Cloud Nine Rescue Flights

One of the things I’ve tried to do with Cloud Nine is establish some reliable groups to partner with that help make for consistently good transports. It helps to have groups who understand how the transports work and what our capabilities are, and are easy to work with. Encore Pets in Beaufort, NC has rapidly become one of our favorite groups to work with. They have a well thought out structure that they apply to transports, going so far as to schedule them out well in advance.

This transport also marks the thrid that was possible thanks to a grant from the ASPCA. After the transports we had in January and earlier in March, there was still some funding remaining, which was used to fund part of this transport.

I flew down on Friday night and was greeted by the wonderful group from Encore Pets and Cartaret County Humane Society. Joanna Shertzer, one of the founders of Encore Pets, and I had a good discussion about how our respective groups were doing, and long term plans for where we saw our groups both individually and working together going. It was a good discussion, along with great company and food to match. Thank you to everyone for providing such a warm welcome!

Saturday morning we got to the airport at 9 AM as usual, and got the dogs loaded up. While 9 dogs seems like a small number, Encore Pets tends to send larger dogs that take up more space, so it ended up being a good fit in this case. The high numbers that we have for some of our transports tend to be with lots of small dogs and/or puppies, each of which takes up a small amount of space.  Since the same amount of space exists regardless of the size of the dogs, we have to adjust accordingly.

The weather cooperated very nicely, making this trip up north was an easy one, especially compared to the previous weekend. We had beautiful weather, it was a great day to fly. The dogs were great passengers as well. We got our first passengers dropped off with Pets Alive in Orange County, NY, and then on to Syracuse to drop off the remaining few, then headed back home for an easy and successful trip.

This marked our third transport with Encore Pets. I can’t say enough good things about their operation, and am proud to be working with them on transporting animals out of Cartaret County and up north. With their hard work and transport programs, they’ve managed to virtually eliminate animal euthanasia due to overpopulation in their area, which allows them to branch out and help surrounding communities which are still high-kill. This is a testatment to their hard work, and is very positive for animal welfare in their area. Getting more individual areas with animal populations under control makes it possible for them to expand and help surrounding areas, thus saving more animals and working to bring an end to the animal overpopulation epidemic in this country. We have additional transports scheduled with Encore Pets throughout the year, and I’m looking forward to being a part of them!

Thanks to Encore Pets and Cartaret County Humane Society for their hard work in making this transport a success. Also a big thanks to the ASPCA for the third transport that their grant contributed to. Without their help, these three transports would not have been possible. I am hoping that Cloud Nine will be able to partner with the ASPCA more in the future to help save the lives of more animals!

Blue Skies,

-Ted