Ask Ask Roxie Roxie we move on. First thing, they want to pet the dog. And my first
Words of Advice from an ‘09toPet question them is: 'Do you have a pet?' and they'll bring out
their phone. We just have a conversation!” Bella and Bonnie are a volunteer team with Pups n' Planes, where “comfort” dogs and their owners offer distressed travelers a little sugar. “People are waiting, their flight has been canceled, or they may have a four-hour wait, and they are upset.” “One time, two little girls stopped to pet the dog, and I looked up, and the mother was crying. Her husband was being deployed. I spent probably a half-hour with them, and the dad thanked me so many times because it got them thinking about other things,” Bonnie says. Airport staffers implemented the idea after learning how well it worked at the Los Angeles International Airport. Pups n' Planes has been reducing blood pressure and turning frowns upside down for six years. “In the car, she knows that we are almost at the airport. She gets so excited! Her job is to make people smile. She does that job.” And if you saw Bella, you would smile, too. The girl team also spends time at the airport USO, softening the loneliness and longing of our troops, so familiar to military life. While Bella offers kisses, Canine Explosive Detection Supervisor Sgt. Andres Lopez, and his police dog Keyno, provide safety and security. “We are there to make sure that the traveling public is safe, the dog makes that any threats associated with aviation there aren’t real threats,” says the airport K9 police officer. Lopez and Keyno “nose around," sniffing out threats that could come from a parked car, a suitcase, or a person. “Dogs are about as mobile as you can get,” says Lopez. He means the nose is mobile.
Bella is a volunteer with Pups n' Planes, the airport greeting committee. She wears her little pink coat, cheering up tired travelers at the San Antonio International Airport.
WESTWARD, HO! OR EAST, SOUTH, AND NORTH Welcome to the Life of a “Dog Transporter”
Workin' for a Living!
BY BERIT MASON
Mary Kay Tennant, a long-time Northwood resident, has a different kind of retirement plan. She spends her days rescuDogs with Jobs ing pups from terrible circumstances to drive them across the BY BERITto MASON country a loving home. “I was not doing anything, and a friend who got me into fostering asked me to transport some dogs, to keep them from Theeuthanized,” San Antonio says International being Tennant.Airport is HUGE! It recently broke a record, some people DAY, Other rescue groups heardflying about Mrs.15,000 Tennant, and Aher for a total of 10.36 million passengers phone started ringing off of the wall. in 2019. Passengers most certainly frequent the airport, but pups do too. “Sometimes I am paid, but it is basically gas, meals, and exMeet Bella. penses.” She transports dogs around Texas, but the evening Bella is a petite dog with light, wavy hair, offering everyone that we talked, she was preparing to go to Buffalo, New York— she meets the sweetest smile. Several hours a week, Bella and where the temperature was in the 20s. owner Bonnie Gioiello roam the airport, searching out the tired, “I have to transport 30 puppies, and with another driver, the weary, and the bored. we “If willthey drive four on and four Now, by myself, look uphours and smile, they arehours a dogoff. lover. If they don't, I’ve driven all the way to Indiana, and most recently, I did a trip to Mississippi in a day.” 34 APRIL 2020 | 78209magazine.com 38 MARCH 2021 | 78209magazine.com
After checking in at home, it was off to Memphis, Tennessee, to deliver nine dogs. “Somebody says: Let’s go somewhere. I say: How far? I am ready.” This volunteer job means going in all directions at once! A widow with two married daughters, her time is her own, so the intrepid 70-year-old rolls onto another off-the-beaten-path to collect more abandoned pups. Before they’re even loaded, here comes another email or voicemail, with instructions for her next run. “It is all different rescues, from Canada, from Michigan, New York, Connecticut, from right here in San Antonio.” Grants, foundations, and philanthropists fund many opera-tions. Airport therapy dogs help soothe people who may be upset because of a “Since there is such a stray problem in San Antonio and the long wait, delayed or cancelled flight. valley, a lot of dogs would be euthanized if rescues did not pick them up.”
