As debate continues over emotional support animals onboard airplanes, we must ask ourselves this question: how can we ensure a dog doesn’t attack a child onboard a plane?
That’s exactly what happened onboard a Southwest Airlines flight on Wednesday evening. The flight was traveling from Phoenix to Portland, Oregon. During boarding, a six year old girl approached an emotional support dog across the aisle from her.
Southwest spokeswoman Melissa Ford told the Washington Post the owner of the dog told the child not to approach it. But she did, and the dog bit her.
Southwest added–
Initial reports indicate a support dog’s teeth scraped a child’s forehead as the young passenger approached the animal, causing a minor injury. EMTs evaluated the child, who was cleared to continue on the flight. The dog and its owner remained in Phoenix as the aircraft departed approximately 20 minutes behind schedule. As always, the safety of our Customers is our highest priority.
This is the dog:
Thoughts
You may think, well…the owner told the girl not to approach the dog. She got what she had coming to her…
Stop.
Southwest emotional support animal guidelines require that a dog be well-behaved:
Service and emotional support animals must be trained to behave in a public setting. If an animal behaves poorly, it may be denied boarding.
If your dog bites people who approach it, it is not trained to behave in a public setting.
It’s that simple.
But what is not so simple is how to deal with this recurring problem.
Don’t Generalize
I’ll admit it. Every story likes this makes stronger my conviction that emotional support animals should be prohibited. That’s my bias.
But I truly want to be sensitive and not sensationalize news like every airline crash (even though commercial air travel remains far and away the safest way to travel). I know there are veterans scarred by war who use emotional support animals to help their PTSD. I know there are many others young and old who use these animals honestly and as they were intended.
But something needs to change. An animal biting another passenger is simply unacceptable. It starts with better paperwork. Where it ends? We’ll see.
This is pure outrage. I agree with you that the emotional support animal BS has to stop! Can’t wait to hear people come to the dog’s defense with their faulty logic!
Passengers cause way more problems on airlines compared to ESA’s. Your statement is just ignorant. Evidence based medicine shows there is a clear benefit of having ESA’s for those who qualify. Obviously there are people who abuse this but that happens in literally every aspect of life. I think airlines should require letters from doctors saying some passengers are mentally capable to fly but that is not going to happens. I get it, you don’t want animals on the plane. Run for Congress and change the laws. Other than that stop complaining every chance you get.
I never suggested that ESAs cause more problems than passengers. I also agree that ESAs may benefit those who qualify. That is not what this is about.
Not every dog shown as an ESA is actually one. If Im not mistaken there is no legal definition for an ESA. (Please correct me if Im wrong).
The fact remains that the system is being misused by many irresponsible pet owners who are only serving to make life difficult for responsible ones, and especially seeing / guide / support dogs.
People have horrible allergies to pet dander too. We never had to worry about pets before, they should have a separate area and let the people that cant be without their animals in that area. I get sick now at places that were safe for me years before. The grocery store, the mall, restaurant, vitamin stores!! Its insane…There is no place to hide for people like me who really are allergic to animals!! I had to give up my 2 bulldogs whom I loved when I had intestinal surgery….People have real problems with allergies too, so who is more important, the human or the animal???
As I understand the issue the solution is happening. Airlines are not prohibiting support animals but they are requiring paperwork that make a health professional think twice before signing. The way I understand it the health professional (vet) has to declare the animal as not representing a danger to others.
IMHO if the vet does not want to sign I do not want this animal onboard with me.
I travelled years ago with my autistic child and some people thought it was within their rights to criticize all the while while they were breaking Federal law by turning on a cell phone to check the time. (By the way, my son did not leave his seat or make undue noise while on board. JetBlue crew was helpful, lets us board last and dropped off chips whenever they past our row.)
Ugh…poor dog with a stupid owner. People have such distorted views of the animal they love, that they don’t realize what they’re doing. I know that some people truly benefit from well-trained support animals, so it doesn’t make sense to ban the whole idea. I dunno man… When you adopt a dog there’s a scale they use to tell how aggressive that dog is. Maybe they require that information to be submitted to the airline? Poor kid hope she heals up quickly.
Possibly a required mussel for large animals, and a required carrier for small animals? I agree though, unacceptable and needs to change. In the end even a dog that’s been given a clear by a vet is still an instinctual animal that can snap at any point.
I agree that a note from a vet does not transform the animal into being absolutely safe. My point is that the vet knows this and will not issue said letter. Fear of lawsuits works well in our society.
https://www.bumas.us/frontpage. My family member has both PTSD issues and travels to the US mainland for cancer treatment. His 25lb emotional support animal has many miles under her belt, has never bitten anyone and has traveled both in a carrier and without one. I agree that any animal that is allowed on board should either be muzzled or in a carrier. But allowances should be made for people requiring ESA’s to travel with them.
