A dog is a man’s best friend, as the saying goes. A local pilot is doing his best to return the favor.
When he’s not working on his patients’ teeth at High Peaks Dental in Lake Placid, N.Y., 48-year-old D.J. O’Neill takes to the skies in his single-propeller airplane – a red and white Cessna 185 Skywagon I, to be exact – to rescue dogs from animal shelters in other parts of the U.S.
“I’m a sucker for a dog,” O’Neill told the Enterprise recently. “I just want to help them out because they need people to speak for them. So it was like, ‘Yeah, I can step up and do this.'”
O’Neill, who grew up in White River Junction, Vt., fell in love with flying at age 10. His father was also a pilot and owned a 1948 Stinson airplane. O’Neill would often tag along with his father on flights, but there was one problem.
For the complete story by Chris Morris of The Adirondack (Saranac Lake, N.Y.) Daily Enterprise, click here.
Photo by Chris Morris
