Emotional support animals & airplanes

[smoke665]

horse is nuthin' more than a big dog.

Having had several horses in my younger days they are similar to dogs in forming attachments to their owners.

 

[Dave442]

Apparently in Colorado it is common to have your support animal with you everywhere.

I saw a bit on the news a few years back where they were running trials to use miniature horses as proper service/guide animals. The 25-30 or so lifespan being a big bonus over dogs who live half to a third of that period of time; plus with the strict requirements having another breed of animal means enlarging the potential pool of candidates.

... A horse is nuthin' more than a big dog.

This little horse was much better behaved than the two dogs that started barking at each other during the next stop at a home depot (there were three dogs in the home depot with another two outside). I have five dogs around the house, I suppose when I go to the store it is to get away from them for a while.

 

[smoke665]

Last month while we were traveling we were pleasantly surprised at the number of places (towns, parks, malls, stores and even restaurants) in Florida that were dog friendly. Unfortunately as we got deeper into the state around the more populated areas there were warnings up everywhere about Canine Flu. That's something we hadn't had Sadie vaccinated for, so she didn't get to go much.

 

[vintagesnaps]

How about a cuddlekin instead?

Stuffed Peacocks and Plush Peacocks at Stuffed Safari

If someone cannot cope with traveling without their pet peacock maybe they really need to rethink getting on a plane - maybe try a train? a bus? something, leave the pet with a caregiver. Good grief.

 

[Jamesaz]

Caged poultry in overhead racks was a given on central American buses a while back. There was more legroom though.

 

[smoke665]

Apparently "emotional support" isn't worth all that much anymore!!!

Spirit Airlines employee told student to flush emotional support hamster down the toilet, student alleges

 

[terri33 4]

Apparently "emotional support" isn't worth all that much anymore!!!

Spirit Airlines employee told student to flush emotional support hamster down the toilet, student alleges

If that happened the way the student claims it did, that is revolting. Not funny to me at all.

 

[smoke665]

If that happened the way the student claims it did, that is revolting. Not funny to me at all.

Doesn't really matter if an airline employee said it or not (which the airline denies by the way), but if I had an "emotional support" animal, no way in H*** someone would convince me to destroy the animal in such a way. I fault the idiot girl. Had an employee told me I couldn't take Sadie, we would have left together.

 

[terri33 4]

We don't know the whole story, I will agree. But there's a big difference between how an older person such as yourself, with more resources and choices on how to get out of such a situation, and a young college student who apparently believed what she was being told and, according to the story, tried without success to get some help.

Placing blame on the victim like this seems callous, at best.

 

[terri33 4]

If that happened the way the student claims it did, that is revolting. Not funny to me at all.

Doesn't really matter if an airline employee said it or not (which the airline denies by the way), but if I had an "emotional support" animal, no way in H*** someone would convince me to destroy the animal in such a way. I fault the idiot girl. Had an employee told me I couldn't take Sadie, we would have left together.

And how does this hifalutin' reply excuse your amusement over the story, regardless of how it went down?

Guess we have different ideas of what's funny.

 

[limr30 3]

When I was in college in Florida, I bought a parakeet. Macoco. I loved that little bird so much. When I flew home for the holidays that year, I brought her with me. I put her in a shoebox, poked holes in the top and kept it secured with rubber bands, and brought her on the plane with me. No problem (well, except I made the holes too big and she almost escaped in the plane! Had to keep them partially covered with paper.) When I was flying back, the woman at the ticket desk at the gate told me that I had to buy a ticket for the bird. I didn't have to on the way up so I was confused. As it turned out, I never had to buy her a ticket after that, either, even from the same airport, but I didn't know that at the time, so I felt like I had no choice but to pony up extra money for a ticket for my parakeet. I still remember it was $50, which was a huge deal for me at the time.

Thank goodness I wasn't being asked to do anything worse than pay extra money, but even if I had been told to essentially kill my bird, I was lucky enough to have choices. My family was close by and I could ask for help. I was also not old enough to rent a car, but maybe I could have taken a train or something. I would not have flushed my bird. Still, by refusing to do so, I would have been causing myself and my parents more stress and expense. I was lucky enough to have family who would have understood and the ability to deal with that expense and stress.

