So far, karma has worked for Spirit, a strawberry blond dog found along the side of Northshore Road on St. Croix one night before Christmas. Spirit is lucky because the person who picked her up has a good chance of finding a permanent home for her and getting the pup to the mainland if a home is available there.
Donna Cascarelli, who makes the nonprofit program Pets From Paradise work, has been providing foster care for Spirit, who she describes as a sweet, gentle canine. Cascarelli thinks the dog is 1-2 years old and probably a chow/golden retriever mix. She weighs about 30 pounds. The dog was diagnosed with heartworm, so Cascarelli is keeping Spirit in her home until she completes an expensive six-week prescribed treatment period, after which Spirit will be healthy and ready for adoption. In the case a home isn’t found in the territory, Cascarelli said she will find a way to fly Spirit to a stateside rescue or permanent home.
"It will be hard to give her up,” Cascarelli said. “She’s such a sweetie, but I have to make room for the next foster (dog)."
Pets From Paradise is a 501 c 3 non-profit within the St. Croix Animal Welfare Center. With the help of other advocates, sporadic funding has been found to pay for pet travel and Cascarelli made contacts with rescue operations and animal shelters in the U.S.
Currently there are about 50 locations that accept pets from the territory.
"If anyone considers adopting from the States, I always line up a partner rescue in the area who will be ready to step in and accept the animal if it doesn’t work out," Cascarelli said. "Adopting a pet sight-unseen can easily turn out to be a bad match, even with the best of intentions, so it’s reassuring to everyone to have that contingency plan in place."
According to airline regulations, all pets traveling from St. Croix must be accompanied by a human, who picks up or meets the pet at the airport, carries it on board and makes sure it is picked up at the destination by the designated entity.
Only a few cats have traveled with Pets From Paradise because there are only two partner rescues that accept cats – in Washington, D.C., and New York. Cascarelli said it is hard to find travelers willing to travel with cats because many people have allergies and getting through TSA holding a feline can be tricky.
Since 2004, approximately 2,000 pets were placed in stateside homes through Pets From Paradise, according to statistics from the St. Croix Animal Welfare Center and the FixIt Foundation. Statistics were not available for 2009 and 2010.
During the years that more pets were placed, the euthanasia rate at was lower. In 2004, 77 percent of 4,057 animals were put to sleep and 326 pets flew north.
Last year, only 172 animals were transported to the states and the euthanasia rate was said to be 81 percent. More than 2,800 animals were taken into the shelter in 2013 and, while the intake numbers decreased slightly, about four out of five animals that end up in the shelter every year to not make it out.
Spirit can be flown to many U.S. cities. To see Spirit in action, click here for a short video.
For more information, to travel with a pet or to make a donation for airfare, call Cascarelli at 340-718-1850 or email petsfromparadise@stcroixawc.org. Donations are tax deductible.
