Pilots N Paws is awesome

I've been flying for three years, not as a job, just for pleasure. I went from being a renter to an owner a year ago, and while I've had some fun trips with family and on my own, some of the most satisfying flying I've done has been flying dogs and cats for rescue organizations via Pilots N Paws. It gets discussed pretty regularly here, so many of you probably already know about the program.

I flew some Pilots N Paws missions when I was renting aircraft, and now that I own my Cessna 182RG, I have much more flexibility to jump on the PNP message board and volunteer to take animals where they need to be, based on a schedule that works for me and the rescues (rather than rental aircraft availability).

Yesterday (Friday), I did a double mission. I'm based in Manassas, Virginia (HEF) in the Washington, DC metro area. On Monday, a rescue had posted a request to bring an abandoned German shepherd puppy from Raleigh, NC, to Manassas. Perfect! It's rare that I'm either picking up or dropping off literally at my home base, so that's super easy! We set it up for Friday, since that's when weather and my work schedule lined up to make this possible.

On Wednesday, another Pilots N Paws post came up in my feed - a different rescue needed a puppy to go from DC to Raleigh. Amazing! I could take one dog down and bring another up! (Yes, I did find myself wondering if the rescues might want to talk to each other and just swap dogs locally, but I get why that's not what they do.)

Friday mid-day, the person with the dog in DC came to my house and brought me this sweet little terrier in a surprisingly big crate. I took him with me to the airport and got him loaded up (his crate barely fit through the door, but I was ready to disassemble and reassemble if need be), and we flew down to Raleigh.

[Side note: Signature at RDU is AWESOME for animal rescue missions! The manager was super excited about the puppies and gave me amazing discounts on fuel and fees.]

I helped get the terrier to his rescue person in Raleigh, and then I loaded this tiny German shepherd puppy into the plane and flew home. The pup was mega-popular with the FBO staff in Raleigh, and the rescue person in Manassas loved him, too.

I thought I'd share this nice GA moment, getting to help two adorable puppies in the same day while enjoying some lovely flying!

German shepherd puppy getting loaded into the plane in Raleigh