It’s Time to End the Scam of Flying Pets
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Edit: I figured it out. Pack animals.
Pedantically, only dogs are service animals under ADA regs (28 CFR 35.104), but guide horses have very similar rules under the ADA.
2. If you're allergic to a support animal, you should leave.
Why is one of those more acceptable than the other?
People are contending the claim of "need". Nobody is seriously contesting the right to fly of service animals, as defined under the Americans with Disabilities Act [1].
A system cannot be designed where people in group 1 don't encounter anxieties when they fly.
So, from a pure, amoral optimization standpoint, it's better to have a system where people in both groups can fly than one where people in only one group can fly.
(Which I think is the position you're advocating.)
This argument requires holding support animal in tube is already foregone conclusion.
Per my other comment [1], there is a muddling of terms going about. Service Animals [2] are "individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability." They are well-behaved and medically mandated. They are also legally protected by the ADA.
Emotional-support animals may have been medically prescribed but, critically, are not necessarily trained [3]. Heinously, some people claim their pets are emotional-support animals despite lacking the medical prescription. (They do this to skip the fee airlines charge for transporting an untrained pet.)
Nobody is assailing Service Animals. Some are upset about emotional-support animals. Most are upset about non-medically prescribed animals' owners misrepresenting them as emotional-support or Service animals.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16311646
We're talking about the relationship between two things. The rights of the allergy sufferer versus the rights of the animal owner. The weight of the latter varies with medical necessity and the risk the animal poses to others on the plane.
Allergies are a medical condition. Service animals are trained animals serving a medical need. Emotional-support animals also serve a medical need, but being untrained come with a greater safety and comfort risk. Pets don't serve a medical need; when represented as emotional-support animals, they're being transported by someone who made a false and willful misrepresentation to the airline for monetary gain.
A lot of the people who need support animals are war veterans, people who've endured horrific accidents, rape victims. I got my dog from a labradoodle breeder who trains puppies to detect epileptic seizures. I used to mock these people, when I was uninformed.
He's not rebutting the argument that people cheat. In fact, the more seriously you take the idea of emotional support animals, the more repulsive the cheaters probably are to you.
It seems like there might be an opportunity hiding in here for carriers to offer certain animal-friendly routes, but there's probably still a lot of liability issues to work out in there. I'd bet you could make it significantly cheaper than pet boarding, though, for a lot of trips.
Your point about sloppy trend-chasers is a good one, but at least so far, she's not had an issue.
If you have $100,000 to go to med school, you have $250 to fly the dog properly.
If you have the money to fly to St. Maarten for vacation, you have the money to fly the dog properly. Or the money to kennel it.
The only question they'll ask at the station is: does Fluffy have a ticket.
Part of it comes from Germany's culture: It's publicly acceptable to scold someone. In the US, it's considered rude for me to yell at an irresponsible dog owner.
Nice thing is that kids are also taught to e.g. always ask the owner before interacting with a dog.
I'll never forget throwing away glass on a Sunday (I missed the sign saying it was forbidden) and getting stern looks by no less than three people, with one leaning over her balcony railing to tell me not to do that.
...and while that seemed incredelous to me at first, the American, it wasn't too hard to understand after a while that there was a culture of consideration to others, and it was vigorously enforced by society. And it extended to dogs.
Mind you, their dogs still bark, people still screw up, and I encountered more than one dog off-leash while mine still was....even though I knew it was forbidden. No society is 100%.
But I never forgot that early incident, and after a few years I found myself performing my own glare when someone fired up a gas lawnmower on a Sunday. =P Mind you, I ran my vacuum on a Sunday, but so did my neighbors, and there was an unspoken agreement that so long as it was done later in the day it was fine.
I guess what I'm coming around to is this: It's a bit more than just "there are social rules and we follow them." People are, by and large, considerate, and they want others to be considerate it to.
My time over there was really positive, and I credit this as part of it.
I've been chased more times than I care to remember while I'm out on runs by animals who are loose from their yards or just off leash in areas with leash laws. I've actually been bitten, both times on my lower right leg. I have two dogs of my own, and I like to think that I have a basic understanding and respect for the high-stress situation that this scenario can cause. I never let them off leash outside of the dog park or high-fence back yards, like our own. It's just too risky for everyone, including and perhaps most importantly for the animal(s). Couple this with the bad experiences and I have basically zero patience left for this situation.
My experience with others has been a damned if you do, damned if you don't sort of situation. If you confront these people for their bad behavior you will inevitably be made to feel like you're the asshole, even for things as seemingly innocuous as "Hey, how are you doing? You know that animals are supposed to be on leashes here by law, right?" I actually carry a small clip-on video camera with me now, that I bought after one particularly nasty encounter last summer.
