just returned from a week in Tylertown, Mississippi, volunteering in the Hurricane Katrina region for Best Friends Animal Society. Best Friends operates the largest no-kill animal sanctuary in the country, housing about 1,500 homeless pets on an average day at their base in Utah. They also work with humane groups around the country to set up spay/neuter, shelter, foster, and adoption programs.

Within hours of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi, Best Friends was on the ground there, helping rescue and care for the thousands upon thousands of injured, dying, displaced and homeless pets. Today, they’re the only national humane organization continuing that work, from a temporary sanctuary/triage unit/field hospital/reunification center just north of the Louisiana border in Tylertown.

And if you were in Tylertown today, you would have no doubt about the critical need for these efforts to continue.

What does this have to do with conflict? I spent a week there, living and working in the kind of crude conditions you might expect in a temporary mostly-outdoor sanctuary in a region hit by a hurricane. The kind of conditions that breed discomfort and stress. I worked alongside 60-80 (depending on the day) amazing Best Friends staffers (truly amazing human beings, all of them–what I did was nothing compared to their work) and volunteers from around the country, all from different walks of life. We shared long days of feeding, watering, medicating, re-socializing, playing with, and cleaning up after hundreds and hundreds of dogs and cats in mostly temporary cages and pens.

Hard work in hard conditions, compounded by some dogs’ apparently personal mission to try to escape whenever possible. Hard work in an emotionally difficult situation, seeing hundreds of skinny, frightened, depressed and injured pets. Hard work compounded by the fact that so many of these dogs are pitbulls and many of us arrived with a fair amount of trepidation about stepping into the cages of these notorious animals (we didn’t leave feeling that way–most of the pits are amazing animals I’d welcome into my own home). The kinds of conditions you’d expect to practically breed conflict.

But there wasn’t any to speak of—and I’m someone with my radar out for conflict because of the work I do. There was no major day-to-day conflict in the areas I worked in and virtually no petty squabbling. There certainly were plenty of things we could have found to complain or argue about, with so many people with different styles, backgrounds, experiences and ways of doing almost any task.

It’s the power of feeling passionately about why we were there. The power of believing, first and foremost, that our mission was to help these animals, and understanding implicitly that having our own way or convincing someone else that we’re right or the righteousness of feeling tread upon were all less important than keeping these animals alive, helping them heal, and helping them find home again.

As I drove the 1,500 miles home, with frightened little Mama Beagle in the back of the car, a little girl I delivered to her new foster home in New York, I had plenty of time to muse and cry. I have been moved beyond words by the sheer amount of tragedy and sadness in that region and by the resiliency of both the human and animal spirit. I have been moved beyond words by the amazing gathering of humanity to help these animals and the families looking for them.

And I’ve been reminded in a most profound way that the power of a passionate mission puts a lot of day-to-day conflict into startling perspective. It’s surprisingly easy to set differences aside when we’re focused on what brings us together.

Endnote: If you’re interested in the ongoing efforts to help animals in the Gulf Coast region, Best Friends and other humane groups need your help with a petition that calls upon New Orleans to allow animal rescues to continue. For more information, please visit the Best Friends petition today.