ROAR, Cobar’s Rural Outback Animal Rescue/Respite service, last week joined forces with Animal Air Rescue to pull off a rescue mission, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in Cobar before.
The newly formed Animal Air Rescue ser-vice (with three pilots, two planes and a dedi-cated group of animal advocates) flew into Cobar Airport last Friday morning and depart-ed soon after with a precious cargo of 16 wolfhound pups and their brave mum, with the aim of re-homing them all.
The mother and the two litters of wolfhound pups she was feeding (one is believed to have been hers and the other a litter she took on), were approximately four weeks and three weeks old respectively.
They had been surrendered to the pound in Brewarrina last month and handed over to ROAR in Cobar to help find them new homes.
ROAR volunteers Wizzy Knezevic and Ja-nine Mann, who have been looking after the mum and her pups for a couple of weeks (one of which had special medical needs), were a bit emotional when they handed them all over to the rescue team on Friday.
The pair were however relieved that the dogs would all be in good hands, would have access to the expert care they needed and would also have a very good chance of all being re-homed.
The rescue team that flew into Cobar last week had a local connection, with Nicole Manns, who grew up in Cobar, and her part-ner Digby Hogan who are based in Queens-land, the founders of the Animal Air Rescue volunteer service.
Nicole said she and Digby had been in-volved for some time as volunteers in the foster care system for puppies and, with Digby also being a qualified pilot (as a hob-by), they thought that if they combined the two services, they’d be able to make a differ-ence in more animals’ lives.
The Animal Air Rescue organisation’s team of pilots, vets and animal advocates all volun-teer their time and talents to help animals in need with their rescue missions all self-funded.
“We were actually able to raise probably 80 percent of the costs for the trip today through a GoFundMe page during the week, which was unreal,” Digby said on Friday.
“That makes a big difference, it’s not cheap to fly but it’s the difference between saving a life or not saving a life.
“For all of us here today, it’s really im-portant that these animals are given the best opportunity that they can.”
For last week’s rescue mission, Nicole and Digby linked up with Off the Chain K9 Res-cue in Toowoomba who coordinated the res-cue and rehabilitation of the puppies with ROAR and also Safe Haven Animal Rescue.
Nicole explained that puppies, like children, have different experiences when flying.
She said during the flight they stay at a low altitude to help with the pressurization in the plane and the dogs are packed into aviation crates.
“They are safely confined, we keep them warm and once they are settled, they are usu-ally pretty fine to fly,” Nicole said.
“Puppies tend to be unsettled like babies do but after they settle down they are usually pretty good.”
Nicole said after mum and her pups arrived in Toowoomba they would all be vet checked and looked after by a team of foster carers.
“Mum gets desexed and the puppies get vaxed, desexed and wormed and then re homed,” she explained.
Digby and Nicole have a goal for the Ani-mal Air Rescue to eventually be able to offer the animal aeromedical service to anywhere in Australia and also have headquarters set up in each state.
“There is a big issue with regional pounds being overcrowded and under resourced, where in the metro city areas we’ve got more resources and that’s where rescued animals have better chances of being re-homed,” Digby said.
