Cloud Nine Rescue Flights

This past weekend I wasn’t actually planning on doing a transport. Saturday a good friend of mine from work was getting married, which was to get in the way of my standard transport schedule of flying down on a Saturday and returning on a Sunday, which is pretty much a requirement for the amount of time these transports take. However I ended up getting a call from Trish Cates, Cloud Nine’s #1 volunteer, who asked if I wanted to do a transport of some puppies up to New Hampshire, and she’d drive them to me in Williamsport on Saturday, thus making for an easy Sunday trip. That seemed like a great way to be able to still get a transport in, and also be the first time I flew a mission out of my home airport!

There was one additional part to this mission. I’d been looking for a second dog for a while to be a friend to Duke, my rottweiler mix who I adopted 3 years ago from the local animal shelter and started me on this path that’s brought me to doing animal rescue transports. Naturally, I wanted to adopt a dog from the South. Kylie Troy, who I’ve worked with on several missions, sent me information about Cubby, a beautiful black dog whose owners were unfortunately no longer able to keep her. From talking it over, it looked like she would be a perfect match for Duke, and so I agreed to adopt her. Ironically, out of all the animals that I’ve flown, the one I adopt for myself was to be driven up to me.

Cubby, the new addition to the family.

The plan was for Trish to drive up on Saturday, arriving late, and then the puppies would spend the night at my house and I would transport them on Sunday. Trish arrived and we got the puppies walked and ready to spend the night at my house. When Sunday came around, the weather wasn’t as good as initially hoped for. In both Williamsport and Manchester, the clouds were low – low enough to be hovering right around if not a bit below minimums for instrument approaches into both airports. This can be problematic, as the possibility of not being able to get back into an airport becomes very real. Additionally, I wasn’t physically feeling 100%. In aviation, there’s a saying that there’s no one thing that causes an accident – it’s usually two or three. Well, there were two things right there, and it seemed like the safer option was to delay a day, when the weather forecasts were supposed to be significantly better, and I was forecasted to feel significantly better.

This made for a fun time of getting to play with the puppies! Normally, I don’t get an opportunity to do this as I just load them up, transport them, and drop them off. There were 6 puppies of varying ages, including two little 8-week old furball siblings that were extremely sweet and friendly. There were also two German Shepherd brothers that had come from a situation where they were locked together in their cage with little to no human interaction. These poor dogs were not socialized at all, and while they were very sweet, they were also very scared, and did not want to be apart from eachother. Their story was very sad, but in the time I worked with them I saw noticable improvements in behavior and socialization, so I have no doubt they will be great pets. The last two were mixes that were also very sweet, and full of energy.

Monday morning I woke up early to get the dogs out of their cages, walked, and cleaned up before heading to work. The weather was looking much more favorable, and I was feeling much better, so the forecasts were panning out as expected. After work, I headed home, gave them one last walk and clean-up, and then loaded them up in my truck to take to the airport, plane ready to go.

Monday’s weather was favorable in terms of visibility and cloud ceilings, but also came with some very strong winds from a cold front pushing in. Sure enough, on the flight to Manchester I saw 50 kt tailwinds, and was going over 200 kts ground speed! I could get used to that! Making record time, we got there in under 90 minutes. Four of the animals were picked up by Journey Ewell of the Manchester Animal Shelter, and the other two were picked up by Kathi Taylor. Animals unloaded and on their way, I was ready for the night flight home. In the time that I was on the ground, some weather that I had passed through came in, making for some heavy rain for takeoff and the first half of the flight. Nothing problematic, though, and the flight home was an easy one.

This was a great transport to get done. While it was not the largest that we’ve done by any means, I flew out of Williamsport, PA for this flight, and also had the opportunity to get to foster some of these wonderful dogs that I normally just transport and know for a very brief period of time. Additionally, the new member of my family was brought up here. So how is that working out? Duke and Cubby are getting along great. Integration has been easy, and while Cubby is still getting used to her new environment (to be expected after only three full days here), she’s figured out that I’m not such a bad person, and that Duke’s not such a bad dog. I’m thrilled that my dog now has a friend, and all the better that this friend was another dog saved from the overpopulated South. As you can see, she’s figured out her place in the pack (she’s the all-black one):

Unfortunately I don’t have many pictures from this weekend as my computer crashed, taking with it the pictures I had, but I will add some if they are sent to me by others.

This coming weekend’s transport is in the works! From Columbia, SC to Philadelphia, PA and Manchester, NH. Click on the ChipIn Widget to make a donation and help support this flight!

Blue skies,

Ted

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