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PAART Gives Once-Abandoned Dog A First Class Flight To New Home

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - In just two years since its inception, the Pittsburgh Aviation Animal Rescue Team has flown nearly 200 missions to save almost 1,200 dogs.

Today, local pilots transported a dog to its home in New Jersey after surgery.

The pit bull boxer mix named Quasimodo was abandoned near Zanesville, Ohio.

"He was born with a deformity and his previous owner abandoned him along the side of the road. A group of volunteers found the dog, brought him to the shelter and a wonderful lady named Leann decided to foster the dog and started raising money for the dog to have surgery," Jonathan Plesset said.

That procedure fused bones in his front legs and was recently done at Ohio State before he started on his journey home.

"The lady who was fostering him decided to adopt him, so he's got a great family now. She has kids. It's a wonderful situation," Plesset said.

"When you get to the other end and you see how happy people are...sometimes there are kids there and people are really, really happy and they appreciate it," Pete Lehmann said.

After taking Quasimodo for a quick pit stop to a patch of grass behind the Allegheny County Airport hangar, he was loaded into the plane for the final leg of his voyage.

"We normally don't do these kinds of trips. We are looking for danger to safety trips - dogs in jeopardy. This dog just needs a second chance, and we found out about and it we couldn't resist. It was a perfect situation of why we do this," Plesset said.

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