If you had to put down a deposit to fly with a pet, but had it reimbursed assuming good behavior, then you could ding the people whose pets get into fights with service animals, defecate, etc, while allowing responsible pet owners freer movement.
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/during-prohibition-yo...
Flying seems unpleasant enough with making it a petting zoo too.
If you've flown more than a couple times, you've probably had a cat on your flight. The one time I flew with my cat, the people sitting next to me didn't even notice her.
I'm allergic to cats. I'm also a former aerospace engineer. Cabin air is completely refreshed about 20 times an hour [1]. I've sat next to a cat and not noticed. They're in a carrier, too drugged or terrified to toss fur about; quiet; and small. Zyrtec won't make the screaming baby any more pleasant.
[1] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/34708785/ns/travel-travel_tips/t/a...
Taking your dog on a plane fails this test. Sure, some people don't mind. I mind. A lot. And so do a lot of other people. Bringing your dog on a plane means either not realizing or not caring that you're creating such a large disturbance for the rest of us, neither of which is a category to be proud of.
Edited to remove option of banning the dogs (although, according to the story it seems like the airlines are able to restrict which dogs are allowed?).
How do you suggest we deal with this? A boat would be far too slow, and a private jet would be far too expensive.
In these circumstances, I will bring my toddler in the plane, try to keep him quiet, and bring baggies with complimentary snacks and earplugs for the passengers sitting next to us. I don't think I can realistically do more than that.
What I'm not going to do is wait five years until the child is older, because I have no assurance that my parents will be alive by then. Sorry if that inconveniences you.
It is never necessary to fly with your dog uncaged in the main cabin. Ever. Full stop.
First, a two year old isn't a new born. Having 3 kids, I can tell you that a new born is far less trouble than almost any child up to about 6 years of age because they sleep 16-20 hours a day.
There's nothing wrong with traveling with children as long as the children are well behaved and you plan your flight to coincide with nap times.
My wife and I flew from NY to London next to a family with 3 children all under 6 years of age and they were delightful. The gentleman taking up one of the seats in the row they occupied however was a piece of garbage. He had the aisle seat and when they showed up he let out an audible sigh and made it abundantly clear he was displeased with them. We had an empty seat in our row and were going to offer it to him but by the time they closed the doors he had proven himself to be such a disgusting human being that we chose to keep it for ourselves.
You seem like a decent person trying to minimize the disruption your toddler is causing the other travellers, but in my experience you are definitely in the minority. I can honestly say that I've never met anyone that did what you say you'd do.
The far more common example is parents that pay no attention to their kids, regardless of their little angels kicking the seat in front of them, running and tackling the crew, throwing food or liquids around or just screaming at the top of their lungs. The only moment the parents seem to react is when other travellers ask them to control the beasts, at which point they'll start screaming about strangers telling them how to educate their kids.
Again, you might not be like that (you are probably nothing like that) and we all accept that, even if your toddler is causing discomfort in others, you have no other option. Maybe accept that some of that people travelling with pets might not have any other option either.
By virtue of its universal applicability, your comment says everything and therefore nothing.
I don't like this principle (or maybe I don't like politeness). By this principle, if I were a slave, it would be impolite to advocate for my freedom. That's an avoidable behavior; I can just keep working without pay. By this principle, if I were paralyzed, it would be impolite to ask people to have ramps and elevators. That's an avoidable behavior; it would be preferable to stay at home and wait to die. (Asking for ADA compliance is a huge disturbance!)
The obvious rebuttal is "Well, those cases don't count because being a slave or being paralyzed is a fundamental unfairness and you can advocate to resolve or work around that," but the entire question is whether people who claim to need emotional support animals genuinely are in the same position or not, whether the emotional state they need support for is also a fundamental unfairness compare to the rest of us who don't claim to need such animals.
So I don't think that the clarified principle actually helps us figure out what the right thing to do is; it just rephrases the question.
It's rude to run through a crowded theater because you're in a hurry to leave. It isn't rude if you're making an emergency run to the bathroom. We all very clearly and intuitively understand this distinction.
By the way, the whole point of politeness is that it requires these kinds of judgements and therefore resists strict rule-making. Ideally, we wouldn't need to make a rule about dogs on planes, because nervous flyers would feel individual shame at the idea of inconveniencing other people for their own personal benefit.
