Dozens of puppies were found dead on a Ukraine International Airlines flight from Kiev to Toronto last weekend. And come on, we all love puppies.
On June 13 the aircraft landed with 500 puppies on board. Many were “suffering from dehydration, weakness and/or vomiting and 38 of them were found dead.” Ukraine International Airlines ‘feels bad’ for allowing this.
Reportedly the dogs were packed more than one per crate, and the person who arrived to received them told the airline to throw them in the garbage. Have you ever wanted to throw a person in the garbage before…?
If you’d asked me to guess the airline without knowing the route, though, it wouldn’t have been UIA. I’d have guessed United Airlines, except they suspended taking pets during the pandemic and have supposedly improved their practices. United’s poor handling of pets has been in the news a lot over the years, for forcing a dog into an overhead bin where it died, shipping a dog to Japan by mistake, and loading others onto the wrong aircraft. Indeed two years ago they acknowledged their PetSafe program was killing more animals than all other U.S. airlines combined.
I’ve never trusted shipping pets with an airline. My late Yorkshire terrier used to travel with me as pet in cabin (never as an emotional support animal) and I recall arriving at check-in in Pasco, Washington where a passenger wanted to travel with their dog, but we had a reservation and the 50 seat regional jet allowed for only one. They’d have to switch flights, travel without their dog, or put him in the cargo hold. I couldn’t imagine taking anything other than the first choice, given the frequency with which we hear stories like this going bad.
Shipping 500 puppies? This sounds like fake news. Who ships 500 puppies at a time?
@ Susie I wish it was fake news but it is not.
Puppy mills in Europe shipS dogs to be sold in North America.
People need to boycott Ukraine International Airlines and stop buying animals from Facebook, Pet shops and online ads. Adopt from animal shelters.
I don’t get it — is there really such a puppy shortage here in the US that we have to import the little critters? Really, that’s sick!
Instead of blaming that airline how about this:
Blame the breeder. Blame his family and employees for working to be able to eat. Or even better starve them to death.
Blame the buyer/seller. Blame his/her family for trying to make some money to support their families.
But NO!
Blame the airline for doing the same for the purpose of their employees feeding and sheltering their families despite the fact that they had promised to investigate and do better in the future.
OR EVEN BETTER – BLAME THE BLOGGER FOR TAKING THE ADVANTAGE OF THE SITUATION?
I mean, let’s be honest and humble, for a second.
Only good news make our lives and future better.
Not CNN, MSNBC or FOX news, for sure.
Sorry about the rant, but I hope your readers would understand.
Dog’s grandfather 🙂
Too bad. Ukraine was in the news when surrogate mothers were stuck with infants last month, when the borders were closed to the paying parents. Now, for some reason, it is in the news again, for shipping puppies by the dozens to NA. If you love pets, or kids, be careful who you deal with.
+1 Susie & KimmieA!
DT, let’s EDUCATE the Ukrainian breeders and Canadian buyers that we already have an overpopulation of dogs in Canada & USA! So please find a more sustainable and beneficial-to-the-Earth way to earn a living.
You are absolutely right.
But what does it have to do about airline doing its business?
Simple solution: let’s make it a law to ban transport of animals all together or allow it only tiger with humans.
The only problem – your pet and you will be facing steep charges or sailing while moving around the world.
And guess what – mixing humans and animals on the ship might be a problem too.
Or, in the end is our “failed “ government right:
CLOSE THE BORDER!
Or NOT.
Let’s just be honest with ourselves and take it as it is – the life was/is tough but social media made it nowadays as fake as it is.
The hate against high quality breeders is absurd. I don’t know why people surround themselves with ugly and dangerous dogs. The ones you get in a pound are more likely than not to be trouble makers or inferior breeds. If everyone paid $2000 for a golden doodle, Maltese, German Shepard, Husky, or Poodle, the dogs would be treated like kings because they are. But in the U.S. people have an obsession with pit bulls that commit the highest amount of unprovoked attacks no matter how they are raised. If everyone bought a dog from a high quality breeder, there would be no dogs in a shelter. They wouldn’t exist. But people continue enabling ugly and dangerous breeds.
I don’t know what type of dogs these were in this case. I don’t know why these dogs couldn’t be bred locally. I do know the airline screwed up someone. I would never ship my dog in a cargo hold. I wouldn’t even ship a stuffed animal.
Delta offers the Care Pod (first on the world to do so), a reinforced bright pink crate with temperature and shock sensors that are monitored real time throughout the entire trip. This would have not happened in a Care Pod.
You should write about airlines that are making a difference and provide a solution to your readers, not just bad-mouth United!
Dreadful. These puppy farms are run by disreputable breeders and crooks. The motive is greed. They have a captive audience : people wanting a French Bulldog or similar “flavour of the month” pup. Unfortunately people don’t understand the misery of these farms ( or the strong likelihood that the pup will have serious genetic issues).
@Paolo
Yes, there is a big difference between high quality breeders that breed a healthy line and the puppy mills that churn out countless dogs without concern for all parties including the future of the dogs. I don’t know why people want bull dogs, though. They are aggressive and unsightly.
I’m sure the airline is going to implement new policies to try to prevent this incident from happening again.
@ Jackson Henderson
I think bulldogs are delightful. French and English ones at least, not at all aggressive; maybe American Bulldogs are a bit different.
Rescue dogs are often there because their owners are no longer able to care for them ( old age, illness, death, etc). No doubt some of them have behavioural issues, ie, not for a novice owner…but most are just fine, eg, Winston, the lovely dog adopted by the gay boys on the other channel.
If neanderthals would stop supporting friggin’ puppy mills, this won’t happen. Anyone who thinks it’s “fake news” probably needs to educate themselves about a wide, WIDE range of the basics at this point in their life…
https://www.humanesociety.org/all-our-fights/stopping-puppy-mills
And don’t going buying rabbits for Easter basketsd either, dumbsh*ts.