Punkin, Four Puppies & Joy

We were contacted by Mike Marlo of FlyingMutts.org to fly a mom and four puppies to Georgetown, Delaware where we would meet him and he would fly the pups the rest of the way up to New England. So off went the emails back and forth to set up this wonderful flight to save 5 more dogs.

We found out from Katy at Palmetto Lifeline that the mama, Joy, was picked up as a stray and brought to the shelter. She was heavy with milk but they couldn’t find any puppies from where she was brought in.

A few days latter a person brought four puppies from two different litters to the shelter that he found in a box on the side of the road. These we clearly not Joy’s puppies. They were approximately 3-4 weeks old. So the shelter tried the puppies with Joy and she took to them right away and nursed them until they were weaned. The rescue where the puppies were going was wonderful enough to take Joy along with them. They will all be flown to East Greenwich Animal Protection League where they will find their forever homes.

Mike from Flying Mutts also go a call about a Pomeranian – Chihuahua mix young pup who had been found on Craigslist in Charlotte, North Carolina by PRONE, a rescue in New Hampshire and she was now being fostered in Greenville, South Carolina. Punkin was said to be about three months old and weighed about three pounds of pure love. She was a cutie.

With the help of a volunteer drive from Doobert, Punkin was driven to the Columbia, South Carolina airport to meet us for the flight.

We set off from our home base in Raleigh, North Carolina (KRDU) early the morning of the 16th to go to Columbia, South Carolina (KCAE) to pick up all six dogs. The weather was great, smooth riding but the smoke from the NC forest fires really made it a tough instrument landing. Everything was covered with a thick smoky fog. Steve was five seconds away from aborting the approach when the runway strobes appeared out of the thick smoke.

We met Nancy who brought the puppies, Joy, Fog, Ghost, Finder and Spooky. Fog and Ghost were the Brindle/Lab mixes and Finder and Spooky are the Black and White Lab mixes. The puppies were about 9 weeks old and very scrappy.

Connie brought Punkin to us and oh my goodness, we were both smitten with her. Steve got to keep her up front with him because Joy wouldn’t leave her alone in the back with Pam so for Punkin’s sake she snuggled with Steve and was all tucked in as the co-pilot.

This is the first flight that we actually left the puppies in the crate and didn’t cuddle them in flight! They fell asleep and Pam left them there all comfortable. They were nice and warm for we put sic hand warmers under the blanket and they all found a spot to cuddle up and sleep. The crate was covered with a reflective space blanket to keep the warmth in.

Joy cuddled up to Pam in the backseat and slept most of the way. She wasn’t quite sure what to think of the airplane noise at first but once in flight she settled down. There must be something with the vibration of the plane that lulls the dogs to sleep.

It was a very long flight from Columbia, South Carolina (KCAE) to Georgetown, Delaware (KGED) but all the dogs got a snooze in, even Pam nodded off for a few minutes. Steve had Pam wake up the puppies about a half hour before landing and boy was that an adventure. We’d forgotten that when puppies wake up from naps they need to pee and poop! The crate luckily had a lot of padding but the poops were disgusting. When you are 6,000 feet in the air and no windows to open, all you could do was breath through your mouth.

Soon we were landing and handing them off to Mike and Karen to take up north so wonderful rescues.