Art is a nurse in Florida.  He is working with a kid that has muscular dystrophy, is on a ventilator, and is end stage. He goes to a handicapped program a couple daya a week, and on occasion Art goes with him as he needs a vent nurse 24/7. During one of those trips, a volunteer brought in a 3 1/2 month old puppy named Bandit to play with the kids. Art was speaking with her, and she was explaining how this puppy came from a shelter that closed in South Carolina.

Bandit and his mom.

That sure perked up Art’s ears. It turned out she got the dog from Big Dog Ranch. She said that a pilot brought down 23 dogs, and this was one of them. They are in love with Bandit, and are deeply thankful to all the volunteers that saved her puppy. Talk about a small world!

Art showed her the pics, and her mouth dropped in disbelief. Usually, pilots never hear about the rescued animals again. This was the first time Art had the chance to see one of the dogs he helped rescue thriving in its new home.  What a sweet victory.

Pequena is a 12-year old Maltese Poodle rescued from the San Pedro shelter. She was transported to Muttville in San Francsico to get the some serious medical care. Pequena was ill with a mass under her eye and peridontal disease. She will now get the care, vetting, and love she deserves. Pequena wasn’t too happy with the flight and barked pretty much the whole flight but was happy to get out in San Jose. She went over and leaned on Kim for a moment when they let her out of the carrier after meeting Cory. Really tough journey for her age. Hopefully she gets a great forever home.

Aniko is a Rat Terrier rescued from Baldwin Park. An adopter in northern California decided Aniko’s new home was up there. Aniko was also happy to get out and meet his new parents who seemed very happy to get him. He also extended his thanks to Kim with some licks and was a great rider.

A now-lucky Mastiff/Pit and her buddy.

Frescka, now Shuleka, is a Mastiff mix rescued from Ventura Animal Control. Kim’s vet, Randy Robinson, takes on the most difficult cases, saves them, and either finds them a home or keeps them. She told him about Pilots N Paws and offered a flight if he ever needed transport. He took her up on it. Kim was planning on overnighting in the Camarillo area, and she received a call from him shortly after she landed. Dr. Robinson asked Kim if she would do him a favor and fly down and save a great dog from being killed who was in Southern California. He said the dog was with Ventura Animal control. It wasn’t until the next day they figured out that Shuleka was at the Camarillo shelter which happens to be at the Camarillo airport. This transport was obviously meant to be.

The flight out had to be delayed because Kim was purchasing a crate large enough to accommodate the mastiff pit mix. That turned out to be the hardest part of the transport. The mastiff just jumped onto the wing and wasted no time crawling into the crate…not a chance she was going to be left behind. She settled in and didn’t get up until she heard the gear come down. As soon as Kim landed, all she could hear was Shuleka’s tail going. She about yanked Kim off the wing getting out to meet Donna, her rescuer.

Support Petmate and Subaru – Their assistance to our pilots and other volunteers is crucial to our success.

Over the course of 3 days Hattie, myself, and a friend made the 11 stop trip from Florida to California. We made great progress from Florida to Texas, but our luck ran out when we departed Texas for California. Over the next two days we pushed our way through 25-30 knot headwinds. At times we were only getting a ground speed of 75 knots and continuous light to moderate turbulence.  It wasn’t much fun for us, but Hattie didn’t seem to mind a bit. She slept for most of the flights, and then happily greeted everyone at all of the FBO’s when we landed.

She was a real hit with the line guys and girls at the front desks, and even some of the other pilots and passengers went out of their way to say hi and pet her. She made a lot of friends along the way. 22.2 hours of flight time later we touched down in San Diego, California.

Hattie was a real trooper, and because of this flight she is now able to live a long great life with her new family in Los Angeles, California. She was such a great sport, very well behaved, and really enjoyable to have along for the ride. We will miss her; her new family is very lucky to have such a great pup!

Lucas

It was tough, but Dixie managed to keep 3 of her pups going.

