A Florida woman (naturally) has been arrested after drowning her 9-year old miniature schnauzer in the bathroom of the Orlando International Airport. 57-year-old Alison Agatha Lawrence faces a third-degree felony charge of aggravated animal abuse.
On December 16, 2024, she was told that she lacked the proper documentation to travel with her dog, claimed to be a service animal , on her LATAM flight to Bogota.
- Surveillance footage shows her discussing this with an airline ticket counter agent for 15 minutes.
- She can then be seen entering a handicapped bathroom stall. About 15 minutes later, she exited the stall without her pet. The dog was drowned in the toilet.
- The passenger removed a trash bag from a wall-mounted canister and used it to carry the dog’s body.
- A cleaning employee the scene with large puddles of water and scattered dog food on the floor.
Following her arrest, the woman posted $5,000 bond. In the arrest affidavit, investigators write,
Killing a dog is illegal and morally wrong unless there is a justifiable reason and it is performed humanely. Killing a dog for convenience (such as not being able to take it overseas) is not a legal defense.
This sad situation recalls the college student who said that Spirit Airlines told her when she made her flight reservation that she could bring her emotional support hamster named Pebbles onboard her flight plane. She he purchased Pebbles after a golf ball-sized lump developed on her neck and led to a cancer scare.
But when she traveled to have the growth removed, and brought her hamster with her, the gate agent at BWI airport informed her that Pebbles wouldn’t be allowed onto the aircraft. And the passenger said she was told to either set the hamster free or flush it.
After spending several hours trying to figure out what to do, unable to get anyone to come to the airport in time (and being too young to rent a car), she decided to ‘mercifully end Pebbles’ life quickly in the toilet’ rather than setting her free in the cold outside. Spirit denied telling the woman to kill her hamster.
(HT: Enilria)
This woman drowned her own dog because the airline wouldn’t let it fly??? That isn’t just cruelty, it’s premeditated, psychopathic violence. She planned this, carried it out without compunction, and then walked away as if nothing happened. This wasn’t a moment of panic or desperation, it was cold-blooded and deliberate. We know that anyone who can do this to a sweet innocent dog can also do it to a human. She should face the harshest possible prison sentence.
And yet millions of pigs, chickens, cows, etc. are Murdered every week just so you can sit down and have those chicken McNuggets or that hamburger, or bacon with your eggs. Cold blooded murder is still murder.
@Alan – thanks for calling this out. The hypocrisy is insane. #govegan
OK Alan. You’ve made your speech. Those animals that are killed for food, are well, for food. Humans have canine teeth for a reason. We have digestive juices to break down meat for a reason. Killing these animals for food is not cold blooded murder. BTW, those animals would never have existed in the first place if not raised for food. Now go back and eat your kale.
She could get 15 years in prison. Killing a person might get 25 years or more. People have killed elderly people and nothing happened, particularly if the elderly person has dementia. Some have used hospice to lill someone if the hospice has a political agenda. Some do.
These are demented people that treat an animal like it’s their own personal toy. News to these people that want to drag their pets along. Your pet gets very scared during air travel. They are in a totally confusing environment. Their ears are very susceptible to loud sounds like a jet engine and other a/c noise. It’s terror for them. Yet people drag them along. How about putting them in a nice pet hotel when you’re away so that they can get away from your Cluster B personality for a bit.
O….M….G….!
So many things wrong with this I’m not even sure where to begin:
1. Overly entitled person who thinks they should be allowed to do what ever they want without consequences and lacks the intelligence to figure their way out of a situation where they can;t have their way.
2. Cruel, selfish human being who thinks the solution to their inconvenience is to kill an innocent create that was dependent on them for food, shelter and safety.
3. A false-equivalency equating drowning a dog in an airport bathroom with eating a Chicken McNugget from someone I’m sure has never harmed another creature…including insects. One can be horrified about the cruel manner this dog was killed and still enjoy sustainable meat that was prepared humanely.
When people do stuff like this they should be hauled into the center of town, put on display and repeatedly, publicly shamed for their callous behavior until every single person knows what they did. Time we start holding people accountable for their actions…publicly.
This one is indeed ‘dark’.
You do not have to be a pet owner, or have ever tried to travel with your dog on an airplane, to know that this is wrong, awful, and horrifying.
There are some of you, who have commented here before, on other dog related travel stories, basically suggesting to ‘euthanize’ a pet, because it inconveniences another traveler. Welp, here’s someone taking your demand seriously. It’s messed up.
However, please resist the urge to ‘burn the witch,’ and afford her due process–she was arrested, has been charged, will likely undergo a trial, an independent judicial process must evaluate the relevant facts, maybe this will indeed result in a conviction and sentenced, fines and/or jail.
That’s our system, in the USA at least, for now, under the Constitution, if we keep it–not vigilantism; not ‘frontier justice’.
This is sickening, barbaric, and grotesque, but we should realize that airlines’ rules against transporting dogs causes this to happen on a mass scale everyday with family pets put down or given away to people who can’t care properly for them because of the practical impossibility of transporting family pets after relocations. If we can easily recognize the cruelty of this, we should also recognize the cruelty of forced euthanizations that are done more humanely but just as pointlessly. If you are one of the nannys that waves your fingers at dogs on planes, you share some moral responsibility for this.
Was the dog refused because of lack of documentation of being a “service” animal?
Or lack of documentation for importing a dog into Columbia?
I.E. https://www.aphis.usda.gov/pet-travel/us-to-another-country-export/pet-travel-us-colombia
Yes, Mak, those of us who don’t want dogs on planes, in restauranrs, etc. are responsible for bad owner behavior. Let me bring my dog on a plane or I’ll kill it is the rant of the rational. Sure…..
Wow, I did the same thing with my emotional support ostrich. Glad I was discreet.
“The ‘special’ Hell, Mal…”
Doggone.
@Alan – @Figaro — cry. me. a. river.
They’re food. They’re tasty.
Please picture me eating a bloody red steak right now, just in your honor.
@Denver Refugee — ‘A level they reserve for… people who talk at the theater.’
Epic reference. Seriously. Top-tier. Firefly (and Serenity) are so freaking good.
$5000 bond for killing an innocent animal that had to be terrorized while being drowned. The US sucks when it comes to animal’s rights. There is a special place in hell for people like her.