This girl didn't have the same choices - and in fact felt like she had no choices. She obviously had difficulty standing up for herself (not everyone has the confidence or ability to stand up to authority figures.) That's called being young and scared and inexperienced, not idiotic.

 

[smoke665]

If that happened the way the student claims it did, that is revolting. Not funny to me at all.

Doesn't really matter if an airline employee said it or not (which the airline denies by the way), but if I had an "emotional support" animal, no way in H*** someone would convince me to destroy the animal in such a way. I fault the idiot girl. Had an employee told me I couldn't take Sadie, we would have left together.

And how does this hifalutin' reply excuse your amusement over the story, regardless of how it went down?

Guess we have different ideas of what's funny.

Funny as in sarcasm with the way this world works. This was not a poor little defenseless victim. She was a college student who should have been charged with animal cruelty. Like so many today she's trying to become the victim now to escape the consequences of her actions. How did she get to the airport? She had friends if she would have waited. She had money to rent a car, she could have taken a cab to a hotel, or a cab to a bus station, she could have called her parents, or as the article pointed out, "PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch told Fox News: "One phone call could have saved this animal, or some kind person at the airport could have helped". Instead she did something horrible so it didn't affect her plans.

So yeah I think its funny, funny that she tried to play the "emotional support" game and it didn't work. Funny that when it came to her having to act like a responsible pet owner she bailed, so it wouldn't interfere with her selfish plans. Funny that she somehow thinks she can lay the blame for her actions on someone else. Instead of press coverage for her sueing the airline, how about press coverage of her being issued a citation for her action maybe then I wouldn't think it funny.

 

[BananaRepublic]

Apparently "emotional support" isn't worth all that much anymore!!!

Spirit Airlines employee told student to flush emotional support hamster down the toilet, student alleges

I got a good core workout when I heard on the radio what the girl did with the hamster , what a dope

 

[limr30 3]

I find it amazing how you are able to know exactly what was in the mind of a 21-year-old woman. How do you do it? It must be a gift to be able to know exactly what she was thinking and feeling, what her capability of making desicions was like.

See, I have to get information from, say, reading the article.

She was in college in PA. The Baltimore airport looks like the closest big airport to the college town, but still a couple of hours away. She was trying to get home to Miami. So her "selfish plans" were to GO HOME.

She is 21 years old. You have to be 25 to rent a car. We have no idea how much money she had, or how supportive her parents would have been if she called them for money. Maybe she did call them and they were jerks to her. Or maybe they were sympathetic but couldn't help. We don't know.

The airline says that no one who worked for them told her to do this. Well, if they said so, it MUST be true, right? I mean, a company would NEVER try to cover their asses to avoid liability, RIGHT? So did an employee actually instruct the woman to flush her hamster? We don't know.

So, "playing the emotional support card"? How are we supposed to know? Are you all mind readers? You know exactly what it feels like to be a scared 21-year-old woman far away from home? You would know exactly how to handle the situation if you were her instead of you?

She's been called an "idiot" and a "dope" in the past couple of posts. Maybe she is actually not particularly smart and isn't very good at thinking through problems and finding alternatives. We don't know that either. But even if she is, how in the hell does that also mean she is being callous and manipulative and lying about the whole thing "for her selfish plans"?

I find the massive assumptions and the lack of compassion quite disturbing.

 

[tirediron]

...She's been called an "idiot" and a "dope" in the past couple of posts. Maybe she is actually not particularly smart and isn't very good at thinking through problems and finding alternatives. We don't know that either. But even if she is, how in the hell does that also mean she is being callous and manipulative and lying about the whole thing "for her selfish plans"?

I find the massive assumptions and the lack of compassion quite disturbing.

Do you really think that someone who is (1) an adult; and (2) intelligent enough to attend post-secondary education would not have the perspicacity and awareness to understand what she was doing? I'm sorry, but irrespective of WHAT she was told, and WHAT her plans were, her actions were wrong on EVERY level. She wants to go home? Sure, that's nice. She can't take her pet? Okay... well, two choices: Change her plans or... change her plans. When you take on the responsibility of animal stewardship, it's not a "while it's convenient" or "as long as I feel like it", it's a "til the end" responsibility. The size, species or type of animal is utterly irrelevant. This was a callous, cruel and utterly inhumane act for which she should be punished severely!