On January 5, 2013 Placing Paws received a desperate email from Benita, a rescue partner in South East Mo regarding many different dogs needing rescue as they were in overflowing shelters in Missouri many of whom use gas chambers to euthanize their dogs when they are full.
We reached out to our network of supporters and found foster homes for all 11 dogs that we were asked to help with. As soon as we told the rescuers in Missouri that we had foster homes for them all the coordination started to take place. It takes a team of people to be able to rescue 11 dogs and get them from SE Missouri to Northern Illinois.
We are blessed to have some wonderful rescue friends and partners in Missouri that we work with. These wonderful women go into the shelters daily and get pictures of the dogs in need, temperament test them and test them with other dogs. At that point any that are lucky enough to have a rescue to take them get pulled from the shelter and taken to the vet for whatever they may need. From there the dogs go into their own homes while they await transport to us.
This particular group of dogs came with some extra challenges and needed to be handled with extra care. We rescued a pregnant chocolate lab mix, a nursing mama with a single week old puppy, an 8 week old litter of pups and their mama and two older pups.
Since we were concerned about the stress a ground transport could put these dogs through we asked if we could get a rescue flight. Laura Holloway contacted a pilot (Don Reiser) who generously donates his time for fly rescue flights. He said he would be able fly them up on Saturday the 12th and we were thrilled with this news! The local airport in Sikeston, MO donated gas for his return trip. Around 3pm on Saturday afternoon 12 dogs landed safely at Campbell airport in Grayslake, IL.
One dog went to another rescue and all the rest are in Placing Paws foster homes being spoiled rotten – the way it should be! A heartfelt thank you goes to everyone that helped rescue this wonderful group of deserving dogs.