This most humble of families was finally freed from the Georgia pound that was slowly killing them. There were 7 puppies, but only 3 survived their stay. Not a one had been vaccinated. The remaining members finally found their savior in Tina, an SPBR volunteer in Tuscaloosa, AL. Tina decided the puppies needed out, NOW! With her usual zeal, she made it happen with the help of Michael and Pilots N Paws.

Super Mike steps up for Dixie and her Dee-Lites.

Michael stepped in to be their hero for the day and flew the family out of Georgia. As with so many volunteers he did everything he could for the dogs. In this case, the above and beyond had him at an oh-so-considerate low altitude because of their upper respiratory issues. Finally, our momma and surviving babies were out of their personal hell they had known for almost 2 months.

Jail Break!

Tina’s loving hands took over the care for the Dixie and her puppies. She took them to the vet, and they all passed with flying colors. Dimple, Cinnamon, and Jasmine were born 22 December and thanks to rescue are now de-wormed, vaccinated, microchipped, heartworm negative, AND READY TO BE LOVED!

Leah and little Cinnamon, aka Velcro Baby.

During the end of February, Mike’s friend, Eric, took a LOOONGGG drive from Buffalo, NY to Nashville, TN to meet up with Tina and company for their final FREEDOM stop at New York foster homes! Yes, it is truly amazing what folks will do to help these furry family members.

Little Jasmine was cold and shivering, so she got the heating blanket and a LOT of TLC.

Denise and Steve have momma Dixie, Jen is in charge of Jasmine, and Leah and Chey are keeping up with Cinammon and Dimple! All of them are thriving in their foster homes.

In Dimple's doze comes trust, kindness, warmth and caring.

This momma is no longer watching her babies die 1-by-1 in the Georiga kill pound. Instead, she’s being the puppy she is, enjoying life, and happy, safe and confident. For that, we have the kindness of volunteers to thank.

Petmate and Subaru are dedicated to providing safe transportation in their own ways.  Pilots N Paws can’t thank them enough for their support in our efforts to transport animals to safety.

WAVE STAFF REPORT

Local pilots have been among several nationwide to volunteer for the Pilots N Paws and Great Escape Rescued K9 programs, which help animal rescue organizations.

Pilot Michael Solomon, Calhoun County Airport Manager Dianna Stanger and Chyrl Burris of Great Escape Rescued K9s prepare to take ‘Sista’ to her new home. (Contributed photo)

Each year, the volunteers of Pilots N Paws save thousands of lives. Those lives come in the form of any animal that can be transported using a plane. Dogs, cats, pigs, reptiles and rabbits are just a few who have taken one of their flights.

Dianna Stanger and Mike Solomon began a recent Pilots N Paws flight from Calhoun County Airport with a mission to north Texas to transport two dogs. The first, a four-year-old German Shepherd named Sista, was transported to Cleburne. The second dog, Buddy, was rescued from a kill shelter in Arlington on the return flight.

Click here to read the rest of the story at portlavacawave.com.

Thank you to PNP pilots MaryBeth Wicker and Brian Carlson who coordinated a two-leg transport from their home bases in Virginia on a beautiful Sunday morning. MaryBeth flew the southern leg from Richmond, VA (FCI) to Raleigh/Durham, NC (RDU) and picked up two really cute passengers from the NC ground support/foster mom, Wendy Gallup. The furry passengers were two sisters, Hannah and Haley, puppies who were saved from the dog pound at Hoke County, NC.

MaryBeth loaded up early Sunday morning and met up with Brian and puppy assistant/camera guy, Charles Nazare at Leesburg, VA (JYO). Brian flew the northern route to Olean, NY (OLE) where the gang was greeted by Katie of Joyful Rescues. Katie then provided the last leg of ground transport from Olean, NY to their new foster home in Buffalo where the pups’ new foster mom had been excitedly monitoring the PNP journey on flightaware.com.

Some flights can be tracked on flightaware.

The puppies are doing great and having a lot fun romping around with the other foster dogs and generously giving kisses and tail wags with those curly Q tails!

What a pleasure it is to be in partnership with so many wonderful PNP members who combine their passion for flying with saving the lives of these wonderful dogs!

