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Pilots N Paws

Pet program helps rescue shelter overcrowding Alabama’s NBC13

One more story to share highlighting pilots Todd and Mary Brooks along with connecting pilots Ed Golly and Nancy Swanner.  It was a great day for these pups heading out to find their forever homes!
 Meredith Armstrong | Alabama’s 13
Published: March 16, 2012
Updated: March 16, 2012 – 3:29 PM
DEMOPOLIS, Ala. –Pets from Tuscaloosa and other parts of the state were flown to rescue shelters in Florida.The program titled Pilots-n-Petsallows private pilots to help transport pets from shelters experiencing overcrowding.Pilot Todd Brooks, flew in from Huntsville to pick up dogs and a cat from a Jackson, Alabama rescue shelter and the Alabama Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or SPCA, in Tuscaloosa.Both are experiencing over-crowding and in Tuscaloosa some of that still stems from the April 27th tornado.Mani Berti-Kuffel with the Alabama SPCA said, “What often happens after a natural disaster like this is the animals go into a really high reproductive mode. And so we’re seeing as many animals now needing care and rescue as that we saw before the tornado and right after the tornado. So the numbers really haven’t decreased at all.”Within the past year alone the Alabama SPCA has transported more than 200 pets through the Pilots-n-Pawsprogram.Lisa Sokoll with Happy Tails Rescue, has been sending dogs to other rescues through Pilots-n-Paws for two years.

Sokol said, “The need is tremendous so for another shelter to help, the dogs that we sent we didn’t have room in our rescue. So we got them days ago. One litter we got last night. We wouldn’t have been able to help them.”

The pilots privately fund the trips, gasoline and all.

Pilot Brooks said, “It’s not the most efficient way to move dogs around, but it really, really makes a difference when you see that you’re pulling out a litter of puppies that those puppies would get some disease if they were in a shelter.”

As these pets take flight, some already have homes waiting on them when they land.

One thought on “Pet program helps rescue shelter overcrowding Alabama’s NBC13”

  1. Tammi says:

    Thank you for all that you do for the animals.

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