Revealing sobering and often shocking realities behind America’s relationship with dogs, “One Nation Under Dog: Stories Of Fear, Loss & Betrayal” takes an unflinching look not only at how far some dog lovers will go for their pets, but also how far the nation must still go before all dogs are treated humanely. The documentary explores the conflicted and passionate relationships between dogs and humans, and the daunting odds that face millions of unwanted shelter dogs, when it debuts Monday, June 18 (9:00-10:15 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO, launching the HBO Documentary Films summer series.

This program contains some graphic footage. HBO will present a version edited for daytime audiences at the times indicated by *.

Other HBO playdates: June 22 (7:30 a.m.*), 27 (10:00 a.m.*, midnight) and 30 (8:15 a.m.*), and July 8 (4:00 p.m.*) and 16 (5:15 p.m.*)

HBO Documentary Films presents another weekly series this summer, debuting provocative new specials every Monday from June 18 through July 30. Other films include: “Me @The Zoo” (June 25); “Marina Abramović The Artist Is Present” (July 2); “Hard Times: Lost on Long Island” (July 9); “Birders: The Central Park Effect” (July 16); “The Tsunami & the Cherry Blossom” (July 16); “Vito” (July 23); and “About Face: Supermodels Then and Now” (July 30).

Americans have always had a love affair with canines, but lost amidst the pampering are unpleasant truths about dog ownership, care and commerce. “One Nation Under Dog: Stories Of Fear, Loss & Betrayal” offers an eye-opening, three-part portrait of America’s complex relationship with dogs.

“Part One – Fear”: In the opening segment, Dr. Robert Taffet is taken to court by neighbors after several bite incidents involving his Rhodesian Ridgebacks in suburban New Jersey. Despite the severity of some of the attacks, he is deeply committed to his pets and wins his cases, including one in which a three-year-old girl’s ear was bitten off. Eight months later, after the same dog bites a teenager, Dr. Taffet puts him down.

“Part Two – Loss”: The second section focuses on people coping with the loss of beloved pets. This segment features a group of mourners sharing deep grief over recently deceased dogs in a pet-loss support group at the San Francisco SPCA; two women laying their dog to rest in the oldest pet cemetery in the U.S.; and a couple attempting to replace a beloved dog by cloning him. Also featured is Julie Adams, whose own love and loss of dogs has inspired her rescue work; with no shelters in her rural area, she’s taken it upon herself to care for and shelter more than 100 stray and abandoned dogs.

“Part Three – Betrayal”: The final section explores issues of overpopulation, shelters, rescuing, spaying and neutering. Approximately two million dogs are destroyed in animal shelters each year. This segment features three minutes of graphic footage shot by a film student showing dogs and puppies being euthanized.

Many people do not know that 25% of dogs in shelters are actually purebreds, and many pet store dogs come from mass breeding operations known as puppy mills. For many dogs from mills and animal shelters, rescue is the only hope of survival. This segment follows volunteers saving some 200 puppy mill dogs from these dire conditions, including rescuer-trainer John Gagnon, who rehabilitates aggressive, difficult-to-adopt dogs and works with an organization to find them good homes, and Shawn South-Aswad, who raises money to rescue dogs and place them with foster families.

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Debi Boies, co-founder of Pilots N Paws, tells about the genesis of the aviation transport non-profit here. But before that, she and the organization which specialises in connecting animal rescuers with pilots made experience with ground travel and volunteers still use the roads to transport pets in need.

However, the road can be tough, as she explains: “I did a Doberman transport that I had to set up that was a 16 hour drive. It was from Alabama to New England and I had to find 16 different drivers that were willing to drive and hour each.” She continues, “there is increased availability for a flight risk. The dog gets loose or takes off and it has happened sometimes before, as cautious as you can be, it still happens.”

“If someone’s car breaks down then you’re missing a person that was supposed to meet the next person.”

“It has to be monitored step by step,” she adds. By resorting to air travel, many transports can be dealt with within hours and without interchanges. “The downside with flying is they’re very controlled by weather. They have to watch the weather, so everyone that works with our pilot needs to know they have to be flexible as far as the day and time because if a weather front comes through and that pilot can’t fly in turbulent weather then they have to delay it a day or so.”

When you visit Pilots N Paws website, you can read the wonderful tales of success as over 10,000 pets have been flown around the country since 2008. But the main function of the site is to act as a portal for pilots and rescuers – here you can sign up to the notice board for a travel request and pilots will pick up the request when they can make the journey.

Debi and the rest of the team does not do any of the scheduling or connecting themselves, but leave it to the pilots “If we try to micromanage the form board and the website, very few animals would be helped because it stops your rate of growth, it stops the number of people who can participate.”

“Pilots already go through a very rigorous background check and training, they have a current pilots license, there is really no need for you to be worried.” Debi also adds that pilots are the only ones who know they conditions in which a transport would be optimal “We created it in such a way that people can really just work together and it works very well.”

The organization has more than 2500 pilots signed on but their ultimate goal is 10,000. “We’re hoping that eventually we have enough pilots so that most of the requests won’t have to go unanswered. The long-distance flights are next to impossible for us, we can’t do a coast to coast flight. It’s just not feasible for single engine planes to do that.”

