They come from the worst of circumstances, wandering the back
roads of Kentucky and Tennessee, locked on chains or dumped at the
shelters by the box load.
Not so long ago most of these
highly adoptable dogs, met a grim fate - gassing at the shelter or
target practice. (These practices still exist mind you. Great swaths of
these states and elsewhere in Appalachia have no shelter and pets are
dumped at livestock auctions, taken in by kindly folks who form ad hoc
shelters, abandoned or shot.)
In the last decade the Internet gave
rise to a network of transporters that shuttle dogs from high-kill
shelters in the south to adoptive homes in the north, primarily by car.
There
is a newer route out for mothers and puppies and special needs dogs, as
well as others, thanks to a dedicated group of high flyers, who
volunteer to transport these abandoned dogs to new homes.
I got a
glimpse of Pilots n Paws in action on Saturday when weather forced a
flight from Tennessee to Albany, NY to overnight in Carlisle.
That
meant six eight-week-old shepherd mix puppies and their mother, plus a
Lab-mix puppy were stranded not too far from where I live. I got a call
to help out and gladly took in two shepherd mixes and the Lab-mix puppy
for the night. When I arrived they were comfortably resting under the
plane belonging to James Watson who had just flown them in from
Knoxville.
They were full of energy even after their long day in
the air, but they settled down after a meal and some playtime with new
toys. Our evening was far less eventful than the night the pilots for
the next leg spent in Carlisle.
On Sunday morning fellow puppy
host Valerie Loughry and I met up with pilot Dean Chenarides and his
co-pilot Bruce Cohen. Bruce told me were standing outside their hotel
during a fierce thunderstorm when they heard a terrific bang. Their
hotel had been was struck by lightning. Fortunately no one was hurt,
they said.
It was during our talk on the tarmac that I learned about the $100 hamburger.
Dean,
who flies out of Dutchess County Airport, near Albany, said pilots are
always looking to fly somewhere to log their flight hours and make use
of their investment. They often just wing it to a nearby airport, grab a
burger and fly home.
With jet fuel in the $5 a gallon range, at a cost of $300-$400 to fill up your tank, that's an expensive proposition.
Dean
said he'd much rather fly with a purpose. So he signed up for Angel
Flight, which transports critically ill patients to treatment center,
and then started helping rescued dogs get to their forever homes.
The
passengers on this trip started their journey in Winchester, KY after
being pulled from the Clark County Animal Shelter by the rescue group a
Time To Live. Transport coordinator Lorene Steffes pulled all the travel
pieces together (no small feat) to make sure the four-legged passengers
reached their destination: Homeward Bound rescue in Albany.
At 9
a.m. Sunday morning we packed Becca, the mother dog, and two pups in one
crate and the five other babies in another crate, a big load for the
single-engine Piper Warrior. There was just enough room left for Dean,
Bruce and a small flight bag.
As I watched them take off into the
hazy sky, I thought how far these puppies and their mother had come
thanks to the generosity of so many people along the way.
A new
line of storms forced Dean to detour northwest though State College, but
by early afternoon pilots and passengers had arrived in Albany safe and
sound.
We wish Becca and her pups, along with hitchhiker Mickey
(pictured below being helped into the aircraft with Dean, Bruce and
Valerie) all things good in their new lives.
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