Metro

Air man’s dogged pursuit

27.1n021.runawaydog2--300x300.jpg

(Getty Images)

(
)

The Port Authority worker who got down on his hands and knees to try to rescue a canny canine who wandered onto a busy runway at La Guardia airport Wednesday is a cat lover who is allergic to dogs, he lamented.

But Paul Malichek, 57, didn’t want to spook Byrdie — a 14-month-old Rhodesian ridgeback who had escaped her travel crate and turned the runway into her own private dog run — so he crawled toward her as jets idled nearby.

“Honestly, I’m allergic to dogs,” Malichek told The Post yesterday outside his Franklin Square, LI, home as his small black cat, Sassy, looked on.

“But I still think they’re great as long as they’re friendly.”

Malicheck (above yesterday) said as he inched toward Byrdie, he worried that she might bolt and run into the spinning propeller of a small plane nearby or get sucked into a jet engine.

“There was another jet nearby, so she was running in between the two crafts and I thought she may end up running into the propeller,” he said. “She could have died.”

Malichek is a Port Authority operations supervisor at the airport, but 18 years ago, he had a different job: La Guardia’s operation-services supervisor in charge of wildlife management. So he was no stranger to runaways on the runway.

And that’s why he hit the deck trying to calm the pooch (top). Unfortunately, Byrdie thought he was playing a game.

“I knew that I had to get down low on my knees — that was how I was able to get the last dog to come to me back, in 1994,” he said. “The idea is that you have to get down low so that you don’t threaten the dog. I was getting closer and closer, but she was being playful so I couldn’t quite get close enough to her.

“She ran back and forth, got closer and closer to me, then ran away just as I was about to catch her.”

Airport officials finally had to take the dog’s owner, Austin Varner, 26, off of her Memphis-bound Delta flight to help them snare Byrdie.

“She had some dog bones or treats,” said Malichek.