Michael Schneider of Pilots to Rescue flies 30 animals—17 kittens and 13 dogs—from an overcrowded South Carolina shelter to rescues in New York and New Jersey. Without the rescue, many would have faced euthanasia. The organization has saved over 500 animals this year and needs donations and volunteer pilots to expand.
Michael Schneider here, Top Dog Pilots to Rescue. We flew 4 hours and 20 minutes from Essex County, New Jersey, our home airport, here to Clemson, South Carolina, and we're meeting Hall County Animal Shelter. And today we're going to attempt to rescue— what is it, 30 animals?
Yes, sir.
17 cats and 13 dogs. We're about to play a huge game of Tetris, but before we do that, I'm gonna get Kevin, uh, on the, on the to talk a little bit about the animals. See, Kevin represents the Hall County Animal Shelter, and he's going to tell you a little bit of background about the animals and what it means for us to do this flight. Kevin, you're on.
Hey guys, how you doing? Uh, great to be a part of this organization and getting some animals out of our shelter and up to hopefully their forever homes. We have, like you said, 13 dogs on here, owner surrenders, some strays, um, 17 cats. I'm not sure the mix of owner surrender and strays on here, but opening up space in our shelter and hopefully finding them homes.
That's great. So if we didn't do this flight today, unfortunately many of these animals would have been euthanized.
Uh, we didn't have anything set to pull right now, but anything we can get out of the shelters makes room for all of us because you guys are always having lack of space. Yeah.
All right.
Yeah, thank you. Always got them coming in and not enough going out.
Gotcha. All right, and you guys might have been If you're wondering why I'm wearing a Santa hat, of course it's the holidays, but there's a promotion. It's the, uh, is it Helen, uh, you can track these animals on their journey just like you would track Santa with NORAD. So it's a Helen Boyd Animal Foundation Home for the Holidays, and today's rescue is in coordination with the Bissell Pet Foundation, and these animals can be adopted from Ulster County SPCA, Ulster County, New York. I believe they're in Kingston, as well as Wag On Inn. I think they're in New Jersey. And the Jersey Shore Animal Center. So let's take a look at the dogs and cats today that we're rescuing. Here we go. Hopefully we can fit all these guys in here. We know the names?
I don't—
they're not labeled. Yeah, yeah, sure. This one has beautiful eyes. These guys will be crated together. They look to be in really good shape. Okay, you get to go on your flight soon. Alright, alright. Hello, hello. Oh, you guys are really excited, really excited. Are you the yappy one? You're the yappy one. Yeah, you're the yappy one. We got a guy in the back here. And the kitties, we can't see any of the cats.
They're—
they're up front?
Yeah, most of them are in the barn.
They're already in there. Okay, so you got some crates?
Yeah, we got some crates if we needed to use them.
But these are all of them?
No, there's—
okay, scattered around.
5 boxes with cats.
Oh wow.
Try to keep them separate from the dogs so they don't get as stressed out.
Absolutely. So I want to thank everybody for all your support this year. We've rescued over 500 animals, and next year we're looking to do more than 1,000 with this Saratoga. We are doing a promotion right now. We are trying to raise money right now for another plane, a bigger plane, a caravan that can rescue 10 times the amount of animals. There's no shortage of animals that need to be rescued, and we desperately need to get a larger plane. So we really appreciate any support you can give us, whether it's a donation or sharing this post or buying our merchandise. We have beanies for, for colder weather. It's actually in the 50s down here in South Carolina, really nice. And I appreciate all your support. If you can't purchase any merchandise or donate, you can share this live stream, share one of our posts, and I'm sure one of your friends or your contacts is an animal lover and would love to support our cause. But it's been a great year here at Pilots to the Rescue, and we really appreciate all your support. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much. And I love doing this work, and we're looking to hire— get more commercial pilots involved to donate their time, and it's much appreciated. So again, this is Abyssal Pet Foundation Rescue. They coordinated the whole trip. We're going to attempt to fit 30 animals in this plane, 17 cats and 13 dogs, bringing them up from Clemson, South Carolina, a municipally run shelter that's overcrowded, up to New Jersey. And then the 3 organizations that are picking them up is the Ulster County SPCA in Kingston, Wag On Inn— that's Wag On Inn— in New Jersey, and the Jersey Shore Animal Center. This is Michael Schneider, Top Dog Pilots to Rescue. Last rescue of the year. It's been a great year. Wishing you a happy holidays and a healthy new year. See you on the next one.