I couldn't possibly bring my dog on a plane, not because of any rule, but because I'd be embarrassed and extremely uncomfortable about my own behavior. It would ultimately result in a worse experience for me, for those reasons. I'd be a self-conscious wreck.
> Ultimately, I hope the Department of Transportation creates a fairly strict uniform rule for all airlines.
Why not let the individual airlines decide? Pet owners can choose to fly Pet Airways, and everyone else can choose not to. It's not immediately obvious that this is a case where there must be a uniform rule (although it would be tricky if one had to switch carriers mid-trip).
> It’s true that some people honestly believe they have an emotional condition that an animal solves. But they are often confusing their preferences with actual medical needs.
That, I think, is a quote which aptly describes much of 21st-century American society: a failure to recognise the difference between preference & reality.
Airlines are free to allow pets aboard. But they've all made the decision not to allow it, except for a fee (and even then, only for small animals that go under your seat). Right now, the airlines are forced to allow emotional support animals. I don't think many people would be against a pet friendly airline. I think the issue is that the airlines don't want to be pet friendly (most likely they'd rather not deal with the hassle), but the law requires them to accommodate trained service animals (e.g. seeing eye dogs or dogs trained to detect imminent seizures), which most people probably don't object to as well as emotional support dogs (which many people do object to because they feel that the system is being gamed)
It was from a book she has called Unlikely Heroes[2] about awesome animals. A very sweet story.
Then of course have a (strict) policy where that fee can be waived in cases of medical need.
Largely this has been brought about by corporations first sending jobs overseas with wanton enthusiasm and then splashing cash all over Washington to influence government. Call it the paradox of thrift version 2.0.
If you can't afford to maintain your pet, you can't afford a pet. Don't take it out on the rest of us.
I often joke that I'm not responsible enough to own a dog, or that if I was I'd just have kids. I can leave extra food for the cats and they handle themselves for up to 5 days. If it's more than that, we find someone to check in on them. The fix is not to socialize my 'problem' by finding a way to scam on medical needs and gamble that nobody will challenge my 'medical condition'.
Yes, but this logic is a slippery slope that drops off into a sewer depending on how far you want to take it.
If you tell certain people that you don't own snow tires because you usually commute via train and you drive maybe two days a year with snow on the ground and they'll tell you you're a menace to society and if you can't afford to go all out you shouldn't own a car at all.
Everything has trade-offs and I'm more inclined to say everyone else should be thicker skinned rather than individuals should be better behaved. It's not the individual's job to look out for everyone else. Bringing a pet or a crying baby on a plane isn't a big deal even if it's a pain in the butt for everyone else.
As much as people need to be considerate people also need to not be thin skinned when others are inconsiderate.
That said, you'd better be pretty f-ed up in the head if you're bringing your dog into the supermarket, on public transit, into Walmart, etc for "emotional support".
Edit: Not that I know where the line should be drawn, just that it probably should be drawn somewhere. Also revised some wording.
I should have known better than picking this example for this demographic.
This seems reasonable to me, is this supposed to be some absurd conclusion? A car that is out of control can easily kill people. If you don't have the equipment to safely drive your car when there's snow on the ground, drive zero days a year when there's snow on the ground. If you're risking other people's lives because you want the convenience of driving a car, yes, you're a menace to society.
> As much as people need to be considerate people also need to not be snowflakes when others are inconsiderate.
Does the word "snowflake" have a coherent meaning any more? I thought the original idea was that snowflakes were unique, which means that as an insult, it would be better placed against the person who's doing something unusual compared to the rest of society.
This requirement is codified in the laws of several states, e.g. Montana [1]. Driving and flying are privileges, not rights.
People mostly adjust to the extra traction afforded by snow tires and behave accordingly to maintain constant risk regardless of the conditions. More traction doesn't help if your margin for error is close to constant. Same problem with stuff like blind spot detection.
>Does the word "snowflake" have a coherent meaning any more?
Fixed the phrasing.
The risk of over-steering appears to be compensated for with reduced crash incidence and severity (at least for studded tyres) [1]. More to the point, you changed your goalpost from "this is an unreasonable cost to demand for safety" to "this isn't safe."
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00014...
I'm skeptical that such people actually exist, or at least exist in significant numbers in places where there's actually snow. You don't need snow tires to drive safely on a snowy road. You just need decent all season tires and the knowledge of when to slow down.
Well they exist in significant numbers online.
>You don't need snow tires to drive safely on a snowy road. You just need decent all season tires and the knowledge of when to slow down.
Exactly. Thinking ahead to the next turn solves most problems.
Note well: This may not work for all lizards. In particular, it may be lethal for your lizard. Check before trying it.
