Speaker 1: This is Pet Life Radio.
Speaker 2: Let's talk pets.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Human Animal Connection show, where we believe
we can communicate with all animals. Join us as we
explore the thirty three principles and healing methods of the
Human Animal Connection. As animal lovers, we know that you
share our commitment to making the world a kinder place
for all creatures. Together, let's embrace the transformative healing power
of the Human Animal Connection.
Speaker 3: Hi everyone, Welcome to the Human Animal Connection. We have
a really fun show for you today. I have a
very sexy pilot with me here today, Michael Schneider, and
he is one of the founders of Pilots to the Rescue.
And they go and they find animals. I guess it
just dogs or other animals too, that you go and
rescue and bring to places they need to be here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dogs and cats are our brid and butter We've
yosta done wolves and seat turtles and foxes and hens.
Speaker 3: Wow, awesome, awesome. So how did you get started? What
was your story?
Speaker 2: I started Pilots to Rescue back in twenty fifteen to
combine my love of aviation and rescuing animals, and the
animal part came at a very young age, I always
had an affinity towards any type of animal. My parents
they would take me to the local SPCA and we'd
pick out a dog or a cat. And I didn't
even know until later in life that you could purchase animals.
I just thought that's how you would have a pet,
you would rescue it. So I got used to at
a very young age interacting with animals, and to my
parents' dismay, I also was the neighborhood kid who picked
up the injured bird and nursed it back to health.
I also had hamsters and gerbils and hermit crabs and mice,
all kinds of pets. Always was interested in hammy animals
and had a special connection with that. I even had
a Pet city company where I would go to the
local neighbors and make sure the cats and dogs have
fresh food and water. I would walk them. I'd use
the fenced in pen that my neighbor had that they
weren't using. So I was very entrepreneurial at a young
age as well. And then the aviation park came much
later in life. I'm forty eight now. I've been flying
for about a little over a decade and at the time.
I was living in Cincinnati and a woman that I
was dating asked if I wanted to go skydiving for
my birthday. Yes, So that was my first introduction into
general aviation, and I just became very intrigued with the
instrumentation and the single pilot and sitting on the floor
of a plane with feeling all the vibrations. You know,
these things you don't really get a sense of when
you're flying in a big commercial jet, So that was
very eye opening and intriguing. And after about three jumps,
I started asking questions of the pilot and he recommended
I ticket justscovery flight, which I did at Discovery Flight
is one hour flight at your local airport with an
instructor and you get a chance to feel what it's
like to do to do maneuvers. You don't do the
takeoff landings, you do maneuvers, and I sign up for
lessons instantly and the rest was history. And then when
I moved back to New York, I heard about groups
helping out like sick people that were going for treatment
far away because they're getting a pro bono or having
some kind of specialists. And they also heard about groups
that were transporting animals that were at risk of being euthanized.
Getting the entrepreneur that I that I am, I wanted
to start my own charity. Also another way great way
to raise money to acquire a larger aircraft, which are
usually not available to people that are renting. So that's
really how I started Pilots to Rescue. Love of aviation,
love of animals, and combining these two passions. It's very
rewarding work.
Speaker 3: Well so wonderful because we know some shelters are just
completely overwhelmed, and sometimes they're in areas where people only
want big dogs or they only want small dogs or whatever.
And then there are people in other parts of the
country that want the opposite of what they're or the
same what what they're filled with, and the ability to
move animals from one place to another. So tell me
a little bit about how you work with the different rescues.
Speaker 2: We have rescues that have been working with nearly a decade.
This is actually this is our tenth year anniversary. We
started in twenty fifteen. These are groups that we've worked
with since day one, where largely we're in we fly
out of New Jersey and we're almost always going down south,
so we're largely going to the Carolinas, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee,
Kentucky those areas. We do do some rescue from Texas
and Florida, but there's often some driving involved that they
come and meet us, like in South Carolina or Georgia,
and then we entertain new relationships all the time. People
call us and email us and you know, they say
they have some animals they need to move and they
have relationships up in the Northeast, so we entertain those.
And lately we've been working with larger organizations because we
did acquire a larger aircraft, so we be working quite
a bit with a Humane Society of the United States
as well as Bisto Pet Foundation. And we love working
with those groups because they have tremendous resources at their
disposal and it makes our job easier. We can focus
on the transport, they focus on communications and pr and
it just it's a well roiled machine. Nothing against the
smaller rescues. They're also tremendous, but we're a little bit
more hands on with the smaller rescues. We get involved
in the whole process, so it's a little bit more
taxing on our resources, But we love working with all
the groups. All the groups we work with are on
our website, Pilots to the Rescue dot org. And yeah, so.
