39 Photos
Dr. George Dempsey holds Blue Corn and Biscochito. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Pilot Dr. George Dempsey holds Biscochito and pilot David Reinbach holds Blue Corn after they arrived safely from New Mexico. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Pilot Dr. George Dempsey holds Biscochito and pilot David Reinbach holds Blue Corn after they arrived safely from New Mexico. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons Executive Director Scott Howe holds Biscochito and Blue Corn. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons Executive Director Scott Howe and Zia. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Dr. George Dempsey and Biscochito. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Pilot Dr. George Dempsey holds Biscochito and pilot David Reinbach with Blue Corn after they arrived safely from New Mexico. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Lauren Dempsey, the wife of pilot Dr. George Dempsey, meets Biscochito and Blue Corn. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons Executive Director Scott Howe holds Biscochito and Blue Corn after pilots Dr. George Dempsey, middle, and David Reinbach arrived from New Mexico. LAUREN DEMPSEY
Zia, the mother of the nine puppies, who were all rescued in New Mexico. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Biscochito and Blue Corn. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Dr. George Dempsey and Biscochito. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Dr. George Dempsey and Biscochito. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Pilot Dr. George Dempsey holds Blue Corn and Biscochito after he and pilot David Reinbach, with mom Zia, arrived safely from New Mexico with the rescued pups. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Pilot Dr. George Dempsey holds Biscochito after he and pilot David Reinbach, with Blue Corn in his arms and mom Zia on a leash, arrived safely from New Mexico with the rescued pups. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Pilot Dr. George Dempsey holds Biscochito after he and pilot David Reinbach, with Blue Corn in his arms and mom Zia on a leash, arrived safely from New Mexico with the rescued pups. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Pilot Dr. George Dempsey and Zia. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons Executive Director Scott Howe holds Biscochito and Blue Corn after pilots Dr. George Dempsey, middle, and David Reinbach, with mom Zia on leash, arrived from New Mexico. LAUREN DEMPSEY
Lauren Dempsey, the wife of pilot Dr. George Dempsey, meets Biscochito and Blue Corn. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Lauren Dempsey, the wife of pilot Dr. George Dempsey, meets Biscochito and Blue Corn. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Blue Corn and Biscochito. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons Executive Director Scott Howe holds Biscochito and Blue Corn. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons Executive Director Scott Howe holds Biscochito and Blue Corn. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons Executive Director Scott Howe holds Biscochito and Blue Corn after pilots Dr. George Dempsey and David Reinbach, not pictured, arrived from New Mexico. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Zia, the mother of the nine puppies, who were all rescued in New Mexico. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Zia, the mother of the nine puppies, who were all rescued in New Mexico. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Española Humane foster mom Anne Baker with volunteer pilots Jan Brentjens and Matthew Pellegrino with some of the puppies. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Anne Baker, who fostered of some of the puppies, and Española Humane Communications Director Mattie Allen before takeoff. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
En route. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
A view from above. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Puppies ready for takeoff. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
A scene from up above, during the first flight on November 19. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
On the ground in New Mexico, prepping for the second flight on November 22. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Ready for transport. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Pilots Jan Brentjens and Matthew Pellegrino pose with the precious cargo. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Pilot Matt Pellegrino and a puppy, ready for takeoff. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Pilot Matt Pellegrino and a puppy, ready for takeoff. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Puppies ready for transport. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Zia and her puppies, Blue Corn and Biscochito. COURTESY ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS
Dr. George Dempsey may have just found a new calling in life.
Last week, the medical director of East Hampton Family Medicine joined a team that transported nine puppies and their mother from rural New Mexico to the East End — where they are all available for adoption through the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons.
And by the end of their journey together, he had a hard time saying goodbye.
“It was a bit of a pull. It was funny — you don’t want to let them go,” Dempsey said, adding, “but it was the obligation that I have, not just to ARF, but to the concept that we want to open up this relationship.
“And that was really what I was trying to do, more than anything: make this way of getting these animals to where they need to go. And I think it’s really more possible than it ever was before.”
Earlier this fall in Española, a city just north of Sante Fe, a local mother found a 2-year-old shepherd mix, named Zia, and her nine babies behind her daughter’s dance studio. The dogs were scared and cold, and so she took them to Española Humane, the area’s animal shelter, for help.
But they were at capacity. Facing limited resources, the staff contacted ARF at the suggestion of Dempsey, who recently saw the situation in Española with his own eyes while visiting his cousin, Dr. Tom Parker, who is the director of medicine at the New Mexico shelter.
“We get there and they said, ‘We have 54 puppies,’ and I go, ‘What? Fifty-four puppies?’” Dempsey recalled. “They’re just overrun with uncontrolled animals. He spays 30 a day and they still can’t keep up. Can you imagine?”
On the East End, ARF was founded in 1974 to, initially, provide care and sanctuary for homeless cats and dogs, according to Executive Director Scott Howe. In the decades since, that crisis has abated, allowing for the shelter to take in strays from more strained areas, like Española.
“We regularly help shelters in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, but New Mexico, we start to get too far for us to drive,” Howe explained. “And so what I told Dr. Dempsey was, ‘This is great, we’d love to help. We’re limited because of what we can do during construction right now, but a litter of puppies, those won’t be here long at all.’ And the challenge was, though, how do we get them here? How do we get them here safely?”
After a month of coordination, two volunteer rescue flights were arranged for Zia and her puppies. Now 2 months old, seven of the nine puppies — Ristra, Yucca, Piñon, Osha, Sopaipilla, Frijoles and Chamisa — took their first trip in a plane with ARF’s partner, Four-Legged Fliers, piloted by Jan Brentjens and Matthew Pellegrino, which arrived at the East Hampton Airport on November 19.
Two days later, Zia and her remaining two puppies, Blue Corn and Biscochito, were flown by David Reinbach and Dempsey himself, who has been an avid pilot for over a decade.
“My plane’s smaller, so in the cargo area, I made a little den back in there,” he said. “So everyone was really happy and excited.”
They made the trip in two days, stopping every four hours for the puppies’ routine — “They eat, they poop, then they play, and then they sleep, and you just gotta follow that cycle,” Dempsey said with a laugh — and spent the night in Ohio, at a dog friendly hotel, before landing on the East End on November 22.
“The problem is, when you’re in the hotel and you spend the night with the puppies, and they’re in the bed, the next day, I didn’t want to give them up,” he said. “They each had a character — one was feisty, the other one was the sweet one. Biscochito was constantly bugging her sister, and you get to know them after a day and you get their personalities. You want to see where they’re going to end up. I’m excited to see where they end up — I’m sure I’ll run into the people.”
Howe anticipates that this is just the beginning of ARF’s relationship with Española Humane — and when the next litter of puppies is found in New Mexico, Dempsey will be first in line to bring them back home.
“I said, ‘Hey, maybe this is my next career, flying around the country with puppies and just giving them away everywhere I fly,’” he said. “That’d be great. Then they can travel all over and just enjoy flying all over the place, transferring puppies from one town to the other. It actually is possible. It really is.”
To apply to adopt Zia or one of her nine puppies, visit arfhamptons.org/adoptions/view-our-pets.
Michelle Trauring on Dec 1, 2022