It's dangerous to leave fridge hibernators unattended, because things can go wrong while you are away. But while they're in, you only need to check on them once or twice a day, and maybe rehydrate their burrowing substrate.
The problem is that you have to prepare for it by gorging to build up energy reserves, then fasting to clear the gut of waste and build up water reserves. It's really not something you would want to do every time you go somewhere.
But you can also use long term feeding options like burying beetle larvae and worms instead of just dropping them into the food dish. It will take a while to hunt them all down. More likely you end up with a breeding population in the habitat, and your pet gets fat.
Aside from that, birds and mammals make superior pets in almost all ways. The only reason to have a reptile pet is if people in the household are allergic to both dogs and cats.
This works out to about 0.5 deaths per 10000, but United apparently breaks guitars and kills or injures pets much more often than other carriers. That may be related to their willingness to actually attempt to transport species and breeds at higher risk from conditions experienced during air travel, like pugs.
I am not surprised that people will do anything to keep their valuables--living or not--out of United's cargo holds. I am a bit surprised that their genius solutions still involve flying United.
My terrapin is never flying. I get nervous enough about putting my clothing in checked baggage. And also, she's easier to keep fed than a cat. But cats poop in their litter box instead of their water dish, so there's that.
> You are never required to accommodate certain unusual service animals (e.g., snakes, other reptiles, ferrets, rodents, and spiders) as service animals in the cabin. With respect to all other animals, including unusual or exotic animals that are presented as service animals (e.g., miniature horses, pigs, monkeys), as a carrier you must determine whether any factors preclude their traveling in the cabin as service animals (e.g., whether the animal is too large or heavy to be accommodated in the cabin, whether the animal would pose a direct threat to the health or safety of others, whether it would cause a significant disruption of cabin service, whether it would be prohibited from entering a foreign country that is the flight's destination). If no such factors preclude the animal from traveling in the cabin, you must permit it to do so. However, as a foreign carrier, you are not required to carry service animals other than dogs.
Is anyone else annoyed that airlines are required [2] to allow people to take an untrained emotional support pig on a flight unless they can show a specific reason why it shouldn't be allowed on (and the burden of proof seems to be on the airline)? Obviously, the way this law is written, it makes it a big hassle for the airlines to deny travel to these animals, especially if the person comes with documentation from a mental health professional (who they can find online to give them a letter for $99).
In the case of a highly trained service animal (think seeing eye dog or a dog trained to detect imminent seizures) I can understand why we allow them on. Those dogs are incredibly well trained. As I understand it, very few dogs have the demeanor to pass the training.
If you've got an animal travelling with you for emotional support reasons, we should have a similar requirement for training. If your animal isn't trained (and certified by a reputable organization) to behave around other people, why should an airline be forced to accommodate you bringing your animal into a confined and crowded space?
Our laws should force people claiming emotional support animals to have them be trained and certified to behave well in a public space (service animals, from what I've seen, already meet this standard) if airlines are going to be forced to let them fly for free.
[1] https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/specialneeds...
[2] As far as I know, there's nothing preventing an airline from allowing animals to fly for free, similar to how many hotels are pet friendly. Someone could open an airline that's pet friendly and I'm sure there's a niche market for it. But in my mind, unless there's a very compelling reason, we shouldn't force airlines to allow animals on board for free. In my mind, highly trained service animals have a compelling enough reason to force airlines to allow them on board. Untrained emotional support animals don't.
people with service animals board first
So, if the author really thinks that animals are a bigger problem than TSA, they are probably one of those people who "cheats" security by paying for pre-check to avoid going through proper security. I am much more concerned with how the incompetence and rudeness of TSA is being used to extract money and personal information from travelers.
If airlines and airports want people to stop lying about the reason they are brining their pets on the airplane, perhaps we should start by making TSA stop lying about the benefit they provide. When we see TSA extracting billions of dollars from taxpayers for security theater, it's easy to assume that the only people still playing by the rules are suckers.
As opposed to someone who brings an "emotional support" animal with them to cheat their way through security?
The main problems I have with "emotional support" animals is their owners. These people are usually inconsiderate of others and completely self centered.
I've witnessed on multiple occasions dogs shitting or pissing all over commuter trains and their owners just hop off the train and leave it for everyone else to deal with. You'll often see these people at the gate trying to get priority seating by shoving their dog in the attendent's face while the attendant is trying to help other passengers with legitimate needs. I've been nipped by one of these dogs on a flight and the owner's response was "she feels threatened by you." I suggest she might put the dog in her cage since I can't move seats at which point she tried to have my seat moved by an attendant.