Speaker 3: So how do many animals can fly at one time?
Speaker 2: So the cabin we could fit anywhere I would say
from twenty to one hundred owls.
Speaker 3: Wow, le's you guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's always the size of the crate that's the
limiting factor. So when we get a dog that's over
eighty pounds, we often tether them just because the cray
would be humongous. Both safety is number one, of course,
not just for the pilots but also the animals. So
when we tether animals in the back, we make sure
we have someone in the back because the people that
are flying the plane in the front, it's very difficult
for them obviously to deal with an animal in the
back that's not in a crate. If they're puppies or cats,
we can do one hundred of them. I mean, they
don't take them much room at all, But generally it's
we're transporting I would say thirty to fifty animal range
in this plane.
Speaker 3: And how do the animals handle it? How do they
manage it? How do they get water. Do they eat?
You know, they puttying in their crew. What's the story?
Give me the lowdown.
Speaker 2: Sure, well, the loading of the animals is the most
stressful part because they have most likely never been on
an aircraft before. They're coming from a most likely a
precarious situation, whether it be hoarding, abuse, neglect. So they're
already pretty timid. But once we start up date engine,
the noise and the vibration tends to make them a
little sleepy. And it's an unpressurized aircraft, so eight thousand
feet is our ceiling. That we can't go any higher
than eight thousand feet because they can become hypoxic. There's
less oxygen at that level. Just a little tippit without
geeking out about too much about aviation. In a commercial
plane that you fly at they're most likely pressurized the
eight thousand feet also, so that's why people get a
little tired when they travel. There's a little less, little
less oxygen. So yeah, they're pretty good passengers or poseurs
as we call them. And you know they we pretty
much tell them not to feed or drink them too
much because a lot of times you'll find that they
will go to the bathroom and we have to deal
with those unpleasant smells. So we all know water is
the most important. I think, like, for example, a human
can go three weeks without food, but you can only
go like three days without water. I don't know what
it is for animals, but most important thing is that
they're they have water. But once we start up, they
go to sleep. Once in a while, you'll get a
yappy one the small dogs or you do yappy like
the little chihuahuas and stuff like that. They tend to
bark the most. Okay, So it's funny because we'll be
flying along two hours into the flight, everything's really quiet,
and all of a sudden they just start to chime
in for whatever reason, you know. So it's always fun.
And then you get those wafts of smells. You know,
if they do go to the bathroom.
Speaker 3: Right, and do you do any sedation or they're like
tresdone or anything like that, or they're no, no, we generally.
Speaker 2: Don't transport any flight risks. I've seen people pull out
common treats before, so I'm not sure what they're doing before.
I mean, if they're a flight risk, maybe they are
sed eighty them, but I don't believe it to be anything,
you know, prescription wise, so they have to be fit
to travel. We've had a couple of animals that we've
refused to travel because they became aggressive in nature as
we were loading them, and we just refuse to take
them because we can't run that risk. We haven't had
one animal parish in transport, so we hope to keep
it that way.
Speaker 3: That's good, Yeah, And is there someone in the back
with them when you're flying?
Speaker 2: Generally, generally I would say yes in this larger aircraft
that we have now, especially if we're tethering any animals.
But we generally run a minimum of two person crew,
typically a pilot and a copilot. But we often take
influencers and content creators with us as well, and they're
obviously very friendly with animals, so they do a great
job in the back.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's good. Well, we have some of those billet
you know. Now, do you have standard roots that you
always do or do you sometimes like can somebody call
you and say I have something? Or is it only
the like the organizations that call you.
Speaker 2: We have pretty known routing, if you will, And we've
been doing a lot of combining lately because not everybody
can handle thirty to fifty animals at one time. Even
the cases as I mentioned before like Bistle Pet Foundation
are humane society. There's multiple agencies on the recipient and
that pick up the animals usually not one recipient shelter
or foster. But we're almost North Carolina is the number
one state we go to, and then you know it's
a smintering of South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky. We did
just do an epic flight of thirty three endangered sea turtles.
I know you're gonna ask me about stories, and we
made stops in Jekyl Island, Georgia, two stops in Florida,
then we went to Louisiana and brought back thirty I
think over thirty dogs. Well, so that was of a
very rewarding trip because it's such an efficient use of
an aircraft. Aviation's they're silly expensive. It's crazy how expensive
it is. You know, when we can fill the cabin
round trip like that makes us feel really good because
we make good use of that resource.