I attached a link to a company in Austria that offers custom made muzzles. I’m hoping to order one for my family member in anticipation of airlines changing their current rules and/or requiring a muzzle. Has anyone had experience with this company? https://www.bumas.us/frontpage
It’s time to ban untrained “Emotional Support Animals” from planes unless they fully comply with carry on guidelines. If you need a pet to fly then it needs to be a properly trained service animal with appropriate documentation period.
@ Theodore: love the idea of muzzles!
If it reassures the traveling public that your ESA will not harm other passengers, I support muzzles as well.
I’m coming to the conclusion that the only answer is to require that any service animal carry a training certificate from a proper training academy/school. That should stamp out most of the abuse. I doubt most people trying to scam the airlines out of a pet fee will be willing to pay to have their animals properly trained.
@MeanMeosh: This may be the answer.
When did our culture become a bunch of wimps. Go to a Shrink, Get some an RX for Xanax. Grow a pair. Your emotional instability should not trump the other 142 passengers on the plane. I am sick and tired of pretentious egotistical people not taking responsibility for their actions. If you are afraid of flying, DRVIE!!!!!!
I would be absolutely upset if a dog bit my kid. Yes, the owner said not to approach the dog, but, if you have kids, you know that kids don’t always listen when they see something they want. Kids can get scarred for life and develop a lifelong fear of dogs because of trauma at a young age. I would be out of my mind if that happened to one of my kids.
@Lee: I agree!
An ESA is useful for a lot of people, but large dogs are in the way, what if there was an evac?? The ESA loophole is exploited is because its way too expensive to fly a dog or cat. Of course, a large animal should be in the hold, which, if we remember the horror stories, is dangerous, so probably should only be moved in extreme circumstances. Airlines have brought this on themselves by making the pet fee too high and encouraging fake ESAs. When its cheaper for me to go and get an ESA cert than it is to fly my cat once, that’s a broken system. I think airlines are pushing this narrative so that they can get more pet fees out of passengers. For instance, 250 r/t for a small crated or carrier contained animal, that is keeping most of its dander and fur inside the box, is insane. Charging for an animal mess? Having to put down a large deposit? That make sense. But when a cert costs 150-200, and you intend to fly twice, why wouldn’t a careless and borderline unethical dog or cat owner take advantage. SWA used to be 75 each way, its now 95 (and this is the cheapest I know of). That 75 was under higher jet fuel costs of 2008-2010 or so. Does it cost 20 dollars more now? How did that fee get calculated? Just 250 r/t is pure greed.
As ESAs aren’t like guide dogs, they’re more there to help you cope with your emotional state. How do you train a cat to provide emotional support? But, making people get their dogs trained and not bite people is normal. I’m surprised the dog was not put down. Dogs that bite often are.
Also, as people start to talk about mental illness, unless you’ve been to therapy and revisit as new things happen, we all have mental issues. Just circumstances mean that most of us can work around our mental states, bad parental modeling, blind spots, substance use, and/or daily stress and not need an animal to function. If your circumstance changes, you can end up like the crazy man on the subway or the strange woman bringing a peacock ;). . As John Bradford said, “there but for the grace of God go I”. Just scammers make this system sad. Time to remove the financial incentive to cheat rather than just purely making it harder for mentally unstable people.
This all said, I do totally support the higher paperwork, and more training, but wish we hadn’t had this problem in the first place by raising fees so high and killing animals in the hold that people are that driven to game the system.
I’m with the dog on this one.
Can we band kids too? I had a cut in my arm from one of them kicking my seat. Why wife had a sore back after a three hour flight when a parent let their kid play drums on the seat back in front of them the whole time. Did the dog scream the entire trip, lay down in the aisle and throw a tantrum, have it’s diaper changed on the tray table, throw up all over the stranger next him/her, etc?
Sorry, one more incident with a dog and everyone screams………and ignores the countless flights daily that are made horrible by screaming, unruly, gross kids. Can we require kids have an obedience certificate too?
Now here come the “but children are humans” folks. Doesn’t make it any better! Even worse, HIGHLY unlikely you can ever catch an illness from a dog/cat. But from another human, very likely. Parents have the attitude of “I’m better and deserve this because I have a kid”. Makes me want to puke all over that kid next to me. Big deal, you know how procreation works……here’s your award.
