Dogs on airplanes: I flew recently, & 3 dogs walked onboard!

My dog is a Seeing Eye Dog. She guides me. She has on a harness and a leash that both say she is a trained service dog from the Seeing Eye. Technically she could go into a store without the harness and still be a trained service dog. The actually label for "service dog" refers to the training and not the "clothing or equipment" the dog is wearing.

I was stopped one day in a mini mart and the manager said, "Miss, is that a service dog?"  Now I was led into the store by the dog and we were standing in front of the drinks with me holding the harness handle.  I had to laugh.  Seriously, who is the blind one here??  I politely said yes, and then she says, "Well, I don't see a vest on it."   I did laugh again.  The store manager obviously needed some training.  I explained what I explain to everyone that she is a working service dog and her clothing doesn't really matter, it's her training.  Plus if she had taken the time to look at the dog she would have seen the harness but I guess she was so excited about getting me out of the store and looking like a badass that she made herself look pretty stupid.

I've had people accuse me of all sorts of things.  I once had a clerk at a rest stop on the PA Turnpike tell me I was breaking the law and she was calling the police.  I told her go ahead and do that and I'll finish my $50 lunch while you do that.  I don't look blind.  My eyes are normal and are not "jacked up" looking.  Most of the people with the disease I have look completely normal and you would have no idea that I'm blind.  The damage in our eyes is to the retina in the back and not the front of the eye.

It some days annoys me that I have to explain myself over and over again and most days I don't mind educating the public but there are just some days when I've had people say to me, "What is your problem that you need the dog?" and I feel no need to explain my complicated medical condition to them.  I have occasionally responded with, "Why don't you tell me all about your medical conditions?"  People can be rude.  The majority are not and I usually don't mind answering questions.

I have shown dogs for over 20+ years, and I can tell you that in the show dog world, handlers fly around with these dogs as "service/comfort/therapy" dogs in order to avoid having them travel in the cargo hold and also not have to pay the fees.

It cost $125 each way to carry on a dog that fits in a carrier that must fit under the seat in front of you.  That is what I get charged if I fly with a puppy (my breed is too large, full grown, to travel in a carrier)  If I take adult dogs with me, they are traveling as checked baggage and it has to do with the weight of the dog in the crate, and its around $200-$300 each way.

I would never dream of making my show dog a fake "therapy/comfort/service" dog just so I can fly around the country with it and not pay.

People who do this are abusing the system and are causing it to be harder for the people who truly do need these animals with them in this capacity.

January 25, 2012 National Post

There are plenty of things that can delay a flight – bad weather, ground delays, mechanical issues – but a cat getting loose and hiding somewhere in the cockpit normally isn’t one of them.

However, that’s what happened to Air Canada flight 603 from Halifax to Toronto on Wednesday morning.

The flight, which was scheduled to take off at 5:40 a.m., was delayed for four hours after Ripples the cat — brought on board by one of the plane’s passengers — got loose from its carrier and hid inside the plane’s cockpit.

“They were of course first looking [for Ripples] in the cabin, as I understand it. Then it became apparent that it had gone into the cockpit,” says Peter Spurway, vice-president of corporate communications for the Halifax Airport Authority.

“Then it squirmed down into a little space and the game was on.”

Although Mr. Spurway says he doesn’t know how the cat got loose, he says it was just hiding from the people trying to find it – it wasn’t hurt or stuck.

“Because I’m sure it was pretty frightened by the whole set of circumstances, it found its way down inside a panel in the cockpit into the wiring,” says Mr. Spurway.

The crew got all the passengers off the plane, and called maintenance crews into the cockpit to remove panels and retrieve the cat.

“They had to disassemble the cockpit, to a degree,” he says.

Peter Fitzpatrick, a spokesperson for Air Canada, says the cat managed to hide in the avionics bay in the cockpit, an area that houses vital navigational instruments. Any damage caused by Ripples could have been potentially catastrophic if it occurred mid-flight.

Some passengers were put on other flights, but many just had to wait.

“The flights are pretty full, typically, so you don’t have a lot of extra capacity. But we were able to move some of them on flight 605 [from Halifax to Toronto],” says Mr. Fitzpatrick.

Employees found the cat at around 8:40 a.m. AT, checked to make sure Ripples hadn’t done any damage, put all the panels back in the cockpit, re-boarded the plane and by the time they were ready to leave it was 10 a.m.

“And of course the owner [was] primarily concerned about the safety of the cat,” said Mr. Spurway.

Mr. Fitzpatrick said Ripples was fine after his rediscovery, and was allowed to join his owner and fly to Toronto when the flight finally took off – four hours after it was supposed to.