Speaker 3: Sure sure, Well, speaking of stories, what are some of
your favorite stories that really touched your heart? I mean,
I know they're all good, but what stands out well.
Speaker 2: One that stand out recently was a dog. Its name
was or its name was Dalton. They changed it to Thin,
but Dalton. The reason why it stood out to me
is because I have a black Shepherd rescue myself, and
Dalton looks exactly like my rescue pop. The difference is
Dalton's missing an ear. So when I saw a picture
of Dalton, it was like, how did this dog come
to missing ear? And we came to find out it
was a bait dog. I don't know if you know
about bait dogs and dog fighting, so that really my
dog is kind of skittish. We suspected some abuse, the neglect,
so when I saw that picture of Dalton, it just
really hit me. And it came from Miami and it
was adopted, so that's a great thing. I had bite
marks all over its body, it was missing its tail also,
and now it's been adopted by a loving home. So
the abused in neglect, the abused dogs that are missing
like limbs and stuff like that always strike me because
not just but the fact that they act as if
nothing has happened. There's still the same loving, unconditional love
type animals, but the fact that people are willing to
take these animals into their home. It just shows that
there's still faith in humanity, that there's still good people
out there that want to give back. So that's why
I love them. I mean, everybody wants to adopt a
puppy or a kitten, Well what about all these other
animals that are left for dead? You know, exactly so.
Speaker 3: And especially the ones without a tail. Is hard for
them to talk to other dogs because the tail is
such a significant communication tool, you know, So when a
dog is missing ears or tails, they're really hampered in
how well they can signal to other dogs. And you know,
it applies. It requires the graciousness of the other dog
meeting this one to understand intention and motivation. So yeah,
it's very challenging. It's wonderful when people adopt and do
You also get yourself situations where there have been natural
disasters and you have a lot of dogs that have
to move out of these environments. Is that something you've
also done?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we did a lot of work around Helene
and Milton. We've been down to ash Fell several times
to get animals out of that situation. You know that work.
We just finished doing some flights with them towards the
end of last year with this Will Pet Foundation. So
disaster response is an area that we're looking to do
more in because roads are impassable right after disasters, and
the airports are some of the first facilities to open up.
And it's also very rewarding to bring supplies in not
just for our furry friends, but humans as well, whether
it be toilet paper, paper, towels, potable you know, like
bottle water, stuff like that. So that's extremely rewarding work
and we feel like we're making a tremendous difference doing
that kind of stuff. I also love the endangered species
work that we do. We do Mexican gray wolves and
red walls with the Wolf Conservation Center, And the reason
why that's so rewarding is because we're actually having a
we're single hand only having making a difference in the
proliferation of that species. Yeah, when you when you have
a critically endangered species like the wolf, and if it
ends up becoming eradicated, it means that another species will
become invasive. Where That's what people don't realize. We're all connected.
You know. Some someone might say, like, well, who cares
if we lose the wolf, Well, where would we be,
Where would the domesticated dog be without the wolf? You know,
you have to think about how evolution happens, how we're
all connected, How it's a vital of vital importance to
preserve these species.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's very important. We're all connected. Well, we're going
to take a short little break and when we come back,
I want to hear one of your favorite stories about
a rescue, so they'll be back in just a moment.
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Speaker 1: Hey friends. If you like what you're hearing and want
to learn more, check out doctor Joseph's book The Human
Animal Connection, Deepening Relationships with animals and ourselves, or visit
the website The Humananimalconnection dot org. To book an online consultation.
Thank you for loving animals. Now back to the show.
Speaker 5: Let's Talk Pets on Petlife Radio dot Com.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Human Animal Connection. I'm Genie Joseph
and I am speaking with Michael Schneider and he is
one of the founders of Pilots to the Rescue and
they find dogs that are in dire straits that need
to get to better situations so they can find happy
and healthy homes. So yeah, I know sometimes I would
imagine that it doesn't always go as you had planned.
I know you had a story about a cat that
had a little bit of an adventuresome nature. What happened
with that cat?
Speaker 2: Earlier on in Pilots to Rescue, we were experimenting with
different types of crates, and we had it in our
minds that we would go with some some of these
cat crates that had zippers where it could unzip them
rather than like a locking door. Okay, And we were
flying along and sure enough, one of the cats got
out a bit of a escape artists and climbed underneath
the pilot's seat up into the flight deck and it
just wanted to hang out there, to crawl up on
the dash and we were flying along with the cat
and the dash, and you know, so that was our
early funny story with it. With the cats are very
intuitive they you know, they they sometimes love to be
in small, confined spaces and other times they want to
see what's going on. So it was a little startling, sure,
you know, at first, but it took us a minutes
to figure out what happened. We were thinking, oh, do
we forget to put one of the cats in the crates?
