At any given time, there are about 60,000 stray dogs on island. And, with a population of just 168,00 people, the unfortunate truth is, there just aren't enough homes for man's best friend. But that's changing with the folks at the Boonie Flight Project, packing up the puppies, putting them on a flight and giving them the "paw-pportunity" for a new life abroad.

"I was fostering three puppies and nobody wanted them, and I didn't want them either," Boonie Flight Project's Lauren Cabrera says. "So, I started reaching out to people stateside to see if maybe somebody would want these dogs and all of a sudden, you know, we had like tons of people who wanted the boonie dogs. This whole thing kind of started, my friend Kelcey and I, putting our heads together trying to figure out how to get dogs off-island in a cost-effective way. And, we're working with a shipper who's really amazing and helpful. Lisa Metter, she's the animal travel agent. And, she's been able to get us some discounts, so we can get the rescue dogs out of here at a more reasonable price, but it's still pretty expensive."

The group has managed to find some stateside fur-ever homes for 25 dogs in their first run and are expected to fly out over 22 more puppies this coming weekend. And, with one animal shelter on island, at capacity more often than not, the preflight process is pretty straightforward.

"The first round was kind of a test run," Cabrera says. "But, this round we've had a more organized process for the dogs. We've got most of our puppies from GAIN, this time around and Kelcey also caught a litter of puppies in the jungle. So, we take these puppies in and find them foster homes who can take care of them, make sure they're healthy, we get them vetted and we take really cute pictures of them and put them on our Facebook and post a link to the adoption application and within, usually within 24 hours, a puppy gets adopted."

Once the pups have been thoroughly vetted, Cabrera says they board a charter flight to Honolulu, and after a short layover, they'll start their stateside lives. And, with such great support so far, they've got some pretty big plans for 2021.

"Our big goal for this year is to charter our own flight and send a 100 dogs out at once to adopters and shelters and rescues so that we can empty out GAIN, get all the dogs out of GAIN pretty much. So, hopefully, we can do that."

To learn more about the Boonie Flight Project and how you can help, visit their Facebook and Instagram page at Boonie Flight Project or send an email to contact@boonieflightproject.com.

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