Pilots Help Dog Travel To New Home Safely

On September 5, a four year old Shepard mix  named Puppa made a journey from Pound Pets in Granite City to Dallas Australian Shepherd & Herding (DASH) Dog Rescue in Dallas, TX. Because Puppa is a door dasher, the usual option of using any of the volunteer ground transport services for animals rescues was not an option.

Instead, Puppa flew first class with Pilots N Paws, a 501(c)3 that pairs non-profit dog rescue with volunteer plane owners and pilots that have their own planes. The nonprofit was started in 2008 by animal rescuer Debi Boies and pilot John Wehrenberg. There are now over 5,000 pilot volunteers and over 7,000 ground transporters active in the nonprofit.

Trips for animals are arranged through a message board on their website (pilotsnpaws.org) where the rescue says where they are located, where the animal is going and when they need to travel. Pilots from up within an hour of the rescue sign up. Puppa flew with two different pilots. Blake took Puppa on her first leg for Spirit of St. Louis Airport in Chesterfield to Hot Springs, AR then Roger took Puppa to Dallas.

This is not the first time Pound Pets has used  Pilots N Paws to help with placing one of their rescues with a more appropriate rescue agency. Hermes, a deaf dog was flown to a rescue on the East coast earlier this year to be adopted.

Pound Pets, a foster based rescue founded by Deb White in 2012, has been helping rescue animals from Granite City Animal Control and giving them another chance at life since 2014. When Pound Pets began rescuing from Animal Control, they had a 98% kill rate and were the first in the area to become a “No-Kill” facility.