You know, so obviously that crate did not work out right, right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, I would imagine you always have to be
prepared for the unexpected when you're dealing with animals and
with flight, That is true. Yeah, and I know it's
not just dogs and cats that you've rescued. And you
mentioned the wolves, which is so important. I'm so glad
you're doing that. You mentioned sea turtles. Tell us about
that the experience with the sea turtles. How do you
they they have to be in water or what's the
story with them?
Speaker 2: They Well, we transport sea turtles and banana boxes. They're
literally like the Chiquida banana boxes, like the big ones
that the supermarkets get. They do need to be temper
temperature controlled climate, so we crank up the heat I
think they like like seventy eight degrees. And what happens
up here in the northeast, that is these endangered sea turtles,
and these particular turtles were called kemp Rudleys, and some
of them get quite big, like sixty pounds. They're in
dangered sea turtles and they overstay. They're welcome in the
cold northeast New England waters, so they get their equivalent
of hypothermia. It's called cold stunned. So they get hypothermic
and they have to be nursed back to health and
then we transport them to warmer water. So we worked
with the Noah Fisheries, Noah being the government organization, and
the New England Aquarium, and the New England Aquarium was
nice enough to keep the turtles until they got healthy
enough to travel, and then we picked them up in Norwood, Massachusetts,
and we flew to Jekyl Island, Georgia, and two stops
in Florida or Orlando and I think Palm Beach. The
ones in Orlando went to Sea World. And then so
these turtles, now you know, escaped a certain death and
we were able to make that happen. It's so important
with these endangered turtles to be able to get them
out of the frigid ocean temperatures. Also had the opportunity
of several year back to release some of these myself
in the beaches of North calin and it's amazing experience
to see how they orient themselves. Some of them get
a little confused when you take them out of the
banana boxes and they do sirples. Others make a dash
for the water. It's pretty pretty cool. It's amazing to watch.
Speaker 3: It's beautiful. Yeah, they that instinct to go to where
they're supposed to be, and that just that that ability
to say, Okay, that was the past, this is the present.
Here I go.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: It's really a good lesson for us humans. I mean,
I think, I know you've seen a lot of stories
like that. Animals have been through terrible situations and they
just want to be here now and live life and
be full. And it's beautiful that their spirits are not
completely smashed, even if body parts have been smashed. That's
really love, right, I know. I know you have had well,
you had a cat named Oreo that had a damage
like what was Oreo's story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oreo's really, it was a really unfortunate situation, such
a sweet kid that we rescued back in November, taken
in by Saint Francis, and the cat was found by
a staffer dragging its leg up of stairs of a
country store in a rural Georgetown County in South Carolina,
and someone from Saint Francis spotted the cat and brought
him into the shelter for the care. And it turned
out the leg was completely shattered and couldn't be repaired
and it would need its total amputation, and they had
no money left in their medical budget. And that's one
of the biggest problems today is veterinarian care has become
so expensive. So thankfully a great rescue in New Jersey
we stepped up and was able to get the leg
amputated quickly, and Oriol was adopted by a loving family
and it last time I checked, it didn't even that
the cat didn't even seem to care that it was
Miss Neil's leg. Oh yeah though.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's just so great when people do step up,
as you said, to take those animals that maybe not
everybody wants. Everybody wants a cute little puppy or a
cute little kitten, And we've got all these animals that
are really in need of help, and it's so great
that if they're not in an area where they can
find that family, that you provide that service, that you
bring them to a place where there is a family
waiting and ready to love and help that animal heal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's right. Yeah. And a lot of
the animals that are unwanted or unadoptable are the ones
that often get euthanized. And those you know, this Oreo
or the one that talked about before that reminded me
of my own dog, Finn is the name. Now, those
are oftentimes the ones that are getting euthanized. So those
stories really stand out because they're voiceless. You know, nobody
can speak for them. It's not their fault, you know,
it's really not their fault the predicaments that they get into.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, think that man. You know, So, what is
your hope for the world in the future. What would
you like to see?
Speaker 2: I would like pilots to rescue, to have a fleet
of aircraft and ground vehicles. We do a lot of
ground transport too. We don't talk about it as much
because obviously it doesn't get as much attention. But ground
transport is a very viable way to transport animals efficiently
and economically. So I would love to have a fleet
of aircraft and vehicles across the country that we could
offer up to partners free of charge to help their
transport needs, because what I'm finding is a lot of
groups are paying they have a budget for transporting animals,
which is really a shame. You know. It's when you're
talking about chartering aircraft to transport animals, you're talking oftentimes
five six figures. I mean, it's huge sums of money.
