Texas vet envisions Orbis for dogs

Brzozowski hopes to be able to purchase and outfit a turboprop—ideally an older Beechcraft King Air or similar—as a veterinary hospital with a surgical suite where he can spay and neuter animals, and provide other basic healthcare that many animals never get. It would become a feline-canine analog to the Orbis Flying Eye Hospital scaled down to pet size. (Brzozowski, an AOPA member and instrument-rated private pilot, does not anticipate getting a type rating to fly a McDonnell Douglas DC–10, even in the unlikely event his new organization could afford to purchase and maintain that kind of aircraft.)

Brzozowski said the primary focus of Runway to Rescue, approved by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) organization in August, will be on rendering care to animals in rural areas (including reservations) that are often hundreds of road miles from the nearest veterinarian. He and his staff at Forest Crossing Animal Hospital near Houston are eager to make their efforts more widely known to the general aviation community.

"The staff is excited to, hopefully, me and at least two of my staff members, hopefully [we will] get up to AirVenture this year and go to a couple of airshows just to be able to put us out there and let people know that we're there to help," Brzozowski said. He said the organization's website and social media are a work in progress. "We didn't think the IRS letter would get here as quick as it did, but we're very blessed that it has. It's just a matter of trying to now roll up and get things moving a little bit quicker than we anticipated, which is not a bad problem to have."

Anyone who has searched dog adoption listings online will have noticed that a very large number of animals seeking new homes (before overcrowded shelters are forced to euthanize them) come from Texas. Other warm-weather states are also well represented. The reason is not that people in states like Texas are any more cruel or indifferent to animal suffering than people in other states—it's a question of climate, and size. In states with warm weather, dogs and cats can survive in the wild without having to endure a brutal winter. These populations, removed from human contact, then grow quickly.

"I was actually just on the phone with one of my veterinary friends that's also a pilot [who] lives up in Oklahoma… the hometown that she's from has a bad feral cat population issue. And so twice a year, I'll take as many of my staff members as I can with me and we'll fly into their local airport and we'll do spay-neuter clinics all day long, get as many cats fixed as we can just to kind of help control the population."

Being able to perform surgeries on board the aircraft would extend the opportunity to treat animals in areas where there is no local veterinary office. "Outfitting it as a mobile hospital, that way I can get to areas, do vaccine clinics at the airports, do spay-neuter clinics, that type thing. That way that pets can get taken care of, can get preventative medicine, all the things that all of our pets need [in] some of the underserved areas or areas that are hundreds of miles away from the nearest veterinarian. So doing spay-neuter clinics, getting rabies vaccines in those guys. People don't realize how rampant rabies still is in the United States. But yeah, it's something that is preventable and [we are] just trying to … to get them vaccinated and help prevent them from having to be on any type of chopping block whatsoever."

Brzozowski has also flown more than a few rescue flights, transporting animals to new homes, and plans to continue that, along with advising volunteer organizations and pilots who provide transport services. He also has a few strays on his hands at the clinic.

"Bleeding heart, here. I've got four animals in the back that are just, yeah, people couldn't afford, or they were found, that we're taking care of and fostering to find homes for," Brzozowski said. "So it's a calling, as they say. It's hard to say 'no' to these cute faces."

Practical tips for GA flight with dogs

Brzozowski offered some advice for fellow pilots who wish to fly with their family pet, or fly animal rescue transport missions.

Family pets can be acclimated slowly to small aircraft, which will reduce their anxiety and make them less likely to cause trouble by barking, lunging, or otherwise disturbing the peace during a flight. Rescue animals are usually flown in crates because there's almost never enough time to assess the animals or gradually introduce them to the environment, so these animals almost always fly in crates for their own safety, and for the safety of humans.

Training is also important. A well-trained dog is more likely to remain comfortable and calm during flight.

While breed characteristics can influence a dog's suitability for GA, Brzozowski rejects the notion that any particular dog will live up to a breed's reputation, good or bad. "There are some breed predilections for certain disease processes, but when it comes to personality, I've got some of the sweetest staffies or pit bulls that I would trust with my two-year-old granddaughter, versus some of the ones that I've dealt with in shelter medicine that were used in not very fun ways for fighting and stuff. So that's both ends of the spectrum, there. And same thing goes for shepherds."

Protecting a dog's sensitive ears is important, Brzozowski said, but earmuffs may not be the answer for every dog. While some dogs tolerate them very well, others will have them off within seconds, or turn them into chew toys during flight. "I tell people, I don't want to see your pet the next day to surgically remove something from their intestines. So, we don't want them to be chew toys."

Introducing the ear protection at home, and rewarding tolerance with treats, can be a winning strategy with many dogs. For a dog intolerant of earmuffs, cotton balls large enough to remain outside of the dog's ear canal might take the edge off the noise without becoming a meal. "I always tell people in any instances before trying to hop in an airplane with new noises, new sounds, new kind of feelings of kind of being jostled, always kind of desensitize these guys on the ground, at home, almost make a game of it, positive reinforcement for them keeping it on. For me, the most important thing is definitely finding something that your pet likes to have on. For the erect-ear dogs like your shepherds, sometimes they don't like to have their ears folded, and you may have to use something padded to hold kind of the headset up a little bit."

In the case of a family pet, the question of whether to crate or harness comes down to how the dog responds. A dog that curls up and goes to sleep during car rides is likely to do the same in an airplane, and a calm dog can be harnessed and clipped to the headrest, allowing a little freedom of movement. Reactive and rambunctious dogs should be crated, though gradual desensitization and training may, over time, make a big difference.

Brzozowski said choosing a harness well-suited to the dog is important. Some of the barrel-chested breeds such as bulldogs can escape common harness configurations with surprising ease. "They're too round. And I can't tell you how many times we have a dog in a harness that's coming to the back and all of a sudden they put the brakes on and stick it in reverse. And it's like, whoop, there they go, out of the harness."

Your veterinarian can also prescribe medication if needed to ease the dog's anxiety and reduce nausea. Brzozowski advises using plenty of absorbent padding if the dog is crated, in case the preflight walk to allow the dog to dispense proves insufficient, or the dog suffers motion sickness.

Canine physiology is very similar to human physiology in several respects, and that includes altitude. Flying in an unpressurized aircraft above 10,000 feet has the same effect on canines and humans, and Brzozowski advises staying at or below that cabin altitude. While oxygen masks for dogs are available on the market, a dog is less likely to tolerate wearing a mask than earmuffs. In some cases, Brzozowski is aware of animal transport flights that supplied supplemental oxygen to the dog by enclosing a crate in a giant plastic bag connected to oxygen, but it's far simpler to stay lower.

If the dog is flown in a crate, covering that crate with a thick blanket will reduce noise and may help the dog feel more protected and comfortable, though motion sickness becomes more likely. Pilots who are not veterinarians themselves, or dog trainers, will be well-served by enlisting the help of both to make flying more comfortable for everyone.