Pilots N Paws is a 501c3 charitable organization that was established in 2008 by Jon Wehrenberg, a retired manufacturing executive and weekend pilot, along with Debi Boies, a retired nurse and long-time animal res- cuer. Their number one mission has been to airlift forsaken ani- mals to loving homes and safer circumstances. It’s a mission where volunteer pilots are called upon almost every day. The organization connects animal rescuers with pilots who donate their time, aircraft, and fuel expenses to fly what many of the volunteers refer to as “death-row dogs” to parts of the country where they have a higher chance of adoption.
The beauty of how Pilots N
Paws works can be traced to its volunteers’ savvy and prolific use of social media networking to connect the pilots with shelters, rescue groups and the dogs in need. Many of the volunteer pilots make weekly flights transporting animals.“There is always a need,” said Debi Boies. Annually, a Flyway is set up to help bring awareness to the organization’s mission, and attention to the high number of ani-
34 THE NEW BARKER
“There is no pilot I’ve ever been aware of who feels he has enough opportunities to fly. So we put two and two together and said, ‘Hey, if we can merge the rescues who are look- ing for transports with pilots who are looking for any opportunity to fly, we
might have something here.” – Jon Wehrenberg, co-founder of Pilots N Paws
mals still being euthanized in this country. This year’s Flyway on Saturday, September 29 brought together 60 pilots to transport 300 dogs and cats to no kill shel- ters, sanctuaries, rescue groups— and in one or two cases, adoptive families—across the
country.The mission was dubbed, Dog Is My Copilot, after the name of a recently published book by Patrick
Regan.The book docu- ments 24 real-life rescue mis- sions collected from the Pilots N Paws pilots, and their animal res- cue counterparts on the ground. Everyone who flies these mis- sions knows that behind every flight, there is a story. Such was the case of Fritz,
one of the first dogs we met during the Dog is My Copilot
Flyway. Fritz’s back story is, like many of the dogs on this jour- ney, a tragic one. He had been found wandering the streets in a rural area of North Carolina. Maybe he had the guts to escape his horrific beginnings. Anything must have been better than his previous life which included having his ears inhumanely cut off. Fritz, by most accounts, was being groomed for the short, harrowing life of a bait dog.
www.TheNewBarker.com
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