And there are great use cases for aviation, not all
the time. As I said, ground transport's always going to
be cheapest, but like after a disaster, for example, it's
all hands on deckets get as many animals out as
you can. So that's a great use case of aviation.
But that would it pains me that these groups are
spending so much money lying in the pockets of some
for profit charter aviation organization. I would much prefer that
we can provide that service for them, you know, with
with open arms. So yeah, I mean, we could do
it with as level as five aircraft across the country.
It is so crazy expensive to buy. They're like two
three million dollars used that it's going to take us
a while before we could build it out. We're about
halfway there to our second one, which we would put
down down south, so then we could cover basically Texas
all the way east. So that's my hopes in the future,
and also spreading more awareness. We do a lot of
work about creating content because even if we had a
fleet of jump Book jets, we couldn't rescue enough animals.
They're still euthanizing nearly a million animals in this country
every year. But we get a lot of attention through
the press and great people like such as yourself covering
our story because it's interesting, it's a novel concept, and
then we have this amazing platform to talk about this
problem that we still have, and maybe that little transformational
shift in people's thinking after they hear about our story,
Oh you know, maybe instead of buying this dog, I
should go with my local rescue and adopt one, for example.
So it's about creating awareness. That's how you're going to
really move the needle. We can't transport enough animals to
make a huge dent in that situation. But all this
content we create, all this awareness, all this news, that's
how we're really going to change people's thinking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the notion of really organized ground transport. I
know in some areas there are you know, where three
different drivers will get a dog across the country or
something like this. But you know, we need a much
more methodical method like sounds like you guys are doing.
So that's really wonderful. How can people get involved? How
can they help you? What do you need?
Speaker 2: Yes, so we do have a volunteer intake form on
our website at Pilots to the Rescue dot org. But
the best way to get involved is if you have
a large vehicle on you're willing to drive many many hours.
You can volunteer time for many organizations that you transport,
and shelter to shelter transport is happening every day, so
it's really helpful. Also going to your local shelter and
offering up your help with even giving temporary love to
these animals. You don't you know, you may not be
able to adopt for whatever reason, financial or otherwise, but
you can you can sort of check out a dog
for the day. You could foster, you could foster an animal.
These are very critical services that these shelters need, and
the animals need it too. They need they need your love,
even if it's temporary, so really important. Of course, we
always need donations, you know, it's never enough money, But
there are ways where I think it would benefit to
volunteer more, to get rolled their sleeves and get involved,
just because the feeling that you get when you give
back is tremendous. It fills you up inside. It gives
you that warmth, that love, that sense of purpose. That's
the big thing I mean this is this was only
my full time job since twenty twenty one. I'm a
COVID success story with my other business failing, and I
can tell you this work is way more rewarding. It's
better than buying a new car or a new pair
of shoes. Those moments are very fleeting. But when you
actually roll up your sleeves and get involved with something
that you're passionate about, the feeling is it's multiplied and
it's lasting.
Speaker 3: Yes well on a shelter volunteer. And then there's one
program here in Tucson we can take the dogs out
of the shelter for the afternoon and they just come
to this one place called Tucson Rescue Me Now and
they get love and healing, and of course in the
human animal connection, we have some healing techniques that we
do with animals. Some involve touch, some don't involve touch,
but we give them a dose of healing. They get
a nap, they get to lay on a couch, sit
with a per Soon, you know, have some good treats
and unfortunately they do have to go back to the shelter,
but we know that going back in just a little
bit better shape than they came in. So there's a
lot of ways that people can get involved, whether for
a couple of hours or a couple of days or whatever.
You have to help. And it's so great, Michael, the
work that you're doing. And we're so glad to have
you on our show. And I know some of our
social media would love to come and take a ride
with you sometime if that's possible.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, got to sign up right up on the website.
Speaker 3: All right, that's excellent. All right, We'll let any last
words before we let you go.
Speaker 2: We always like to say adopt don't shop.
Speaker 3: Adopt, don't shop. There you go. Well, Michael Schneider, some
pilots to the rescue. Thank you for the wonderful work
that you're doing with all the different species, and every
little bit counts, every life saved matters.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me on the show, Jeanie.
Speaker 3: Thank you see you again soon, fear well. Thank you
for being a part of The Human Animle Connection. We'll
see you and hear you or hear us in the
next episode Live for Now.
Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in to The Human Animal Connection Show.
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