Last week, a plane with some very special passengers onboard landed at Meridian Teterboro. If you like puppies (and really, who doesn’t like puppies?), then you would have been in for a big treat if you were here at our FBO. A charter flight filled with crates of puppies of all breeds landed at our facility from California. The trip was organized by “Saving Gizmo’s Friends”, a dog rescue foundation that takes dogs from the kill shelters in Los Angeles, and transports them to humane societies, rescue shelters, and non-kill shelters in other cities.
The trip was organized by “Saving Gizmo’s Friends”, a dog rescue foundation that takes dogs from the kill shelters in Los Angeles, and transports them to humane societies, rescue shelters, and non-kill shelters in other cities.
In New York, the organization works with the North Shore Animal Shelter as well as another local rescue group. Saving Gizmo’s Friends comes to the New York area quite often, and they bring as many dogs as they possibly can. On the last trip, they arrived with over 25 dogs who were already pre-adopted or going to foster homes.
The dogs are often transported on business jets because most of them are too small to fly in the cargo compartments of commercial airlines, especially in freezing temperatures. The difficulty for this group is twofold: not only do they need to rescue the dogs from these shelters, but they must also seek out charter flights or jet owners that would be willing to help transport these animals.
They have flown as few as two crates all the way up to 20 or 30 crates at a time, either on an empty leg or using whatever extra space they have available on trips to New York. There is high demand for small dogs on the East Coast, yet an overpopulation of them on the West Coast, especially among chihuahuas. If they are not rescued, most of these dogs are put to sleep due to overcrowding.
The website for the organization is currently under construction, but Saving Gizmo’s Friends mission statement reads:
“SAVING GIZMO’S FRIENDS is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving at-risk dogs from high-kill city and county shelters in the Greater Los Angeles area. After all their veterinary needs are met, the dogs are transported to Humane Societies, independent rescuer groups, and shelter’s in other States, that have met our standards and approval.
Although we are currently able to help mostly small to medium breeds, we occasionally take larger breeds too. We do not discriminate against age, sex or medical needs. We help dogs in all kinds of medical conditions and keep them at our foster homes until they are healthy to be transported.
We are also dedicated to improving the conditions of the shelters for animals by donating beds, blankets, heating/cooling systems for their facilities.
Our goal is to give a second chance to as many four-pawed friends as we can with the help of our supporters”.
If you are interested in supporting Saving Gizmo’s Friends, please contact Berna at 323-252-2046.
