Flyaway Home
Pilots N Paws Rescue Event
by Pam Gleason, photography by Pam Gleason & Gary Knoll
The Dog & Hound

It’s Saturday, September 27, and the Greenville Downtown Airport in Greenville, S.C. has gone to the dogs. They started arriving before dawn, brought in private cars, trucks and SUVs. Some have come in dedicated rescue vehicles owned by nonprofits. These range from new, brightly decorated buses outfitted with gleaming stainless steel kennels to older vans stacked high with plastic crates.

The dogs themselves are from rescues and shelters across the Southeast. There are dogs from Tennessee, North Carolina, Alabama and Georgia, as well as Greenville County Animal Care down the road and other South Carolina facilities from around the state. There are Chihuahuas and Beagles, Labradors and Great Pyrenees mixes, and generic mutts of all colors and descriptions. There are 8-week-old puppies and mature dogs with greying muzzles and dark eyes that have seen too much. The majority are young, healthy and attractive. People are carrying them or walking them on leashes or cooing to them where they sit in their travel kennels. The parking lot is a bustle of activity, and the air is full of barking.

These dogs, 490 at the final count, are here for the sixth annual Pilots N Paws fall Flyaway. Pilots N Paws is a national 501c3 organization based in Landrum, S.C. It helps save animals in overcrowded shelters, mostly in the South, by helping to coordinate their transport to places where they are wanted via private airplane.

Missions of Mercy

Pilots N Paws came about in response to an urgent need. Every day, animal rescuers in parts of the country where there is a shortage of animals to adopt identify specific dogs and cats that they want to save in other parts of the country. Then they must arrange an affordable and efficient way to transport these animals hundreds, or even thousands of miles to bring them to safety.

It is, of course, possible to make a transport by car. But long overland trips can be stressful, especially for vulnerable animals such as those that have health problems, or mothers with young litters. Pilots N Paws makes it possible for private pilots to take these passengers by air. The pilots are all volunteers, and they may fly up to 300 miles. Animals that need to go farther than this are usually transferred to a different airplane and a different volunteer pilot in a rescue relay.

All of this is made possible by PNP’s online forum and message board where pilots post their availability and rescuers post their needs. If there is a match, the two parties get in touch by email and work out a plan.

“Ideally, the pilots and the rescuers arrange it themselves,” says Kate Quinn, who is the executive director of Pilots N Paws. “But there is also assistance that goes on behind the scenes. For instance, we might have to send out leashes, harness and crates. Petmate, which is one of our sponsors, donates crates every quarter. We go through hundreds of them.”

Pilots N Paws came into being in 2008 after Debi Boies, a retired nurse in South Carolina, needed to transport a Doberman home from a shelter in Florida to save his life. She discussed the situation with her friend, Jon Wehrenberg, who is a pilot. Jon offered to fly down to Florida and pick him up. When Jon returned with the dog safe and sound, he and Debi realized that connecting private pilots, who need to fly in order to maintain their ratings, with dogs who need to get out of shelters had the potential to save thousands of lives. It was not long before the Pilots N Paws website came into being.

The idea caught on quickly, and the network of volunteer pilots grew, as did the number of rescuers who relied on their services. In 2009, the organization achieved official 501c3 tax exempt status. Today, just over five years later, approximately 75,000 animals have been flown to safety. There are about 5,000 pilots who volunteer their services and they come from all 50 states. There are even commercial pilots who get involved.

Large Flyaways such as the Greenville event are the most dramatic thing that PNP does, but volunteers are flying rescue missions somewhere almost every day of the year. Dogs (and to a lesser extent cats) are the primary passengers, but PNP has also flown rabbits, pigs, reptiles and even birds; any animal that needs a lift.

This year’s event was the largest Flyaway in South Carolina history, involving 70 planes and 120 pilots and co-pilots. On the night before the Flyaway, pilots, PNP personnel and rescuers gathered in the hangar at the airport for dinner and to watch a documentary about the organization called Tails in Flight. The Flyaway was underwritten by Subaru, PNP’s main sponsor and there was a Subaru representative there. Other attendees included the film actress Pam Grier, a dedicated animal lover, who volunteers for the organization.

Taking Flight

It’s almost 8 a.m. and Karen Talbot, one of the founders of Animal Aid USA, is busy making sure that the animals have the correct paperwork and are sent to the right pilots and airplanes. Animal Aid, a New Jersey based rescue, is coordinating all the dogs, rescue groups and volunteers. It is also responsible for pulling a large number of animals from shelters throughout the South. “I have dogs everywhere,” Karen says as she rushes by with her clipboard.

“Most of these dogs have bad stories,” says Pia Colon Wurth, a member of the Animal Aid advisory board. Pia, who lives in Atlanta, brought a number of appealing dogs and puppies from Coco’s Cupboard, a rescue in Molena, Ga. She gestures to some of them in their crates in the parking lot. “These puppies all had Parvo, and their owner couldn’t pay for the vet, so we took them in and got them well. These ones were found covered with oil and left to die. Most of them were found abandoned on the side of the road. If they would have gone to the shelter they would have been put down.” Today, the puppies are clean, healthy, bouncy and cheerful with tails that wag so hard their bodies sway. Whatever traumas they have suffered seem far in the past.

