“If they work, that sounds like a perfect solution,” I said. But just then Mamie returned, so I told Carlie I’d call her back later. The Clertons wanted to put an application in to adopt Albert, a gray miniature poodle mix who’d been around HotRescues for a while.
He was one of those who was a mystery dog to me. I’d no idea why a smart and friendly pup like him was still here.
But now he might finally get a new home—provided that I approved the Clertons.
They had to complete the application, but I chatted with the father and kids while the mother worked on it. Their situation sounded fine. They had no other pets at the moment, so we didn’t have to check for compatibility.
We talked animals and lifestyle and their home—owned by them, so no lease issues. All the while, as I conversed with them, my mind also swirled around the small dogs needing to be rescued and the possibility of one of those organizations with pilots helping out.
Pilots. That jabbed something in my mind.
The Faylers were pilots, and they liked animals. Plus, they’d offered to volunteer at HotRescues.
Maybe we could solicit their help. But I’d see if there was an established way first.
At last the application was complete. I went over it with the Clertons. All looked in order. I preferred when our part-time shrink, Dr. Mona Harvey, could work on an adoption, but she wasn’t around today. I’d use my own judgment.
Still, I never wanted buyers’ remorse to unravel one of my adoptions. “Why don’t you think about it overnight?” I said. “I’ll need to check out a few things, but it looks good to me. I’ll call you, but you’ll probably be able to come back for Albert tomorrow.”
“Really?” squealed the teenage girl. Her brother beamed. So did the parents.
“See you tomorrow, then, Lauren—unless you tell us otherwise.” That was the mother.
I had a feeling that Albert would be going to his brand-new home first thing tomorrow morning.
Mamie had been sitting nearby, watching and listening. “I introduced those people to their new best friend,” she said after they’d left. Her smile was enormous, and I didn’t shy away from giving her a hug.
“Yes, you did,” I said.
Nina returned to the welcome room just then, looking tired.
It was pretty late, almost time for her to go home. But when Mamie left, I couldn’t help sharing with my second-in-command not only that Albert would probably be going home tomorrow, but that I’d learned about some teacup dogs in dire need of being rescued—and my dilemma about how to go about it.
“Have you contacted Airborne Adoptions?” she asked right away.
“What’s that?”
It turned out to be a charitable organization that did exactly what Carlie and I had been discussing: flying animals in need from one area to another, where they would be welcomed.
“I’ve read a lot about this group,” Nina said. “Others, too, but this one seems to be rising in popularity—and success. They do flights in relays. They’ve even taken small dogs to Canada, since it sounds like they don’t have enough small dogs there.”
“That’s great!” I said.
And I knew what I’d be doing when my staff and volunteers left for the evening.
I only hoped I got a positive response from Director Juliet Ansiger.
Chapter 3
Next time I checked my e-mail, only a few minutes after the last time, a message was finally waiting from Juliet Ansiger. She sounded thrilled about my inquiry and, yes, a lot of teacup-sized dogs were still available and definitely in need of rescuing.
I quickly sent her my phone number and heard my ringtone almost immediately. It was seven o’clock here, so it had to be nine o’clock where Juliet was.
“Hello?” I tensed my other arm on my desk. I really wanted this conversation to go perfectly. I intended to save as many of those little rescues as I could.
Zoey must have sensed my concern, since she stood up from where she’d been curled up on the floor and put her head on my lap as I sat on my desk chair. I petted her comfortingly.
“Lauren? This is Juliet. I’m so glad to hear from you. Tell me a little about your shelter.”
I quickly extolled the many virtues of HotRescues, although I didn’t mention how generous Dante was. I didn’t want her contacting him for a donation, although I’d request funds for this major rescue if I needed them. I was protective of him—partly because I wanted to make sure he’d always be there for HotRescues and the animals we saved.
I did explain why HotRescues and a lot of other private shelters in Los Angeles might be able to find many small dogs new homes, thanks to the charming HotPets Bling ads.
“That sounds really promising. But you’re all the way on the West Coast. We need to find a way to get our dogs to you.”
“I’m working on that,” I told her, and then suggested a relay via Airborne Adoptions.
“That’s one I’ve heard really good things about.”
“Great. If you have any other ideas, please feel free to look into them. Meantime, I’ll move forward on my end and will definitely keep in touch.”
“Wonderful. Oh, Lauren, I really hope this works. There are so many—and they’re so adorable. And in danger.”
“I’ll do everything I can to help them, Juliet.” I said good-bye and hung up.
Meanwhile, I’d stopped petting Zoey and was using my free hand to do another computer search. I found the home page for Airborne Adoptions. They were headquartered in the DC area. I doubted I’d reach anything but an answering machine at this hour.
I had to try, though. Lots of little dogs’ lives were at stake.
Unsurprisingly, I got a recorded voice that asked me to leave a message. I did, explaining briefly who I was and what I wanted.
Then I said they could call me back as early as six AM L.A. time tomorrow.
• • •
Which they did. I was lying in bed at my home in the gated Porter Ranch community with Zoey at my feet, when my phone rang. I glanced at the time.