The recruitment process is long and meticulous but besides reaching out to the aviation community via conventions and word of mouth, the initiative has more than 30,000 Facebook fans and continues to garner support and awareness around the country.

So far, their initiatives have touched the lives of animals and humans from around the world. Pilots N Paws have been part of many long and difficult journeys from the salvation of Egyptian cats, to Ally the dog and the incredible story of the Afghani eagle.

Debi tells us that especially soldiers must go through a lot of hoops to bring a pet home but Pilots N Paws have the experience which can help make a difference. “We don’t do the hands-on, getting them ready to come here, but we know who to connect you with if you’re a soldier and you’ve fallen in love and want to adopt an animal while you’re out – which is really frowned upon by the military I might add.”

Finally we ask Debi about her vision for Pilots N Paws what she hopes to leave as a legacy. “I’ve got some really great people on board” she says “but I have a niece who is 26 years old.”

“She helps me tremendously with Pilots N Paws in the day to day running of operations, answering the endless emails that we receive.” She continues “I have a vision of [her] stepping into my shoes and carrying on this work but my true vision is that we no longer will be needed. That’s my ultimate vision – she’s there for my backup plan”

Debi hopes that eventually the organization will be able to create enough awareness, “I personally would like to see us start some type of educational program in elementary school, teaching the children about pet responsibility and you know, that pets are not disposable items.”

She would also like to see enough funding being raised to create mobile neutering clinics in the Southern states that can reach rural areas. “The frustrating thing for me at times is that this is a completely solvable issue, it’s within our means and our grasp to stop it and we just need to encourage people to do that. It’s not insurmountable, it’s just a matter of cooperating, working together and the desire to stop this over-population”

“I’m really hoping that through the programs we hope to implement and the awareness we hope to bring, that we’ll no longer be needed.”

Visit Pilots N Paws online and save a life by donating today.

Image Courtesy of  Pilots N Paws

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In 2008, a simple idea was conceived and put into action by Debi Boies, a retired nurse, and John, a former commercial airlines pilot. Both had a strong desire to help animals and saw a need they felt they could address. “I probably, if you would ask my mother, have been rescuing animals since I was old enough to walk,” says Debi.

“She told these stories about how she was always worried that I was gonna get scratched or bit or whatever when we were out because I would always go up to any animal. I just wouldn’t even think twice about it. That was for my earliest conscious memory, so I always had a great affinity towards animals.”

Before Pilots N Paws, Debi was one of the founding members of a group called Doberman Assistant Network, a purebred rescue group. “We decided to form a group that really would monitor all these shelters nationally and then work with formalized hands-on Doberman rescue groups and we reached out to them and arranged transport if they would accept them into their program.

“I was the intake coordinator for two years with that group along with a board of directors member and when Pilots N Paws came about, it came through my adoption of a Doberman which was out of state for me.

“He was a dog fighting training dog; all the points of his teeth were filed off, he has little white hair scars all over his head from where he was bit, he has a long scar down his back but he is the most kind, sweet-natured, loving dog you can ever imagine.” Deciding to adopt him was easy enough but then came the logistics of it.

“When that came about, I needed to get him here! I live in South Carolina and he was in Florida.” Debi explains that despite the incredible work of the ‘Road Warriors’ who help make ground transport possible, it is a long, stressful and often dangerous travel for an animal because of the many changing hands.

“So I put the word out to a group of our friends and a good friend of ours in Tennessee wrote back and said ‘hey Debi, how about I just fly down and pick him up and bring him to you?’ And I thought that was the most generous offer I’d ever heard, I said ‘Are you sure John?’ and he said ‘Oh yes, pilots love to fly’.”

When John returned, he and Debi got to talk about the transport issues the rescuers were facing and that was the spark. “John and I decided to start Pilots N Paws, right then and there. We saw the need and he knew the pilot side of it and I knew the rescue side of it and so the two of us joined hands and here we are today.”

At a glance, the Pilots N Paws initiative seems like novelty work for retired pilots and hobby flyers who can combine their love for the sky with a love for animals. However, talking to Debi, the underlining problem is a general overpopulation of pets in the United States.

“I get that question frequently, ‘Why do the animals need to be moved?’ and I explain the situation of overcrowding, shelters particularly in certain states, normally the South, other pocket areas in Texas and in L.A., where the shelters are overrun by animals and people do not neuter or alter their pets in any way, shape or form.

“Hence the problem of overcrowding and the extreme rates of euthanasia. Around 76.000 animals a week are euthanized in this country and that is not acceptable.” The reasons why the problem is most widespread in the Southern states varies says Debi, but it is basically down to culture, lack of education on the subject and simply not knowing the alternatives to putting the unwanted pet down.

In comes Pilots N Paws. “Pilots N Paws is more than just our pilots transport, we try to bring awareness, we have large scale awareness events every year and education is a big goal of ours, to educate the public and let them know.” Many are unaware about the overpopulation of pets and the conditions of which unwanted pets are found before going to shelters: temporary homes which could end up being their last.

Read more about Pilots N Paws in the other part of Toonari Post’s interview with Debi Boies and visit Pilots N Paws online today.

Image Courtesy of  Pilots N Paws

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