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Five thousand dogs are escaping from death row this week — by airplane.

In what’s being called the world’s largest airlift of homeless pets, this week Pilots N Paws is seeking to transport 5,000 animals to safety in a flurry of flights designed to raise awareness of the charity and draw attention to the importance of spaying and neutering. The pilots donate their time, planes and fuel.

Thousands of animals have been saved by rehoming them to new locations — like  Lady Di, a purebred collie whose owner, unable to give her away in a Walmart parking lot, dumped her at a shelter in Clanton, Alabama where in an average week hundreds of dogs are euthanized because there is not enough space to house them.

Lady Di, according to an Associated Press report, managed to escape that fate thanks to private pilot Jeff Bennett, a volunteer with Pilots N Paws, a group that moves pets from overwhelmed shelters to communities where they’ll stand a better chance of adoption, and a lesser chance of being euthanized. Lady Di was flown to Tampa by Bennett, a retired Florida Keys businessman, who took a dozen dogs on the trip as well. In Tampa, rescue groups picked them up to care for them until new homes could be found.

Bennett has transported 124 animals for Pilots N Paws in the past year — including snakes, lizards, a chicken and a potbellied pig .

Pilots N Paws got its start in February 2008 when a Knoxville, Tenn., pilot named Jon Wehrenberg offered to fly his friend, Debi Boies, from her home near Greenville, S.C., to Florida to pick up a Doberman pinscher she wanted to adopt from a rescue group. Wehrenberg asked Boies if there would be a regular need for such a thing.

Was there ever. Rescue groups have long moved animals from high-kill shelters around the country, a task that usually involves long car trips.

The website for Pilots N Paws now serves as a forum where shelters and rescue groups can hook up with pilots. Boies says more than 680 pilots have already transported thousands of animals all over the country.

The Muncie Police Department is getting a new K-9, courtesy of Ozzy Osbourne and son.

The “Prince of Darkness,” who was often shown interacting with his family’s dogs on their MTV reality show, was recently convinced by his son Jack to buy the Indiana police department a new K9 officer, according to the StarPress in central Indiana.

“Jack and Ozzy are sending the check either this week or next week and then we’ll go get him,” said police Sgt. Jay Turner. The department plans to name the new dog Ozzy.

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A Louisville man with a lengthy arrest record has been charged with second-degree cruelty to animals for allegedly throwing a pit bull off the Clark Memorial Bridge into the Ohio River.

Damon D. Bledsoe, 39, of 210 E. Ormsby Ave., was arrested Tuesday morning and arraigned Wednesday.

Four witnesses contacted Louisville’s Metro Animal Services to report that Bledsoe allegedly spoke of throwing the dog off the bridge, and allegedly threatened to do the same to a witnesses’ cats.

The dog survived the 80-foot fall to the river and was adopted by a waitress at a nearby Joe’s Crab Shack who witnessed the rescue.

Court records show Bledsoe has been arrested on 99 separate charges since 2002, ranging from domestic violence to disorderly conduct to theft to public intoxication, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Kelsey Westbrook, the waitress who adopted the pit bull and named her Sunny, said the dog has recovered from her minor injuries and is “as happy as she can be.”

“She’s a 60-pound lapdog. … She’s got a little bit of separation anxiety, which I think is expected given what she’s been through. I think she trusts me now and knows I’m not going to leave her or put her in danger.”

Earlier this summer, Westbrook faced the loss of her apartment because she had adopted the pit bull, but she said the building got a new landlord who has let her and Sunny remain.