Here's the little guy we flew in yesterday evening from Louisiana. Because of his size and his crippled leg, the rescue group in Shreveport who pulled him from the local shelter had named him Tiny Tim, or Timmy. His flight arrived right on schedule, just about 7 p.m. We had flown him on Delta from Shreveport to Atlanta to Minneapolis and on to Missoula.
He weighs all of 30 pounds, if that, and seems to be a Shepherd mix of some sort but mostly "mix" … and I'm not sure where all those spots came from, either! He's a sweet boy with plenty of energy. We think he's probably only about a year old, maybe a bit more.
It's hard to tell what's wrong with his leg. It reminds us of Jasper, who had a contracted biceps tendon. But it seems different, too — less flexible, and it appears to get in his way. Jasper at least could pull his leg up and out of the way to go sprinting off; Timmy can't seem to do that, and so it kind of hangs down and bangs on the ground as he walks or tries to run. Thus I don't know if it's a birth defect or a condition caused by an injury of some sort. Here's a close-up:
So we'll have a full work-up done at our vet clinic and make decisions on treatment then.
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It seems like every time we mention we flew an animal in on a commercial airline, someone always asks whether we know about the Pilots 'N Paws group. Yes, we do. But their focus is generally on shorter-haul transports. From their Web site: "A good rule of thumb is approximately a 3 hour flight. This equates to
approximately 400 miles. Anything beyond that would have to be
coordinated with a second pilot and plane. This is not impossible but
can be difficult due to varying weather conditions in different areas."
We've found it's a lot easier, faster and more convenient to fly animals in commercially, given our location and the distances we're usually working with. And it's cost-effective, too: Timmy's airfare was only $320, and the whole trip was done in one quick day.
The airlines still seem to get a bad rap about flying pets, but we've been doing this for 10 years and have never had a bad experience. In fact, we have been very impressed with the attention these animals get along the way. For example, a Delta employee in Minneapolis had cleaned out Timmy's crate, carefully wrapped the soiled bedding in a plastic bag and taped it to the top of the crate, and gave him clean, fresh bedding for the final leg of his trip. A few years ago we had flown another dog, Cody, through Minneapolis as well. An airline employee who takes care of the animals in the pet cargo area had noticed some drops of blood in his crate; she pulled Cody out, examined him, couldn't find any wound, but called us to see if we wanted her to take him to a vet before sending him on. How's that for personalized attention?
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Please vote for the ranch in the Shelter Challenge — and you can
vote every day! Enter "Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code,
MT, for Montana, and it will bring up our listing.
Vote in the Shelter Challenge here.
Last
year we won $3,000 in the first round and then won the $20,000 Grand
Prize in the second round, so your votes really do add up and make for
a wonderful gift for the animals here.
Thank you!
Rolling Dog Farm Blog 
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