Mission Impawsible: Reuniting pets with their families during COVID-19
Move over, Tom Cruise — we have a new group of action heroes who are stepping up during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kyla Robertson and her husband faced the heart-wrenching prospect of going through the pandemic without their dog. Robertson and her husband were returning to Vancouver after spending the past two years in China, but they couldn’t secure a flight for their rescue terrier.
They quickly realized this wasn’t a novel problem, created a WeChat group for people looking to find flights for their pets in hopes of being reunited, and Mission Impawsible was born.
The Mission Impawsible GoFundMe campaign has raised nearly $39,000 at the time of this writing, approaching their goal of $100,000.
"It's been a whirlwind and definitely never in my wildest dreams did I think that creating a WeChat group was going to lead me here six weeks later," Kyla Robertson said to CNN. "Chartering a flight across the ocean for my dog."
Robertson chartered a plane from Shanghai to Vancouver then Seattle for a flight that will take off on July 18 and carry over 100 dogs and cats.
"It's just been kind of one of those things where we've been like ... at first, 'Whoa, can we even pull off something like this?'" Robertson said. "We don't even know each other, we haven't even met in person, we're from different places.”
Robertson’s kindness and quick thinking has been lauded by the other members of the WeChat group.
“I've never met Kyla and she's willing to accompany my dog on a 12-hour flight. And that's amazing," Ontario resident Kailtlyn Hooper said to CNN. "When the world has been so dark for the last few months, it's really added a lot of light in the last few days."
I can’t speak for everyone but a flight full of dogs is one I’d love to be on. Here’s to Robertson and the rest of Mission Impawsible being reunited with their pets in a time where we could all use some unconditional love.
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