The below was written by Cathy Pahl – she and Lynne did a transport for us recently to help save 17 puppies.  Below is the hysterical write-up of her experience!
——————–
Well, you never know what you are in for when the Animal Help Assistant & Team Leader for Best Friends Animal Society (BFAS) calls you when you are on vacation.  She can just be calling to say “hey hope you are having a good time.”
That’s where it started on July 15th.  The call consisted of me being told that there is a tragic situation in Georgia.  OK Georgia, at least it is still on the East Coast right?   It is only a 3 hour plane ride.
Needless to say the situation in Georgia is incomprehensable to me.  I know I have not been doing rescue for as long as my friends & companions at Pets Alive or at BFAS but some things just baffle me.  It is 2008 and still people see pets as livestock or property.  To allow your unspayed / unneutered dog run wild is just stupidity.  And when your female dog gets impregnated and the owner refuses to take responsibility – that’s when even more the issues arise.  On the streets of many places ‘down south’ are now “stray” moms and their pups.  Now it is nature that mostly all moms will do anything to protect their offspring.  This is when issues start arising.  “Mean dogs” would come in and attack mommy and her babies.  Needless to say, there are many orphans now.
Well back to my Road Trip, within less than two weeks BFAS found someone to accompany me to Georgia…  Thankfully it was a dear, beautiful friend of mine from PetsAlive / BFAS; Lynne (yes Mabel’s mommy).
Next we know it is SET!  We’re flying to Georgia August 1st and driving a rented van home 17 hours with 16 puppies.
SO easy!!!!  WHO KNEW…… who knew you can not rent a cargo van from a national company one way????  Box truck – with no A/C in the back yes but that is not an option.  We can not have the pups in a truck with no A/C in August for a 17+ hour road trip.
Once again plans change – Lynne and I eat the cost of our flight – and rent a cargo van from NJ.  AND we find out that we have someone to do the first leg of the trip.  So we’re going to Knoxville to pick up the dogs.
Well, Knoxville was pretty uneventful – kinda weird being in a bar with 22 men and 5 teeth, but Lynne and I can have fun in a cardboard box.  Our hotel had the BEST BEDS EVER!!!!  If anyone knows where Hilton gets their beds from PLEASE let me know!  That was the best sleep ever.
6pm on Saturday we finally get the dogs………. 17.  How the hell did that happen?  We were supposed to have 16 right?  Sometimes there are things you can’t pass up… and Banjo was one of them for our BFAS leader.  She couldn’t keep this beautiful 12 week old black lab in GA when she KNEW it would get adopted immediately in NYS.  Sooooo Banjo was now ours too!
The pups were just PERFECT!!!!!  Except that little Banjo (nicknamed Pavorati) would not shut the heck up!!!!  So whoever wasn’t driving had to hold little brat… ooo sorry, banjo, on their lap for the 17 hours!
We drove until 8ish, stopped for a feeding break, let all 17 eat, drink and poop – we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and we were back on the road by 9pm.  With only a few fuel stops – we were making excellent time.
We were on schedule to get to Pets Alive by 9:30 am Sunday morning!!! WHOOO HOOOO!!!!!   Well Mr GPS decided to play a little prank on us.  As i was driving the last bit of Pennsylvania to New York I told Lynne to grab some sleep.  There  were 3 hours left and I didn’t think I could make it the whole distance.
6:00 in the morning Mr GPS said we were 2 hours away from Pets Alive. WOW… really making some killer time.  So we called “the girls.”  We had set it up with our friends who volunteer with us to meet us at Pets alive so they could clean the dogs up, clean the van with us etc… since we knew we would be exhausted.
6:15 am… “Good Morning Becky, we’ll be at PA at 8:15 can you call Toni for us?”
GAME, SET, MATCH  it is almost done!  What can happen how.  OK, well,  the last 2 hours were REALLLLLLY short!  OH the Mr GPS prank…. I woke Lynne up about 6:30 and asked her to look at her GPS again.  It seemed very strange that i was in NYS and we still had 2 hours left… tho I never drove from Pennsylvania to Pets alive – it didn’t seem too far.
So Lynne played with the settings for a few and then she tells me.  11 minutes.
WHAT?????
Yes 11 minutes.  We wont be at the sanctuary in 2 hours – we will be there in 11 mintues!  So thru the time warp we went… we called our friends back who haven’t even got out of bed yet… and they met us at Pets alive by 8:30am
By 8:30 we had all the pups out of the can and mostly bathed and toweled off.  The staff had showed up, Toni and Becky showed up.  Helped us situate the pups and I was home sleeping by 10:30.
Cant wait for the next road trip!!!!   xoxo cath