BOISE, Idaho —
Approximately 130 adoptable dogs and cats arrived in Boise Monday, a pit stop to their eventual forever homes.
Over one hundred at-risk pets from the New Orleans area flew into Boise Airport (BOI) Monday morning, where they were then delivered to shelters in Idaho and Washington.
The Boise stop was the first of two made by Good Flights' "Flying to Forever Homes" initiative, a program of Greater Good Charities and the PEDIGREE Foundation.
Their mission is to relocate shelter pets from overpopulated shelters in the south to shelters in the north, where there is greater demand for adoptable pets.
Cities like Boise and Seattle are seeing high demand for these pets, and therefore more opportunity to find them a loving family and forever home.
On Monday morning at 3:30 a.m. MT, the pets boarded the lifesaving flight in New Orleans and arrived in Boise at approximately 11:00 a.m. MT before departing again at noon for their final destination.
Kristine Schellhaas, Communications Manager for Idaho Humane Society, said they are taking twenty of the pets aboard Monday's flight. However, their annual intake is over one thousand.
"We bring in about 1300 pets each year, from under-served communities. They great majority of our transfers come from rural Idaho. As we have space, we take flights in... generally from the south, as they have a really large pet over-population," said Schellhaas. "There's a lot of euthanasia unfortunately that does take place. So, these truly are life-saving flights."
The program conducts lifesaving airlifts for at-risk pet populations, focusing heavily on harder-to-adopt large-breed dogs, homeless cats, asymptomatic heartworm positive shelter dogs and disaster relief.
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