Pet Taxi Driver Killed In Crash While Transporting Dog To Vet

KANSAS CITY — David Hosch dedicated his life in recent years to animals.

“As far as I’m concerned, every animal I transport becomes my animal,” Hosch wrote on his Sunflower Animal Transport website. “Even if just for a short time.”

Hosch, 39, started the pet taxi business in 2019 and traveled around the country to save animals, KSHB reported. He died Monday, along with one of the many dogs he had helped, in a crash in Douglas County, Kansas.

The man was beloved by animal shelters across the Kansas City area.

"He went thousands of extra miles for us," Judy Katterhenrich, a volunteer who coordinates animal transport at Always & Furever in Spring Hill, Kansas, told KSHB. "So when a dog is adopted out of state and needs transport, that's who takes him, and sometimes he will do it at a moment's notice."

Hosch was taking Annabelle, one of the dogs from the Spring Hill sanctuary who was staying with a foster family, to a vet clinic in Lawrence when his van collided with a semi. The semi driver, a 66-year-old man, was injured in the crash but is expected to survive, according to KSHB.

Shannon Smith, who works for the Kansas City English Bulldog Rescue, told KSHB that Hosch’s death “made the rescue world dim a little.” Bulldogs were among Hosch’s favorite, and he helped to transport more than a dozen over the years, Smith said.

"David welcomed them into his van and showered them with love and affection, and promised them they were on their way to their best life ever. And he was the person to get them there, and he did it time and time again."