13 dogs rescued from euthanasia; flown out from Easton to new homes

The sound of a plane touching down in Easton signified hope and a second chance for a group of dogs originally scheduled to be put down.

“They came out on an at-risk euthanasia list. They were not going to make it out of the shelter.” Said Tammy Darrow, a member of rescue group ‘Hill Hounds’ in Denton, Md.

Thanks to Hill Hounds, the dogs now have a second chance. Darrow tells us her group works with shelters in Maryland to adopt dogs on their ‘euth list’ or ‘euthanasia list’.

Around noon Wednesday, 13 dogs from southern Maryland were transported up to Talbot County. From there, nine were loaded onto a plane en route to high-adoption rescues in Pennsylvania, and 2 were taken to rescues in Delaware.Two others stayed with Darrow.

Darrow tells us she’s been organizing rescues like this for about eight years. Hill hounds serves as the middle-man between at-risk dogs and high-adoption rescue groups.

“Some of these agencies have stacks of applications waiting for dogs coming up and they’ll get adopted faster and we can relieve the bursting at the seams in the shelters.”

The rescue wouldn’t have been possible without pilot Scott Messinger. For the past five-years, he’s been a volunteer with the organization ‘Pilots and Paws’, and partners with Hill Hounds.

He donates his time, plane and even covers the costs associated with transporting rescued dogs to a new home. To date he says he’s helped transport over 6,000 to a new life.
“It’s the kind of thing that once your eyes are opened and you really see what’s going on, you sort of can’t un-know what you’ve seen and you can never get it out of your head. That’s what drives all of us I think.” Said Messinger.

He says that through his team, the ‘Eyeland Rescue Team’, he hopes to help at least 10,000.

Following the transportation of the dogs to their new-temporary homes – the dogs must undergo a medical evaluation before being made available for adoption.