Pilot helps to give future pets a paw up with lift

Steve Ormsby helps transport dogs from kill shelters to facilities that can help find dogs homes.

Two puppies explore their surroundings on the tarmac at Hook Field in Middletown after landing Dec. 29 at the end of the first leg of a Pilots N Paws flight from Nashville, Tenn., to Appleton, Wis. Staff photo by Pat Auckerman

PAT AUCKERMAN/Staff photographer Two puppies explore their surroundings on the tarmac at Hook Field in Middletown after landing Dec. 29 at the end of the first leg of a Pilots N Paws flight from Nashville, Tenn., to Appleton, Wis. Staff photo by Pat Auckerman

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By Michael D. Pitman, Staff Writer 12:36 AM Monday, January 11, 2010

FAIRFIELD TWP. — A continual goal for Pilots N Paws is to never have a request go unanswered, and area pilot Steve Ormsby is doing his best to ensure that happens.

Pilots N Paws takes puppies and dogs from kill shelters and overpopulated areas to shelters that can help find loving homes. It was founded in February 2008 by Debi Boies of South Carolina and Jon Wehrenberg of Tennessee.

Ormsby, a pilot since 1977, started to volunteer for the organization a few months ago. He heard of it at a fly-in, an event where aviators meet and learn about products.

“I thought it was a good mix,” Ormsby said on why he volunteered. “I’m a dog lover and I’m a plane owner that has the time and resources that I can volunteer.”

Pilots have been known to fly for a “hundred-dollar hamburger” — where pilots fly just to get a meal they like, and Ormsby said it was a way of doing something of which he’s fond. All it takes, he said, is a good excuse for pilots to fly.

Ormsby was recently part of a three-leg trip to take some puppies from Nashville, Tenn., to Wisconsin. He flew to Nashville from Middletown and back. The pups were transferred at Hook Field to another volunteer pilot. That was his fourth rescue trip since the fall.

Boies said the 1,300 volunteer pilots should have a sign on their planes, “Danger, you may adopt your passenger.” Ormsby said that could be likely one day. “My 12-year-old son, Chris, flew along with me and he fell in love with one of them,” he said of his recent trip. “We have to be very cautious there, but we are in the search for a new family dog.”

The dogs are transported in crates, but when Ormsby’s son and wife have flown with him, they’ve held the dogs purely for the love of holding a dog. Typically, the rhythmic drone of the airplane calms the dogs and they sleep, Ormsby said.

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