Pet

Happy Birthday!.hanh

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5m ago

Jun 10, 2024 / 3686 Views

Evan Walker

There was no reason to think a 14-year-old dog up for euthanasia at a shelter in North Carolina would ever be saved.

Urgent shelter dog in North Carolina — Emma, dumped by her family, was going to be put down at a North Carolina shelter. | ANIMALS R FAMILY

Covered in parasites and sores, it was clear that her owners had kept her outside, probably for her whole life, and had never taken her to the vet. Then they dumped her at the shelter.

But now EMMA gets to sleep on her first dog bed ever — all thanks to a very special pilot.

Senior shelter dog in her first dog bed — EMMA is 14 years old, and she just got her first dog bed in her foster home.

In the spring of 2013, network engineer and Army veteran Paul Steklenski decided to take up flying. As he was training and getting his license, he decided he wanted to welcome a dog into his family. These two things seemed totally unrelated at the time.

“We went to pet stores and then we went to shelters, and started to learn the difference,” Steklenski told The Dodo. Steklenski learned all about the amazing network of animal lovers who work to save unwanted dogs from shelters. And through this network Steklenski had never known about before, he found his new family member.

“We adopted Tessa in August 2013,” he said. “And it just changed me. It changed everything about me.”

Rescue puppy — Tessa when she was first adopted by Paul Steklenski

Steklenski, meanwhile, completed his flight training and got his license. “I thought, ‘What am I going to do with it?’” he remembers. “A lot of guys just fly around and go to restaurants and do stuff like that. I can’t do that. I have to have a reason to put a plane in the air.”

Steklenski started doing some missions for Pilots N Paws, a group that coordinates volunteer pilots with animal rescue organizations that need help with transporting Animals. But he kept feeling like even more Animals could be saved if he started making the connections on his own. So that’s what he did in 2015, founding Flying Fur Animal Rescue. He would rent planes from Pennsylvania, where he’s based, and fly to North Carolina and then back up to the New York area.

Flying is key to helping as many Animals as possible in a short amount of time — Steklenski often uses his allotted vacation days to make the trips. “If I were a ground-based rescue, it would be a lot harder because I can’t just take a half day off and drive to North Carolina and then drive back up to New York,” he said. “At the end of the day, with a plane, you’re getting 15 or 20 Animals out of the kill shelter.”

People often ask Steklenski how he does it. “The answer is: It has cost me a small fortune. I’ve spent about $25,000 in the last two years,” Steklenski said. “But I do it because it’s very rewarding.”

Luckily, other animal lovers have pitched in over the past few years — and Steklenski has been able to buy a plane just to save Animals, which also helps save rescue organizations the cost and stress of coordinating transport of shelter Animals who need urgent rescue. “It’s the only reason I fly,” he said.