Alaska Airlines’ updated onboard animal policy has entered into effect and the list of approved animals has been substantially narrowed down.
Your dog and cat are still welcome as service animals. So is your miniature horse. That’s it.
Miniature horse? In all my years of flying I have never seen one in the air. In fact, unless we are talking about ponies, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a miniature horse in my life (they are not the same). But they do exist, typically standing between 2-3 feet tall and weighing between 70-100 pounds.
Even that size means the horse must stand in front of passengers in the bulkhead (first row) of the cabin. Can you imagine finding your seat only to be informed that your seatmate is traveling with her horse?
The New York Times shares why some prefer horses over dogs and cats:
The horses are sturdy, have longer life spans, can help those with mobility problems and have been known to guide people who are blind. Others may seek out the horses because they have religious objections to using dogs.
Note I’m talking about service animals here, those that guide passengers who suffer from physical disabilities including deafness and blindness. Alaska’s emotional support animal policy, covering mental health-related disabilities, permits only dogs and cats.
You can read the detailed rules here.
CONCLUSION
If you want to bring your emotional support monkey or bird on, fly United Airlines instead. Miniature horses are also allowed on United and Southwest as service animals. As for me, now I have another reason to avoid bulkhead rows…
One step closer to being able to bring my service Komodo Dragon on board.
I don’t understand why so many headlines are making the allowance of miniature horses as a farse. Under federal law they and dogs are the only approved species to work as service animals.
Another point that must be made: do not continue the stigma of psychiatric service animals being unequal with service animals for physical disabilities. They’re not just emotional support animals. They are just as highly trained as other service animals. They have actual tasks that they are trained to perform. They are just as important and life-saving. Emotional support animals don’t require any form of training and are less for disabilities and more for just mental health. If any doctor thinks a patient would have a better home life through pet ownership they prescribe an emotional support animal. People prescribed with emotional support animals aren’t mentally disabled, meaning they can function in life without limitations from their mental or emotional illness. People with psychiatric service animals are legally disabled and cannot function in daily life. Psychiatric service animals perform real tasks to assist their handlers through life such as preventing the handler from seriously injuring themselves or keeping strangers at a distance so the handler doesn’t have a meltdown. Emotional support animals only assist by existing and providing companionship at home; they’re pretty much just pet animals who can live anywhere and fly with their humans. An emotional support animal by law can be absolutely any animal because there doesn’t have to be any semblance of trainability since they don’t do any tasks or work; for that reason they are not allowed in public businesses, as they can pose a serious health risk. A service animal, whether for psychiatric disabilities or physical, must either be a dog or a miniature horse and must have a very high level of training including advanced obedience and potty training on top of their task work, and it’s for that reason that they are allowed in public businesses, as a properly chosen (for temperament to ensure the animal is not aggressive in any way) and trained animal cannot pose as much of a health risk. On top of that service animals are very well maintained and groomed so as to ensure the animal isn’t carrying all kinds of dirt and germs around on them and doesn’t shed all over every place they go to, whereas most pet animals aren’t very well groomed and ESAs are just pets with living privileges.
Please do not post your opinion on such a matter unless you are properly educated on it. It’s not only just bad journalism, it also assists in keeping all the stigmas that make living with disabilities extremely difficult. We don’t bring our medical equipment out for the sole purpose of inconveniencing others; in fact, we use service animals exactly for the purpose of not inconveniencing other people. We would need the care either way, it’s just whether a dog/horse does it or a person does it. Animals don’t express frustration or feeling inconvenienced like people do so it’s a much better option. If you feel so slighted by it, go to the courts and propose a law that says all disabled people should be killed to avoid inconveniences. I guarantee that won’t go well for you. So get used to medical equipment existing in your general peripheral viscinity.
Can I bring my T. rex,,,it’s really small
I wonder how you get a horse to be housebroken.
Howard, if you name your Kimodo Dragon “Horse” you should be able to bring it aboard. If that doesn’t work, and you are leaving from California, tell the gate agent his name is “Pot.”