Out on the tarmac, pilots inspect their planes and ready them for takeoff. More rescue volunteers wait near the front of the hangar – inside there are pots of coffee and a full breakfast. Jan Craig-Olinger, who is a volunteer at Greenville County Animal Care, holds a pretty little Beagle named Ivy. She needs treatment for heartworm and she has a long slit cut in one of her ears. “It must have been done on purpose,” says Jan, shaking her head. “But she is as sweet as can be.”

“She’s going to New Jersey,” Jan continues. “Karen Talbot saw her on the Greenville County Facebook page and she’s adopting her for herself. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Elaine Gayle and her daughter Charlotte brought Teddy, a young Great Pyrenees mix who is large, white, fluffy and friendly. Teddy was a stray languishing at the shelter in Greenville, until he was claimed by LaMancha Animal Rescue in Pennsylvania. The Gayles fostered him for a few weeks in their home before the Flyaway. “We’ve fostered for Greenville for years, and before that we fostered in Atlanta” says Elaine. “Over 12 years, we’ve had between 400 and 500 dogs. I’ve lost count.”

Tiffany Moore is at the Flyaway with 16 dogs. Tiffany and her mother Pam Nalley run a private rescue called Breakfast at Tiffany’s in Pickens S.C. Their dogs are going to two rescues, City Dogs and Pet Connect, both in the Washington D.C. area.

“All these dogs would have been euthanized if they had gone to animal control,” says Tiffany. “But instead they are being adopted. About half of them already have adopters waiting in Washington.” She holds a pretty Australian Heeler mix on a leash. “This is Aubrey,” she says. “She has a family with two little boys waiting for her in D.C. It’s the first dog the father in the family ever had. I told them that was not good, she would be a terrible first dog, because she is just too perfect. She loves kids, she’ll come when you call her, rolls over when you tell her to. She’s a horrible first dog because after her you would be spoiled and you would expect all dogs to be this good.”

Out on the tarmac, pilots are completing their preflight inspections and receiving their cargo. Andrew and Anne Zeneski, who live in Raleigh, N.C. are preparing their 1971 Piper 180 to receive two dogs from Tiffany Moore. One is a little Beagle mix; the other a large breed grey and white puppy. The dogs will travel in separate crates in the back of the passenger compartment. They will fly to Lynchburg, Virginia, where they will be able to get out, stretch their legs, and then be transferred to another pilot and another plane that will take them on to D.C. Andrew and Anne will fly back home to North Carolina.

“Pilots N Paws is something that I’ve known about for a long time, but it took me a while to get started,” says Andrew, who began making rescue flights in May. This is his sixth PNP flight and his first Flyaway. “Really, it’s so easy to get connected and to help people once you sign up.”

Anne has a real estate agency and Andrew is a web application specialist who is retired from the high tech world.

“You probably heard other pilots say that we need to fly anyway to stay current,” Andrew says. “It’s one thing just to fly in circles around an airport practicing your landings. But when you do this, you have more of a purpose. It also helps your flying in that you are making a commitment. So you might you be sitting at home and saying the weather isn’t perfect so I won’t go to the airport today. But if you have already made a commitment, it helps you stretch yourself. I am instrument rated, as most of these pilots are, and you do have to get into the clouds and continue to practice that, and this gives you a reason to do it. And it is just so satisfying to know that you have done something worthwhile.”

Andrew and Anne have two rescue dogs at home, but other than that and their PNP involvement, they are not in the rescue world. “But it gets you thinking,” Andrew says.

Although Andrew doesn’t mention it, Pilots N Paws flights have another benefit. Although the pilots pay for their own fuel and other expenses, the cost of fuel used for rescue flights is 100% tax deductible. Similarly, if a pilot rents a plane for a flight, the cost of that can be deducted. According to Kate Quinn, quite a number of pilots do rent planes to make PNP flights.

“Some people may think that these pilots are all super wealthy, but they aren’t,” she says. “Lots of them are just people that love aviation and love animals. If you’re a student pilot, this is a great way to make some of your flight training tax deductible. It’s also a real life exercise for understanding how weight distribution affects an airplane. It gives meaning and a sense of purpose to the hours in the air that you have to accumulate for your license.”

Most of the pilots at the flyaway are long past the student stage, but there is plenty of that sense of purpose to go around at the Greenville airport. It’s turning into a pretty day and there is a palpable celebratory atmosphere. Volunteers, pilots and co-pilots smile and laugh as they transfer puppies from crates on the ground to crates in the planes. They pose for pictures, holding leashes attached to dogs of all varieties. The dogs themselves seem happy and expectant. “They know they are being rescued,” says one volunteer. Small groups of people stand on the side of the runway to wave and cheer as the planes take off.

W. Dave Erwin, a lifelong Greenville resident, heard about the flyaway on the news the night before, and decided to come out to see what it was about. He stands on the grass, watching as plane after plane loads up, taxis to the end of the runway and lifts off, carrying its cargo up into the brightening sky and toward a better life.

“I’m 85 years old,” he says, shaking his head a little in amazement. “And I have seen a lot of things. This is the greatest thing I have ever seen in my life.”

Subaru and Petmate are Proud Partners of PNP!