Helping the Fur to Fly

My husband Mark is a private pilot, and he is always looking for any possible reason to be up in an airplane.  I love animals, so Mark knows that he can entice me to go along on his flights if somehow those trips involve animals.  Enter Pilots N Paws®.

What is Pilots N Paws®?

Perhaps you know about Angel Flight or Air Charity Network, both of which provide free air transportation for people who need to reach specialized health care facilities or distant destinations due to family, community, or national crisis.  Pilots N Paws® fills a similar need — although for Pilots N Paws®, the passengers are pets.

Pilots N Paws® is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that works to connect animal rescue organizations needing transport for a pet with volunteer pilots who are willing to assist with animal transportation. As stated on their website, “the intent of Pilots N Paws® is to provide an environment in which volunteers can come together and arrange or schedule rescue flights, overnight foster care or shelter, and all other related activities.”

As it turns out, transporting pets is a huge part of animal rescue.  Rescue organizations often pull adoptable pets from high-kill shelters in rural areas and send the animals to other areas where they have a better chance of finding homes.  Here in the Washington, D.C., area, I am aware of many rescue organizations that use this strategy.  We know this from personal experience.  Our own family dogs, Bandit and Penny (shown hiking with us in the photo on the right), were transported to the D.C. area by Lucky Dog Animal Rescue from high-kill shelters further south.  According to the Lucky Dog website, most of the animals come from shelter partners in low-income and rural areas where hundreds of highly-adoptable dogs are euthanized each month due to overpopulation problems, lack of spay/neuter education, and inadequate funding. Each of the pets that is rescued must be transported up to the D.C. metro area from Lucky Dog’s partners, mainly located in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Puerto Rico.  And it’s a big deal.  Since 2009, Lucky Dog has saved over 13,000 animals using this strategy!

In many cases, animal rescue transport happens via car, with a series of volunteers each driving a segment of what could be a journey of hundreds — or even thousands — of miles.  Ground transport can often take 24 hours or more, with the pets confined in crates during the trip.   In contrast, many rescue flights can be completed within 3 to 4 hours.  The shorter transit time can help to minimize the stress on the animals being transported.

I have recently noticed that there are a couple of other organizations like Pilots Paws®.  One of them is called Wings of Rescue, and its volunteer pilots have flown over 26,000 pets to safety since 2012.  And Flying Fur Animal Rescue has saved over 1,100 animals in the past three years.

Mark Enabled Falcon to Fly

Last week, Mark noticed a transport request posted by Pilots Paws®.  A rescue group called Australian Shepherds Furever needed to transport a beautiful dog named Falcon from northern Virginia (where we live) to a foster home in Vermont.  Mark volunteered to make the trip on Saturday, and soon he’d pinned down all of the details.  Rent the airplane:  check!  Arrange for pick up of the pup at the Leesburg airport: check!  Arrange for drop off of the pup at the Burlington airport:  check!  Load the crate, pad, and mutt muffs in the car:  check!  Convince wife to come along:  check!  File the flight plan:  check!

So on Saturday morning I waited in the terminal to receive the dog from a volunteer named Tae while Mark got the airplane ready.  Soon Tae and her son brought Falcon into the airport lounge, and they told me his story.  Falcon had been rescued from a breeding operation that had kept its dogs in cages.  Falcon had lived that way for three (long) years.  So for the past month, Tae had been teaching Falcon how to be a companion animal, living in a house and walking on a leash.  He’d come a long way, but Tae felt that he could benefit from some additional instruction that would be provided by his new foster mom, Lilly — who is a dog trainer and Australian Shepherds Furever volunteer living in Vermont.  A car transport over that distance would take about 13 hours.  So the rescue agency posted the flight request via Pilots N Paws.  And when Mark agreed to help, he enabled Falcon to fly.  How appropriate, right?!

Falcon was sweet, calm and compliant.  His easy-going demeanor was especially helpful when we needed to lift him into and out of the airplane.  During the trip, he curled up in his crate and slept.  It was an uneventful flight, and we touched down at the Burlington airport after two and a half hours.  Then I took Falcon for a quick trip to a nearby patch of grass, and we met Lilly in the terminal.  She was pleased to receive him and told us that he’d have plenty of room to run and explore in the yard of her nearby house.  Although Falcon is not yet in his furever home, it’s a great improvement over life in a cage.  Doesn’t he look good in the grass at his new Vermont foster home?

Want to Help the Fur Fly?

If the mission described here touches your heart, you can help by sending a donation to any of the rescue organizations mentioned in this post.  Together, we can save them all.