Thanks!
Val Janik

Thank you to Stefan Holt and Sandra Torres with5 NBC Chicago for their interest in reporting this story and for holding extra passengers on your laps!

Seven thousand feet over Central Illinois, a chocolate lab puppy rests its head on the shoulder of pilot Pete Tobin, seemingly lulled to sleep by the hum of the plane’s engine.

“On every rescue there’s about one dog that stands out,” Pete says through the headset, “one that makes it special and makes it all worth it. This little guy is the most special one on this trip.”

Pilot Pete and one of his special passengers

Just hours ago, this special little guy was in line to be euthanized at the Wayne County Humane Society. Instead he and 16 other dogs, plus six cats, were taken to the Fairfield Municipal Airport, where they were loaded into the back of a small, single-engine Columbia 350. A plane that normally seats four humans is now flying 22 strayed, orphaned and unwanted animals to Chicago on a flight path towards a brighter future.

Pete and his wife, Karen Johnson, are part of a growing corps of aviators who volunteer their weekends and their personal planes to support rescue flights posted on an Internet forum called Pilots N Paws.

Pilots Pete Tobin and Karen Johnson

The organization was founded in 2008 and serves as an online meeting place for animal rescue groups to coordinate with more than 2,500 general aviation pilots willing to use their personal airplanes to transport shelter animals to towns where they could be adopted.

According to Pilots N Paws, more than 4 million unwanted pets are euthanized each year because of overcrowded and underfunded shelters in mainly rural locations. The pilots are able to save these animals by flying them to no-kill shelters or to adoptive families, often located hundreds of miles away. The pilots spend their own money to pay for the flight, which in the case of a Columbia 350, costs $400-plus for a tank of gas.

“I’ll take as many as we can,” says Karen, who spends her day job working as the president of a concrete cutting business based out of Morton Grove. “The alternative is they drown them, they take them out back and shoot them if it’s a puppy mill, and if it’s animal control they just euthanize them.”

"Can we fly the plane please?" (photo credit 5 NBC)

For many of these animals, a rescue flight is their only chance of survival.

“Once you get in the air they mellow out quite a bit,” says Pete as he glances back at two puppies sleeping in the back seat. The Glenview couple says they stopped counting once they reached 50 animals carried aboard their plane on trips across the Midwest and the East Coast. But the record for most in one flight was on this day when 22 animals flew from Fairfield to Chicago.

All 22 pups and kitties headed to happy lives!

A pair of beagles sit in one crate, while another contains a mother West Highland Terrier and her four babies. Only one dog was unable to fit safely aboard and had to be left on the ground to wait for a truck to carry him on the five-hour journey north.

“Sometimes it’s so stressful,” Karen says about carrying the animals by truck. “They’ve had animals die being transported from Tennessee all the way to Chicago because it’s so much stress and so many more hours on the ground.” The rest of the pets enjoyed a smooth one-and-a-half hour flight.

Stefan Holt with his own very special passenger! (photo credit 5 NBC)

After the Columbia 350 gracefully touches down at Chicago Executive, Pete taxis the aircraft alongside a van marked ARFMOBILE, where volunteers from Animal Rescue Foundation – Illinois are waiting to pick up the precious cargo. One by one, the cats and dogs emerge from the plane. Their next stop is the no-kill shelter where they are spayed or neutered before being put up for adoption.

Ann and Joanne of A.R.F. took delivery of their new charges:

“They don t know that they need to be happy,” says ARF Illinois President Ann Persenaire, carrying a crate full of cats off the airplane. “They don’t know that life’s gotten good.”

If you would like to support these organizations, or adopt one of the animals, go to the following sites:

Animal Rescue Foundation of Illinois
Wayne County Humane Society
Pilots N Paws

Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Pilots-To-The-Rescue-150744095.html#ixzz1uNJLjW00

Please like Stefan Holt and 5NBC Chicago on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/nbcchicago

Follow Stefan Holt on Twitter: Stefan Holt @nbcstefholt

Partners Subaru and Petmate, thanks for supporting Pilots N Paws!

