An animal sanctuary in rebel-held Syria rescued a cat trapped inside its human's shop for three days, a chicken stuck in the middle of a flooding river and a dog bleeding profusely from its leg. But it couldn't save them all. "Just like humans, we had to do triage," said Mohamad Youssef, one of two veterinarians with Ernesto's Sanctuary for Cats in Syria. "But we saved a lot, and we are still searching." As hopes for rescuing earthquake survivors in northwest Syria dwindled, roughly a dozen of Ernesto's workers continued pulling out dogs, cats, goats and chickens from underneath the rubble. In a region devastated by tragedy upon tragedy, returning lost pets to owners can bring emotional comfort, and gathering up displaced farm animals ensures a steady source of food for a people largely cut off from international trade. "Humans cannot exist without dogs, without cats, without goats, without chickens," Youssef said in Arabic. "They are part of our families, like a mom or a dad. They give us food, they give us happiness, they give us comfort. We would not be without them." After a traumatic event such as an earthquake, Youssef added, pets provide a love that few humans can match, a psychological support that can be a lifeline following so much loss. They ... now have roughly 2,000 cats, 30 dogs, five monkeys, three donkeys, a horse, a fox, a chicken and a goat. Ernesto's hopes to change the culture of violence toward animals that roam the region in part by going out to villages to sterilize ownerless dogs.