Pilots and Paws!

Contributed by a CP Volunteer

Vinny and his pilot

Question: does Col. Potter ever use Pilots and Paws for Transports?

Yes, a member of the Transports team, is our contact person with them. She got us connected, and we actually used them when I had a puppy here, Vinny, that needed to get to his foster-to-adopt home in TX. The foster to adopt home drove up to friend's house in Arkansas and spent the night, and a pilot in Sullivan flew him to AR to meet them. There was another dog we also used them with out east, but I don't remember who it was as I wasn't involved with it.

It's hard to coordinate them into a leg of a transport for a number of reasons. Contact time is a factor - Intakes e-mails Transports, Transports searches for pilots in the area and then e-mails them (most people don't read their e-mail multiple times daily like CRM people do), they e-mail back with more info on where they could fly to, then we look for people that could pick up in that area and contact them. Conversing back and forth like that in search for a destination that will work for them/us can take a week in itself - it's a lot of work putting the pieces together using another group. They usually need more notice than what we can give them to get it arranged (we usually can give only a week's notice for the coming weekend, and many times they've got full schedules for weeks). We don't want a dog sitting in boarding for an extra week or two. Then if the weather is bad (last minute notice for us), they can't fly so we have a hole in the transport to scramble to fill. They also can't really give a time frame of how long the flight will take because it depends on the wind and such, so we have trouble setting up the person at the other end as we don't want them sitting at an airport for hours before driving the next leg of the transport. Most fly small planes and can only go about 2.5-3 hours before they need to stop for gas. Most small planes aren't heated/cooled, so you can't fly unless temps are right, for both the comfort of the dog and the humans.

So while they could do a distance in a much shorter time than driving it, we lose that benefit in the lag time involved of the unknowns and the limits to the airports they can use. It would be super if it was a one leg/flight move for a dog, but it usually doesn't work that way. I think Vinny's pilot said he flies about 100 MPH if I remember right, in his little plane.

So while it's a great program, all the factors have to be in the right place, and it just hasn't "fit" many times into getting CP kids moved.

Hope that makes sense.

If you would like to volunteer to help transport a cairn to its foster home, please click here. No distance is too short and we have needs all over the country!

YO CP! VINNY'S HERE!

Written by CP's VP of Intakes


This past weekend, Col. Potter attended an auction that had one male Cairn listed, no age, just one male Cairn. This is a "bad" auction house and usually the sellers who frequent this sale have older, health issue dogs they are unloading. Imagine our surprise when a bouncing 3 month old baby was brought out as the one male Cairn. Vinny joined the CP family in all his puppy glory! He's been at the H's for less than 24 hours, but K. has already shared two stories I have to share with you.


In the photo is a shot of Vinny with his very adorable belly band on. K. tells me that after she put the bellyband on Vinny, he wasn't quite sure what to make of it. He didn't know how to walk or move, then slowly got the hang of it until he came to the bed where he proceeded to take giant strides while trying to get in because of having the bellyband on. Then, being a puppy, BUT a Cairn puppy, he decided to hump his bed!!



In the morning, Vinny was out in the backyard and heard the neighbor's dog so went trotting over to the fence to investigate ... again Cairn puppy. The only thing he didn't figure on was trying to walk on water! Barney had filled the swimming pool for the resident furkids and that was directly in Vinny's path to the fence, so he just walked right on over the edge of the pool ... until he hit the water and sank up to his neck. Good thing K. was there to yank him out! Yes, he is a Cairn puppy!!


Vinny is named in memory of a beloved furkid of friends of Diane P. through our Name a Mill Kid Program. I'm sure that CP's Vinny is going to need all of the guidance from above that he can get! Now, before you all try offering to foster Vinny, the MM Team is looking for a Foster-to-Adopt home for him and he will be staying with them until then. Yo, help me welcome Vinny to the CP family!