Jeanine Kahrs, with the Marshall County Humane Society, hands Mimi to pilot Todd Smith, a volunteer with Pilots N Paws.

By BARRY BURLESON
Editor, The South Reporter Online

Ingrid Steiner-Wedige said it’s a match that was meant to be.

She lives in Stillman Valley, IL. She found just the pet she was looking for down South in Marshall County.

“Mimi is the perfect dog,” said Wedige, via telephone from her home. “She’s gentle, calm, a real smart little girl. Everything just fell into place.”

But it didn’t happen all that easily.

About two years ago Wedige and her husband Mark had lost their dog, a border collie and St. Bernard mix, to cancer. They had searched and searched for one similar to replace her, mostly via Petfinder.com. They wanted to adopt one that had been rescued.

“I looked for a long time,” Wedige said. “Everything we wanted was in the South, far away.”

They got close several times, but either the puppy was already adopted or out-of-state adoption was not available.

“We kept missing out,” Wedige said.

Then she saw Mimi, a white dog with black markings, available from the Marshall County Humane Society and e-mailed Jeanine Kahrs.

“They loved Mimi’s photograph,” Kahrs said, “but we thought there would be no way to work out all the details of checking the home and references and getting the little dog (three months old) to a place so far away. But they had been looking for a dog with this look for two years after losing one who looked so much like her, so Mimi seemed to be the one for them.”

The Marshall County Humane Society found a Labrador Rescue group that was willing to do a home visit with the family.

“We got very good reports from them and their veterinary reference,” Kahrs said. “So, our group had to figure out a way to get little Mimi to her new home, which was 10 hours away from us.”

Someone mentioned checking with Pilots N Paws, which transports animals all over the country just to help them get to new homes.

“The flights are all donated by the pilots,” Kahrs said. “They receive no compensation for their time, or fuel. Their travel board is filled with requests from all over the country daily, and these caring pilots are willing to make these journeys to make a difference for the deserving animals.”

The plan was for the pilot, Todd Smith, who assisted with this specific request, to pick up Mimi at the Olive Branch Airport and then another pilot would do the second leg of the journey from St. Louis, MO.

“But Mother Nature intervened,” Kahrs said, “and the weather went bad, and the journey could not be done in one day.

“Our special pilot (Smith) volunteered to foster Mimi overnight until we could determine how the second leg would be done.”

As it turned out, the stormy weather continued through the weekend. So Smith drove Mimi to Lincoln, IL, where he met Wedige.

“She’s smaller than our other dog, but that doesn’t matter; we love her,” Wedige said. “We’ve very happy with her.”

“She is never far from our sides when outside. House training has been a breeze. We are working on teaching her to ring the bells hanging on the door to let us know she needs to go out.

“We cannot thank Jeanine (Kahrs) enough for taking the time to find someone in our area to do a home check and for considering adopting her to an out-of-state home.”

Link To Original Story

Keep working it - I think we can get out of here...

Another 10 dogs from CCAC in whiteville found their way to Penny Angel Beagle in New Jersey. Poor Joan at Penny Angel….she got 6 beagles last week, including a 3-legged one, and now she has 10 more. This beagle route could be a suitable trailer for the movie “Groundhog Day.” As soon as you bring up one load, there’s 100 more, sitting waiting to die in yet another southern facility. Makes you wonder why there is not more of a public outcry against this sanctioned slaughter of innocents ? Pity the plight of the southern dog…

Whiteville, NC will now be a regular stop on the Pilots N Paws southern tour. Now the dogs just to have more willing northern receivers!

All clear off the right, captain!

All clear off the left, captain!

OK - time for a rest.

Kelpie was one of the many dogs that found himself without a loving home in Houston, Tx. Rescuers found hope for for him in Dallas. David and Diane have made many trips for Pilots N Paws,and they added a lucky Schipperkee to their long list of passengers. They picked up the pup in Conroe, TX and made quick work of the flight to Dallas.

Kelpie in Dallas with his pilots, David and Diane.