People from around the state went to Clinton National Airport for an early-morning flight on Saturday. The boarding process was different from a typical flight, however, because the people were not the passengers.
Instead, they were helping send abandoned pets to a better future and giving a little more hope to families affected by flooding.
Wings of Rescue took 168 cats and dogs from a trio of Arkansas animal shelters and flew them to the Pacific Northwest, where they will have better odds of being adopted.
“This is a high-intake time of year, and we are bringing them in faster than we can find them homes,” said Tracy Roark, who oversees Little Rock Animal Village as part of his job as Manager of Animal Services for the City of Little Rock. “So, any time that we can get help from other states that want our animals, we’re glad to get them to ‘em.”
Transporting animals from shelters in southern states to those in northern states has become more common in recent years because it helps reduce overcrowding in southern states, and brings pets to families in northern states with a smaller supply of adoptable cats and dogs.
“There’s always a backlog, always people wanting to bring us animals,” Roark stated. “Every day. We got in, probably 25 yesterday, and probably the same will be coming today. So, any time we can move 50 or 60 animals, it’s a great day.”
LRAV, the Humane Society of Saline County, and the Northeast Arkansas Humane Society filled vans with cats and dogs and brought them to the tarmac for a flight operated by Wings of Rescue.
“These people are amazing, aren’t they?” said Ric Browde, president of Wings of Rescue. “Showing up at 6:30 in the morning, they’re here, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, caffeinated and ready to go. It’s exciting too, you know, to know that your pets are going to a good place.”
This mission was not just about the pets at the shelters, however, the volunteers were thinking about the animals they expect to receive in the days to come. “These are pets that were in the shelters prior to the weather,” Browde mentioned, “so we’re opening up shelter space for the pets, the tidal wave of pets that are going to be flooding the shelters in the next few days.”
Browde mentioned that many families lose their pets during disasters, either because the animal runs away or because the family cannot take them when they evacuate.
“We wanna make sure that these pets that are being rescued now have every opportunity to be reunited with their families, cause the last thing we want to do is have somebody go, ‘oh, my pet’s in Washington now!’ People have suffered enough here.”
Some of the pets will go to a shelter in Couer d'Alene, Idaho, while the rest end up at a shelter in Everett, Washington. Browde said you should not feel bad that the dogs and cats will have to travel across the country, only to end up at different shelters. “And they’re going to be kind of cool because they’re going to be the Kardashians of pets up there,” he said with a laugh, “and they’ll be adopted within three days, probably.”