Passengers too often treat planes like Noah’s Ark – bringing two of each kind of animal on board, claiming they’re for emotional support. Supposedly the FAA worked with airlines to ban the practice seven years ago, but in reality that just meant that passengers have to do some paperwork – self-certifying that their pet is a service animal.
That actually helps – because venn diagram between “those who want to bring cute dogs on planes and pet them throughout the flight” and “those who are good at doing paperwork” has very limited overlap! Still, the practice persists.
Over Thanksgiving my Delta flight turned around because a woman on board hadn’t done the paperwork for her support animal. They removed her from the aircraft and then… let her fill out the paperwork. Then our flight was further delayed while we waited to refuel.
There are still passengers who do things the right way. They make a pet in cabin reservation. They pay the fee. Their carry-on pet takes the place of a carry-on bag. But there are still rules!
- The eligible dog or cat must stay in their carrier throughout the flight
- The carrier must meet required dimensions, fitting underneath the seat, and be large enough for the animal to move around in comfortably.
Here’s a woman that didn’t get the memo. She brought her pet in cabin, brought the carrier, but the dog is walking around at the gate because the carrier isn’t large enough. An employee calls her out for this, and lets her know that if she doesn’t have a carrier that the dog will fit into, then they can’t fly. So the woman tries to prove that the dog fits.
Please say sike right NEOWWWW pic.twitter.com/ccAF3ILr6M
— Mesh (@rahsh33m) March 24, 2025
The video was originally posted to TikTok, where a commenter described what the passenger was doing, “She literally folded the dog in the carrier” and another, “the way she pushed the dog’s head down to make him fit ”
The dog has to be able to stand up in the carrier and turn around comfortably. The woman clearly knew her carrier was too small. She was willing to pay a pet in cabin fee – but not pay for a humane carrier. Perhaps she assumed nobody would check, and she wasn’t going to keep it in the carrier anyway?
Ultimately, after all of the theatrics trying to claim that the dog really did fit and really could turn inside the bag, the employee was a hard no. The quality of discourse on TikTok isn’t especially high, but here are a few of gems:
“That dog can fit in that carrier just like I can fit in a pair of size 5 jeans lol ”
“That carrier is too damn small. Even Stevie Wonder can see that.”
“She thought she was doing a Vegas magic trick”
“Why she put that big ole giraffe in a lunch bag omg ”
With dogs going potty on planes, bumping first class passengers out of their seats, and enjoying sit down dining in business class lounges all because passengers claim their pet is a service animal, I almost have sympathy for this woman at least not going through that ruse.
Almost.
I’ve never had a dog small enough to go in cabin. I have travelled with dogs several times in the cargo hold, usually overseas. If a dog is too big to go in cabin, it should go in the hold.
Ban the woman let the dog fly
Noah’s Ark. That’s a good one, and once again this “service animal” thing has gotten totally out of hand.
Why are ‘service’ animals allowed in the USA? Recently flew AA and on both flights small dogs with owners in the AA lounges. One little shih tzu had on the strap ‘service dog’ and it was obviously anything but. The only thing the owner was anxious about was how many spring rolls he could balance on his side plate whilst at the buffet with the dog sniffing around. Why allow it? If animals are going to be allowed in cabin, at least have an honest conversation about it; not pretend people need them to step on an air bridge. In my experience Americans are refreshingly straight talking, so surprised they allow this pretence to go on!
The dog fits in the carrier like her a.z.z fits in those pants.
That dog was too big to fly in cabin, it should have gone in the belly of the plane. Even my 13 pound cats were “iffy”, and instead of trying to contort them into furry pretzels I paid the extra fees to fly them cargo. On boarding I handed the pilots a Hello Kitty gift bag with chocolates and a couple of Benjamins, and crossed my fingers through the flight. The cats arrived intact and unscathed.
Gary, depending on the day, VFTW showcases the complete opposite ends of the extreme regarding dogs on planes and in airports. Like, you’ll have one story that riles up a crazed mob shouting to euthanize all the pets, but, then, mere hours later, different post that motivates radicals calling to euthanize the dog owners. Bah. It’s a wild ride on here sometimes, and I’m all for it. To quote from the tavern scene in Quentin Tarantino’s film, Inglorious Basterds: “I must say, d*mn good stuff, sir.”
I have a suggestion but it involves Dog Meat . . . ouch!
Entitled pet owners bringing their pets on a plane are in the same group of abled body people who park in handicapped parking spots
Bottom line is that people declare these pets service animals to avoid the fees to transport in the belly.
Since airlines and are reluctant to get involved with the disability needs of passengers, at least they should involve the ASPCA to stop this type of abuse. I rather see this b!tch ( not the dog ) shoved in a carrier that doesn’t fit. I love dogs but this nonsense needs to stop. Whatever happened to Bark Air?
This whole post has nothing to do with service dogs. She trying to take a large pet in the cabin. Not the same issue
At least she didn’t go to the bathroom and drown the dog. The USA airlines have encouraged this chaos. They are responsible for the situations. In this case, the gate agent did the right thing. Maybe they should have carriers that go in the hold available at the gate for sale (with the typical airport markup) and be able to help the owner transport the pet dog. I suspect that most would not want to take their pet dog if they had to pay all of the costs. They just want to take their pet dog because the airlines let them do it almost for free if they lie and say it is a service dog.
@jns That story still hurts 🙁
You can just tell how much she loves this dog!!! Please, don’t separate them!
Not many animal owners on this thread. “Put the dog in the hold”! How does that work with many airlines? Tried to book my toy poodle in the hold on United, the service rep openly admitted, “we don’t do that any more sir- killed too many of them”.
But he was happy to book an under-seat space for her, sight unseen- in fact, he was the one trying to talk me into it- “10lbs? she’ll fit fine, and should have no problem on the 18 hour flight”…
Finally ended up booking SQ because I trusted their ground handling staff with the dog better. Gotta love kimmiea’s belief that the pilots will do anything about her cats…
She just needs to say the magic words, “service animal”. No need for a carrier then.
The real animal is the one carrying the suitcase.
@George — We’re still here. Many of the ‘regulars’ to VFTW know that Gary often ‘farms’ content about this topic (dogs on planes) around once-a-week, so maybe I’ve even become a little jaded by it. So, thanks for ‘standing up’ and ‘calling them out’ for their lack of empathy and understanding. I’ll never take my dogs on a flight again, namely because I don’t want to have to deal with other passengers giving me a hard time, and I’m definitely never putting a dog underneath. Does anyone realize how frightening that would be for them, or would be for us, if we were stuck down there, even for a relatively short, couple hour journey? Yeah, again, very little compassion out there these days. Not to mention, if you get a DL4819-style incident, do you think you’re getting Fido back? Nope. If they aren’t literally crushed on impact by baggage, they’ll burn alive, even if you get out from the upside-down aircraft with just minor injuries, the psychological damage and loss will not soon be ‘fixed’ for you. So, there you go, some of us still care, sir.
These are sick degenerates that take their mental illness out on defenseless animals. And too many people stick up for these morons rather than shame them. Subjecting a dog to air travel is inhumane. They are in a totally confusing environment and very sensitive to noise. But let’s not think about the animals, let’s be concerned about idiots that need to parade their pets through the world.