A working dog, be it service or emotional support, should NEVER be petted, the kid’s parents are to blame. Heck, have the same kid try to pet a bomb sniffing or drug sniffing dog and the officer will yell at you to DO NOT TOUCH. And trust me, even highly trained police dogs could still nip at a kid grabbing at it….course they would probably do a LOT worse than what happened here.
What happened to the old days when dogs had to be checked in kennels?
Children must be trained to behave in a public setting, that includes leaving other peoples dogs alone.
I would have hated to be your child.
110% agree. The worst are those crunchy mamas who call their kids Indigo & Crystal kids, and allow them to behave like jackasses.
Meh. Arguments to change policies because of isolated incidents — much less these vague reports of a “scraped” child — are pleas aimed at emotion and not reason, and not very convincing. If it were, you should focus on one of the many — many — cases of beloved pets dying in transit because their owners put them below. The body count generated by the airlines transporting dogs as baggage is staggeringly high, and if the risks were similar for human passengers nobody would fly. And consider also that the airlines are largely unaccountable for pet deaths, as the law treats them as just another piece of baggage, and they have little incentive to care or improve.
Until this is fixed, I won’t blame anybody for bringing their pets on board by any means necessary.
That combined with an unreasonable fee leads to a perfect storm. d
@Jason, did you ask the parents to control their child? and if that did not work, did you speak with the FA about the behavior? I’ve done this a couple times. Not terribly comfortable to say but well within your rights as a human being.
I think that many people would mind paying a fee, or even buying a seat, to bring their pet on the plane. The problem is though that if it is not an ESA, it can’t come in the cabin, full stop. And so we have many ESAs.
I should add that I commonly have dogs on my flights and I’ve never seen a single issue. I have though seen many misbehaving children, and more than a handful of misbehaving adults. Given all the problems one can encounter while flying, problems posed by ESAs seems very far down on the list.
That is supposed to be “wouldn’t mind” in the first line. Whoops.
If you are worried about your dog, how about leaving him at a kennel instead of dragging him on an airplane? Unless you are relocating, there is no reason to bring a pet on an airplane trip. If you are so fragile that you actually need “emotional support,” then bring your mommy along for the ride. And, let’s stop using “vetrerans with PTSD” as a straw man. If there’s a combat vet on an airplane, then perhaps we should give them an upgrade to first class instead. The only animals that should be allowed in the cabin are actual, trained service animals. Period. As a compromise, I would be ok with a kenneled animal in the cabin provided that the passenger purchased a seat for the animal. If emotions are so fragile as to require an animal, then the fragile person ought to be more than willing by to buy said animal a seat and confine the animal for the duration of the trip.
Dogs should only bite crying children flying in First.
We are at the point of no common sense in this country. ESA should not be a thing. Flying is not a right. If you can’t fly without your pooch then drive. I love dogs and have one myself but I would never pull this crap. The problem is that we don’t force service animals to be licensed. I think that we should. I also see people bringing their dogs in to supermarkets and eating establishments. They just go online spend $15 and buy a little vest that says service animal. Service animals are highly trained and a REQUIREMENT for the people that have them. They are the only animals that should be allowed in the cabin. I guarantee you that if the ESA program were ended then these people would still fly. Just like that girl who flushed her hamster. She couldn’t possibly fly without him but when it came down to missing her flight she killed the poor animal so she could get on the plane.
I think the government has messed up flying enough without allowing them to decide whom to give a dog license to. People like to look to the government to solve every little problem, but the solution the government gives us is worse than the original problem . . . in every single instance.
Why on Earth are these fake service animals not required to wear a muzzle?
It’s time they all get banned… it’s been enough.
Emotional support animals is pure BS! I´m all in favor of banning them on all commercial flights, PERIOD!
“I’m suspicious of people who don’t like dogs, but I trust a dog when it doesn’t like a person” – Bill Murray
It was a six year old little girl!
It was just a little nip. Seriously, what’s the big deal??
The next one might not be just a little nip. Part of being a responsible parent includes ensuring that your child, be it two or four legged knows how to behave in public. I doubt this is the first time this dog has nipped at someone.
PS (Im the parent to two doggies.
Meh – removing the dog from the plane violates its rights and is a hate crime. If the dog is in this country illegally, California airport officials are not even allowed to cooperate in deplaning the dog.
“If your KID approaches dogs after being told not to, it is not trained to behave in a public setting. It’s that simple.”
It wasn’t even a nip. Even the dog haters are admitting it was a scrape, like the brat pushed her face too close to the dog. (and yes you are a dog hater if you can’t figure out the dog & owner were not the offenders here.)
The dog should be euthanized.