On April 6th, a plane touched down at Chicago Executive Airport in Wheeling, then took off again 30 minutes later. What happened in that half hour was nothing short of lifesaving.
Staff members from nine different animal welfare organizations, including Anderson Humane, converged on the plane, unloading a few dozen crates and carefully placing them in rows on the tarmac before the plane departed.
Each crate was labeled with the name of a local animal organization and the name of the precious cargo inside: a dog or cat transported from a shelter in Texas that was over capacity. The air transport was done through a partnership between Petco Love, Austin Pets Alive and Dog Is My Copilot.
“Petco Love reached out to us a few days before the transport,” said Dean Daubert, our Chief Operations Officer, adding that Anderson Humane has had a partnership with Petco Love for close to a decade. “These animals needed homes and faced a high likelihood of euthanasia if other shelters, like ours, weren’t able to help.”
Anderson Humane took in 15 dogs and 13 cats, a total of 29 lives. Eight of the dogs and two of the cats immediately went into loving foster homes. The rest of the rescues will undergo physical exams, spay/neuter surgeries, and then become available for adoption.
In addition to this transport, Petco Love has supported Anderson Humane with grants, educational opportunities, and lost pet assistance for all our adoptable animals through their Petco Love Lost program. They also donated 100 crates to us prior to our transports of the beagles rescued from Envigo, allowing us to accept more dogs than we would have been able to help otherwise.
This is our second time working with Dog Is My Copilot, an organization that transports animals from overcrowded shelters to those with more room. We were also pleased to work alongside the other local shelters who took in the rest of the transported animals.
“As an organization, we want to encourage and promote inter-shelter cooperation whenever possible,” said Dean. We all win when we work together.