HAYDEN — A chorus of barks and meows could be heard as soon as the aircraft door opened Thursday evening.

Nearly 100 dogs, cats and kittens couldn’t wait to put their paws on the ground in North Idaho after traveling from Hawaii on the largest pet rescue flight in history.

“Oh my goodness, it’s always an exciting thing to have pets come off the plane,” Kootenai Humane Society lead cat tech David Espen said after helping move dozens of furbaby-filled crates off the plane at the Coeur d’Alene Airport.

“You don’t know where they come from or where they’ve been, but you do know what you can do with them and for them,” he said. “We get to watch them get adopted and we can find great homes for them.”

The North Idaho-bound animals were transported on the Paws across the Pacific journey through efforts by Greater Good Charities and Wings of Rescue in partnership with the John R. Peterson Foundation and Animal Rescue Site to move more than 600 cats and dogs from overcrowded kill shelters in Hawaii to no-kill shelters in the Northwest.

Kootenai Humane Society received 10 of the dogs, while some went to Walla Walla and many were distributed in the Seattle area.

“It’s been amazing,” said Erin Robbins, vice president of Wings of Rescue.

She said the whole reason for this emergency flight is because pet shelters in Hawaii are in a COVID-19 crisis.

“None of the commercial flights were happening,” she said. “Normally, from Hawaii, with their pet overpopulation, they send them commercially, they have partners and it’s a well-oiled machine. Well, COVID hit, and now they’re having to euthanize. Of course, spay and neuter is the only thing to really help.”

This spectacular show of love for four-legged friends comes as Kootenai Humane Society is once again ramping up its capital campaign for a new shelter, which would double the capacity of its 40-year-old Hayden facility.

Rick Rasmussen, who is leading the campaign, said with less than $1 million, funding will be at 90% of the goal and construction can begin.

“We are so close to getting there,” he said. “This isn’t a pipe dream anymore.”

He said everything was moving along, but slowed to a trickle when COVID hit.

Now, with North Idaho’s population exploding — and the area pet population rising with the number of humans — it’s becoming increasingly urgent to move the shelter to its new home in a 24,000-square-foot facility on Atlas Road, where the land has been purchased, not leased, and KHS would have room to expand.

“We just need a couple community people to step up,” Rasmussen said.

Right now, staff and volunteers are crammed into nooks and crannies of what Rasmussen calls a “LEGO house” as they perform life-saving operations and keep their furry tenants healthy while they await their forever homes. Feral cats are stored in an outdoor wooden shelter because there’s nowhere else to put them. Dogs are moved to kennels outside while inside kennels are cleaned because space is so limited. Doors and floors have holes, scratches and punctures from years of use, and every bit of space in and on each cabinet has been filled.

“We did over 2,300 adoptions last year out of this facility,” KHS Board President Cindy Edington said. “We had over 3,700 procedures performed out of operating rooms that are outdated. This new building is not a want, it’s a need.”

“We can do better,” Rasmussen said. “We’re not building a Taj Mahal. We’re going to build right-sized, adequate, efficient and effective for the staff and the animals. People that are willing to step up and visit want to know where their money’s going, they’re going to know it’s well spent. It’s going to help these animals for the next 41 years.”

Email Rasmussen at Rick.Rasmussen@surgerypartners.com or Edington at CEdington@mountainwestbank.com to get involved and help KHS build its new home.

"We owe it to our animals," Rasmussen said.