Taking Maggie to her new home

This past Sunday I had the chance to participate in a Pilots N Paws (PNP) rescue along with my friend Ben. For those not aware, Pilots N Paws is a 501c3 organization that provides animals in shelters with transportation to new homes who have adopted them. Sometimes these homes are halfway across the country and general aviation pilots provide much of the help in forming links to move the animals in need to their new destinations.

So this is how we got to meet Maggie, a 2 ½ year old female German Shorthaired Pointer. We received an email through PNP from the director of the Great Plains Pointer Rescue in Des Moines, Iowa saying that they needed to move Maggie from a small Iowa shelter out to Randolph, NJ where a foster home was waiting for her. PNP is very self organizing and with the help of the director, a chain soon formed with a pilot flying the Iowa to Indianapolis leg, and then met a friend of ours in Indianapolis.

Our friend regularly commutes from Indianapolis to Pittsburgh in his Beechcraft Baron and he just happened to have room for a four legged passener this evening. At about 6:30PM we saw the Baron above and enter the pattern for a landing at our home airport in Zelienople. Watching the Baron roll into the hanger with Maggie peering of the back window was a fun sight.

We unloaded her out of the Baron to let her stretch her legs and take care of some business. She was a little uncertain but Babar told us that she had been a great passenger. After about 15 minutes we loaded her into the back of the Piper Arrow and headed out. The flight was uneventful aside from having to stay beneath a low overcast for an hour until we reached the State College area. Then we were greeted with a nice sunset and smooth air.

Another 20 minutes later and we were calling our traffic on the CTAF at the Penn Valley Airport (SEG) in Selinsgrove, PA. Ben made a great landing and we taxied over the ramp where we saw the pilots who were flying the last leg of Maggie's trip to New Jersey.

They were amazed, as Ben and I were, by how calm Maggie was and by how good she looked. Maggie took it all in stride almost as if she knew we were working to help her. After a few pictures, it was getting dark and Ben and I prepared for the night leg home which I would fly back to Pittsburgh. The ceiling had lifted for the flight back and we had a very calm and beautiful star filled sky to look at on the way home.

It's great to know that Maggie is now in a better place than she was and we are looking forward to the next time we can help out.

Maggie mets the guys who will fly her on the last leg of her long trip home

Enroute to Selinsgrove, PA (SEG)