Our first rescue

In 2014, we began the journey of using airplanes to rescue dogs from far away places, to bring them to more populated areas to be adopted. Pilots N Paws is one of my favorite organizations that has coordinated rescues for pilots that love animals, and obviously Subaru is a big support of animal rescue as well.

Patty Wagstaff, a world-famous acrobatic pilot was on hand to help raise money for this organization, and my daughter enjoyed meeting such an accomplished woman who also loves dogs! Patty is a huge fan of Amelia Earhart, and we are as well (we named our rescue dog Amelia).

For the rescue mission, we flew a rental Piper Saratoga down to Greenville South Carolina, where Pilots N Paws had arranged a “fly-out” of hundreds of dogs on dozens of planes. This was 341 nautical miles which would have taken us 7.5 hours driving. It was less than 2 hours flying.

Once there, we enjoyed presentations by Pilots N Paws, staff and volunteers, music and food. We picked up our 2 dogs, Jake and Oscar, loaded them up into the plane and came back to Leesburg where they were picked up by a rescue to be adopted.

The family SO enjoyed doing good for these dogs, and seeing so many other dogs in need of transport, we immediately booked upcoming rescue flights and were absolutely sold on the value of spending our money and time to bring dogs to their adopted homes.