Six o’clock on the dot.
“Hi, Lauren?” said the voice as I grumbled hello. I’d been awake, but just barely.
“Yes?” I tried to sound livelier. “Who’s calling?”
“Mike Relfer from Airborne Adoptions.”
I was definitely awake now. “Yes, Mike. I take it you got my message.”
“I sure did. I’ve heard about all those small dogs rescued from that puppy mill. In fact, some of my pilots in the area contacted me and offered to fly them somewhere, but I always put out feelers before contacting the rescue organization with possession of the animals so I can suggest where we can take them. This time, we had a lot of concerned rescuers but no takers.”
“Well, you’ve got takers now.”
“We have a problem, though. Most of our pilots are located in the east, or even the middle of the country. Usually, depending on distance, we do air runs as relays, with a pilot team dropping the animals off at one airport, to be picked up by another and taken elsewhere. That can happen a couple of times more. That way, no one has to make a very long run—a good thing, since most volunteers are doing this on their own. Sometimes they get a contribution of gasoline, but not much more. Thing is, we don’t currently have any volunteers who can fly the animals any farther west than Las Vegas.”
I hesitated for only an instant. “I’m not certain yet, but I may be able to find someone.”
“Really?” Mike sounded excited. “Do you think they’d be interested in joining our network for future rescues, too?”
I laughed. “Let’s take things one at a time. I’ll ask if they can help this once, and then we’ll see about more.”
I promised to get back to him as soon as I had any news, positive or negative.
When I hung up, I looked at the phone. Only six fifteen. Dante would be awake, but it was too early to call him. And I’d want his okay before asking the Faylers to help.
I s
howered, dressed, fed Zoey, and prepared to head to HotRescues.
By then it was seven o’clock. And this was a quasi emergency.
Sitting at my small kitchen table with a newly brewed cup of coffee in a mug in front of me, I called Dante.
I didn’t have to say much before he caught on. “Of course you should contact Tom. Sounds like a good fit, and knowing him, he’d probably be delighted to help not only in this rescue, but in others as well. Naya, too. Let me know how it goes.”
“Is it okay to call this early? I apologize, by the way.”
“No need. This is important. And knowing Tom, he’s probably already at the office.” He gave me Tom’s contact numbers.
I hung up and stood, pouring some more coffee into my mug to warm what was already there. When Zoey danced a little circle in front of me, I let her into my fenced backyard, watching her even as I pushed in the number for Tom Fayler’s office phone.
Tom answered so fast that it seemed he could have been waiting for the call.
As it turned out, he was.
“Hi, Lauren,” he said, almost before I’d identified myself. “I just got a text message from Dante. If you’re calling to find out if Naya and I would fly out to pick up some of those small rescue dogs, the answer’s a definite yes!”
Chapter 4
“We need to get on our way,” Tom said.
“Sounds good.” I stood on the tarmac at Van Nuys Airport with Naya and him, beside their small plane—a Cessna, they’d told me.
It was nearly twenty-four hours since I’d spoken with Airborne Adoptions for the first time to put this air rescue together.
Yesterday had been extremely busy, both helping with the logistics of this long-distance rescue and performing my regular duties at HotRescues. For one thing, several adoptions had resulted from the mobile event at the Beverly Hills HotPets. I’d approved the new homes for both Mimi, the Yorkie, and Frenchy, the French bulldog mix.
But staying at the forefront of my mind and heart was what was about to happen today, starting now.
Well, not really now. Some of it had already been happening farther east.
A noisy plane took off, but I refrained from holding my ears. When I could hear again, Naya assured me, “We’ll stay in touch, Lauren.” Wearing a lot less makeup than at the HotPets party, she appeared more matronly. But some youthfulness came through, thanks to her black T-shirt with the HotPets Bling logo on the front, a representation of a dog collar with glittering rhinestones set into the shape of—what else?—a dog collar.
Her apparel made all the more sense when she told me that the managers of a couple of Vegas HotPets stores were meeting them and acquiring a box each of the HotPets Bling collars to introduce in a fairly low-key way at their shops.
A big rollout, complete with the ads and hype we’d seen here in L.A., would follow. No doubt it would be a success there as well.
“I’ll be waiting to hear from you,” I said to encourage her to make good on her promise.
Beside her, Tom was a little dressier in a button-down shirt, although it wasn’t tucked into his jeans. He wore tennis shoes and a huge smile on his round face. The HotPets Bling manager obviously loved to fly.
They’d already shown me around their plane. It seated four comfortably, although the two backseats were where they had piled the boxes filled with collars.
The area behind the seats was stacked with crates from HotPets, in which they could enclose the small dogs they were about to pick up. HotPets—rather, Dante—had also paid for the gasoline for their trip. No surprise.
I knew nothing about planes, large or small. Flying was not one of my favorite pastimes, although I took commercial flights when I needed to on vacations, usually with my kids—but since both were in college, our vacations together were on hold.
Occasionally, too, I went on trips related to pet rescue, primarily going to conferences about saving animals and meeting administrators of shelters from other areas.
