They were a middle-aged couple, packing their small car with belongings in a rubble strewn street. The photographer captured the moment they were about to load their pet cockatiels, the man was bent over the cage as if reassuring the birds everything would be OK.

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I can't recall whether the photo was from Beirut or Tehran but that doesn't really matter. What was important was the quiet humanity of the image. A couple whose own lives had been upturned sacrificing scarce room in their car - space that would otherwise accommodate inanimate possessions - to ensure their precious animals were given an equal chance at safety.

Similar images have tugged at the heartstrings over the years. Ukrainians huddling in bomb shelters with their cats or tearfully refusing to be evacuated from frontline villages because they fear for the animals they'll have to leave behind; Israelis sitting out air raid alerts with their dogs; Palestinians for whom pets are a distant memory; and here just days ago a policeman risking his life to save a German shepherd from floodwaters in a daring helicopter rescue.

Alongside humanitarian efforts to give comfort and shelter to displaced humans is a raft of organisations dedicated to looking after the animals that have been separated from their owners, often abandoned in the rush to safety.

In Lebanon, Give Me A Paw recently rescued 12 dogs and two cats which had been abandoned in a pet shop damaged in an Israeli airstrike. Incredibly, one of those dogs was reunited with its owner who saw footage of the rescue online. It had been stolen four years earlier. The remaining animals are receiving veterinary care as Give Me A Paw looks for foster homes.

The Lebanese Association for Migratory Birds (LAMB) has taken into its care a horse called Amir, whose owner's home and barn was destroyed in an Israeli military operation. With help from the International Fund for Animal Welfare, it will see Amir gets the veterinary care and shelter he needs.

The Romanian League in Defence of Animals (ROLDA) has rescue teams operating at considerable risk in Ukraine. One of its charges - a dog called Tripod - was found with a catastrophic leg injury caused by an artillery shell. The leg was amputated, Tripod's strength was rebuilt, and he's now in foster care undergoing closely supervised rehab.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Vienna based animal welfare organisation Four Paws was quickly on the ground, rescuing dogs, cats and even a bear and also providing much needed supplies to overstretched animal shelters. Some of Four Paws' rescue dogs have found new purpose as therapy animals for traumatised war veterans.

Looking at my border collie contentedly asleep on his spot on the couch, warm, dry and well fed, I struggle to imagine the heartbreak pet owners in war zones must endure. And I find it hard to reconcile the human capacity for indiscriminate violence with its desire to provide care and shelter for vulnerable and voiceless animals in times of strife.

And I hope, as I've hoped every day since I saw the photograph, that the couple packing up their car and their cockatiels did make it to safety.

HAVE YOUR SAY: Do we give enough thought to the suffering of animals in wartime? Can you imagine the heartbreak of having to abandon pets because of war or natural disaster? Does caring for animals make us better people? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au

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THEY SAID IT: "Pets are humanising. They remind us we have an obligation and responsibility to preserve and nurture and care for all life." - James Cromwell

YOU SAID IT: Bury or burn? Garry weighed up the choice we face after we've gone.

"Cremation, please," writes Alison. "But best of all, forest burial if it's available, where the body is buried vertically and a tree planted above it."

The same for Lyn: "I wish to be buried in a cotton shroud near a tree. This is a more environmentally responsible option which will hopefully be more readily available by the time I need it."

Adam's parents signed up to a university body bequest program. "My father passed away seven years ago, and his body was used by medical students as what they viewed as their first patients. They treated his remains with total respect, and I feel comfortable that he was able to help train the next generation of medical professionals. His ashes were returned to my mother after two years, and she retained them until her passing last year. Due to her cause of death, she was ineligible for bequest. We arranged a private cremation with Dad's ashes in the casket. Earlier this year, we scattered their ashes together in a remote, private place they both loved. We placed a suitable small garden ornament as a tribute, and although it isn't a cemetery, we have somewhere to go if we want to 'talk' to them."

"I'll donate my brain as well," writes Gwendolen. "Science needs quantitative analysis as well as qualitative, and my map-reading skills and lack of direction is legendary (with my family). And yes, we'll opt for cremation so my similarly disabled relatives don't have to worry about finding the cemetery."

Keith writes: "My wife and I recently took her 97-year-old mother to a little country cemetery near where she grew up and where all her ancestors going back to the first convict arrivals are buried. She bought a niche in a wall that looks out across rolling pastures to the distant farm her great-great-grandfather established. The niche cost her just $900 and that's where her ashes will be enclosed along with her now deceased husband's. Thinking ahead, my wife and I took the opportunity to buy the niche next to her mother and father's. And when the time comes we've stated that we don't want a funeral service, just a family gathering to place the ashes followed by drinks all round at the local pub."

"I'm opting for the nearest I can get to a Viking funeral," writes Jim. "Burning longships is a bit environmentally unfriendly and, I suspect, frowned upon by the authorities so it is cremation and ashes scattered at sea. That way I also get to join my grandmother who was ceremoniously buried at sea from an ocean liner."

Jane writes: "In these land-shortage times, there is a place for the columbarium. These are walls built with niches into which ashes can be placed, then sealed with a small identifying plaque. Families then have a permanent, physical record of their deceased loved one. Thus is especially important, I believe, in country towns with stable populations where the deceased may have been well known in the community."

"Donating your body to science is a lovely gesture," writes Rowan. "My late father had registered to do so but when the time came the science facility was full and so we quickly had to pivot to a cremation. His ashes are still in our wine cupboard."

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