Pilot, Toms River Rescue Give Puppies Hope For Better Lives

TOMS RIVER, NJ — On a chilly Tuesday afternoon, volunteers loaded crates of puppies into cars and trucks, bound for foster homes across New Jersey, arranged by Puppy Love Pet Rescue of Toms River.

The 40 puppies had been gathered up by shelter volunteers in Mississippi. Some had been found in an abandoned building. One litter was motherless, after their mother was hit by a car and killed. Others were strays, likely to end up fending for themselves in less-than-safe conditions.

The pups had arrived at Sky Manor Airport in Pittstown thanks to Matthew Kiener, a Pottersville resident and the founder and president of FlyPups, which has been transporting puppies and dogs from kill shelters to the north for a better life since 2011.

Kiener said it was purely by accident that he started transporting puppies. A friend who is a pilot called him one day in 2011 and asked Kiener if he could help him out: the friend's plane was in the shop, and he had promised to fly the last leg of a rescue missing for a group of five dogs.

"I had a little two-seater at the time," Kiener, the founder of FlyPups, said as he marked the group's 75th rescue mission, bringing 40 puppies from Greenville, Mississippi, for Puppy Love Pet Rescue group in Toms River.

"It wasn't big enough for five dogs," Kiener said. The cargo wasn't full-grown dogs, but puppies. Kiener loaded them into his Cessna and delivered them to their destination. That's when he learned the puppies faced an uncertain fate in a kill shelter if they had stayed behind.

"I had a dog I'd bought from a breeder," Kiener said. Learning that the puppies he'd just delivered likely would have been euthanized caught him off-guard. "I was moved to tears."

And when one of the puppies followed him back to the plane, Kiener was moved to action. He adopted Piper on the spot and named her for the plane he was going to get so he could help more puppies like her. FlyPups was born.

"This was a mission gone bad," said Kiener, who now flies a Piper Saratoga. "It was a pivotal day."

Since that first mission, Kiener said FlyPups has traveled nearly 80,000 miles to 22 states, and spent more than 600 hours flying puppies to the Northeast. Some are from kill shelters in areas where spaying and neutering are not standard practices. Some are being flown out of areas where a natural disaster has left shelters overburdened.

Some of the 978 puppies that have been flown have been trained as service animals or as companion animals to assist veterans. Others have found their way to loving homes.

FlyPups coordinates with rescue groups, including Puppy Love Pet Rescue, which has been operating since 2003.

Joan Gilmore, president of Puppy Love, said the rescue works with a network of pet fosters to help the puppies find their permanent homes. She also coordinates closely with the shelter in Mississippi that sent the puppies north, as well as with FlyPups, to ensure there are transports and placements for all of the animals that come to the rescue.

"We go to the airport to meet the flight," she said, and from there, volunteers drive the puppies to foster homes across the state, in north, central and southern New Jersey. Puppy Love places on average 30 puppies a month in permanent homes, she said. They work with Petco on its adoption days to connect with potential adopters.

Kiener is a property manager and oversees properties in Chester, NJ, Washington, DC, and Naples, Florida, but helping to save puppies and dogs has become a passion. He said FlyPups makes two to four trips per month.

He is the chief volunteer pilot, but the group has three other pilots and a group of board members who help to run the organization.

Kiener said the group operates on donations to cover the costs of the flights, which are roughly $1,500 for the fuel for an average trip. Kiener and the other pilots donate their time and the use of their planes, and there are some costs in cleaning and sanitizing the planes after each trip.

The rescue work has drawn notice in Kiener's town and support for his mission. A local deli makes food donations for the trips. Other groups help out in other ways.

"It's a really cool communal effort," he said. "It's been such a cool experience seeing everyone come together for a cause."

For more information on FlyPups or to donate — it is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit — check out the FlyPups website.

More information on Puppy Love Pet Rescue, including adoption information, is available on its website.

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