I’d never ridden on a private plane. Didn’t think I wanted to. But of course I would if animals’ lives were at stake.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to, at least not now. These people were doing it all. And I couldn’t express to them enough how much I appreciated it.
“Thanks again,” I called as they climbed the steps into the plane. “From me, and from all those little dogs whose lives you’re about to save.”
“Just seeing them safely here will be thanks enough,” Naya hollered barely audibly over the engine of a landing plane. The meetings in Vegas, too? I wondered cynically.
Heck. They, and Dante, deserved any additional benefits they could derive from this generous expedition.
The plane door closed behind her.
• • •
I got a call from Naya a few hours later.
I was in the kennel area of HotRescues helping to clean an enclosure where a setter mix named Mabel had shredded not one, but three fluffy toys.
With us for a little more than a week, she had just been released for possible adoption after a vet visit and our standard quarantine. The toys she’d been given before were chewy ones, not stuffed animals.
No more stuffed animals for her.
I wriggled out of Mabel’s enclosure as my phone rang in my pocket. Mabel wanted to follow, and I had to make sure she didn’t. I’d come back and lavish some hugs on her later.
I glanced at the caller ID. The number wasn’t familiar, but I had a good idea who it was. I hadn’t programmed the Faylers’ numbers into my phone yet, but this was around when I’d hoped to hear from them.
“Hi, Lauren, it’s Naya,” confirmed a female voice that sounded somewhat grim. Had something gone wrong?
“Hi. Where are you? Do you have the dogs with you?”
Her laugh also sounded more brusque than humor-filled. “We’re about to take off from Vegas. We do have some dogs with us, though there are fewer than we’d originally thought. Apparently the Missouri shelter found a sanctuary that took the rest in—temporarily, at least—to keep them safe. Our bringing these guys to L.A. is a bit of an experiment.”
“Experiment?” Something didn’t sound right about this.
“I’ll tell you more when we’re there.” Obviously, she couldn’t talk right now. Because of timing—or because someone was with her? “We need to see how quickly you can rehome these guys, for one thing.”
“If they’re as cute as I assume they are, that’ll happen fast.”
This time, when she spoke, her voice sounded genuinely excited. “Cute? You just hold on. We’re about to show you the epitome of cute. Well, except for our little Marvin, of course. We left him with our daughter for the day. We’ll see you in about an hour. Will you be at the airport?”
“Count on it.”
• • •
With only a dozen little dogs and their crates expected, I aimed the HotRescues van toward the airport rather than having my shelter’s handyman, Pete Engersol, drive it while I caravanned after it in my Venza.
Why only a dozen? Sure, that was a lot, but quite a few more had been saved from that puppy mill. I realized that the people from the shelter where they’d first been taken didn’t know me except for my initial phone conversations with Juliet Ansiger. Even so, my having the dogs, keeping them safe, and finding them new homes as fast as I could would be a lot better than whatever had been done with them.
Don’t get me wrong. Sanctuaries are wonderful places, and many take extraordinary care of animals in their charge. But those animals are usually ones that can’t otherwise be rehomed easily—like some of the senior and disabled animals at Save Them All Sanctuary, one of my favorites.
But at least all those puppy-mill dogs had apparently been taken to a place where their lives weren’t in danger. Unless you counted danger as including failure to get a new, loving home.
That was where I could really help.
But for this first load, I, or at least HotRescues, was apparently on trial. Consi
dering what the HotPets Bling ad campaign had done to help adopt out huge numbers of teacup pets in the last month or so, I’d no doubt that I’d find this first dozen dogs homes within a week or two. Three at the most.
Meantime, I’d negotiate to get another bunch here for rehoming as soon as possible.
It was the middle of the day on a Monday. Traffic on the short drive from Granada Hills to Van Nuys Airport was sparse, so I got there fairly quickly and parked the van. I got out and waited beside it, watching the not-too-distant runways for a small plane resembling the one the Faylers had introduced me to.
It arrived about fifteen minutes after I did.
I did get to see and hear two other small planes land first, but their shapes and darker colors were different from the beige-and-blue one I sought.
When I spotted the Faylers’ plane, I stayed where I was, watching it land and then taxi to the same spot where I’d gotten my tour. I waited until it, and its propellers, came to a complete stop.
Maybe only a dozen dogs to start with was a good thing in some ways. I pulled a bunch of leashes from behind my seat. The dogs would all need to be walked before being put back into crates for transportation to Carlie’s animal hospital for their first checkups here, our standard procedure.
I knew that the Faylers would help me walk the dogs. Three people, twelve dogs, maybe two at a time . . . It shouldn’t take too long.
But when I got to the plane and walked around to the side where the door was open, I was surprised to see a woman standing there talking to the Faylers. The runway and tarmac were fairly isolated, and I hadn’t seen anyone walk up to the plane.
Had she ridden with them?
It turned out that, unfortunately, she had.
She spotted me walking toward them nearly immediately and stared. My first impression was that her expression was accusatory.
Accusing me of what? I wondered.
“Hi. Are you Lauren Vancouver?” she asked.
Teacup Tubulence Page 3
