It was a beautiful sunset as Mahesh Sankaran approached the Batavia, New York airport Sunday night with four homeless dogs onboard.   His flight took a bit longer than usual because of a head wind.  But, Mahesh sent a text message about the delay to the volunteers from Duffy’s Friends and they responded, “that is fine Mahesh – Thank you for flying for us!”

Earlier that day he had flown to Hanover County Airport in Virginia where he met Nina Silverthorne from Duffy’s Friends.  Together they loaded up the dogs who were rescued from high kill shelters in North Carolina to be flown to Rochester, New York where Duffy’s Friends committed to finding them permanent, loving homes.   Duffy’s Friends is 501 c3 that assists shelters with placement of dogs they are unable to get adopted.

Today’s group included Toby, a 6 year old dog, who had stayed on his deceased owner’s chest for 4 days until the medic’s were called.  The shelter told  us that Toby would not let the medic’s take his owner away and animal control  had to be called to get Toby away from his owner.  Toby was very upset and animal control was forced to use a catch pole!   Can you image a 6 lb. dog protecting his owner – how scared Toby must have been!

Mahesh also brought Charlie, a young dog that was surrender to the shelter because the family could not keep him. He was shy and he was not going to get adopted.     Then there was Kelly, a stray whose family did not look for her and her time was up at the shelter.  Duffy’s Friends was called to come and get her.  Lastly, there was Grace whose owner had died 4 weeks prior and the woman that took decided she no longer wanted to own a dog.  Each dog has a story and the good ending comes with adoption from Duffy’s Friends.

We could not help these dogs if it was not for Mahesh and his gift of flight.  This group in Rochester, New York can’t thank him enough for his help and his compassion!