A few days ago I received notice about a new case being filed against Delta Airlines… under the headline “Airline Lets Dog Fry: Lawsuit”, the New York Post reported  on yet another “pets on a plane” debacle.  One dead dog and 10 sick puppies landed at Salt Lake City Airport – and yet, after scouring the Pet Incident Reports for 2008, I found no information.  Hmmm… guess this was another case where these poor pooches weren’t really “pets.”  But then what was up with the lawsuit?  Most puppy mill operations take it as a given that there will be “losses” (read: sick and dead dogs) as a cost of doing business and are prepared to do the write-off.  Clearly, this woman – Barbara Burgett – was not a “typical” dog-shipping client.

After a couple hours of searching online, I was able to locate Barbara Burgett at her home in Utah, where she told me the story of what had happened.  Seems she fell in love with a picture of a French Bulldog named Hector… but Hector lived in Hungary.  After staring at his picture for months, Barbara decided to purchase Hector and 10 of his offspring – she would distribute the pups to her children and grandchildren (and yes, they would be bred), and they would all live happily ever after.  And so it began…

Barbara details the whole story in great depth on her blog, Dogs vs. Delta… but the bottom line is this: it seems the dogs arrived at JFK from Hungary in fine condition.  It was getting from JFK to SLC that killed them.  Barbara told me that Hector – the adult male she had fallen in love with – was dead before they loaded him on the plane.  The pups were all in critical condition by the time they arrived in Utah.  It took many weeks of intensive care for 8 of the 10 to survive, and one of them – now an adult dog – is still in rather delicate condition (he remains Barbara’s personal pet).

Barbara is suing Delta and its contractors (Swissport and Vet Port) for enticement, negligence, breach of contract, and several other charges.  But she knows the money isn’t really important – the beautiful Hector, whose picture she had been staring at for many months, could not be replaced.  But she wants Delta to be held accountable for the promise it broke – the promise that her pets would be treated as “precious”:

This is not Hector – this is Fred… who is available for adoption from French Bulldog Rescue!! Click on the pic for more info!!

“I went to several airline sites that transported dogs, and totally believed Delta’s “pets first” and “precious cargo” advertising and truly believed that my dogs would receive much more than the basic protections and care under the existing laws, in fact, I believed they would be truly treated precious, like how I would care for them, like gold. I called three times to talk to Pet’s first customer service to ask questions and confirm that my dogs would be treated like precious cargo. I so thoroughly believed their enticing advertising statements to be true to the extent of insisting my dogs fly Delta, (contrary to the sellers preference), and had to wait an extra week for my dogs so that they could fly on Delta.”

And this is the problem: those of us who are AMATEURS – people like Jack’s mom Karen, people like Barbara Burgett – believe the airlines’ advertising.  They believe the airlines will take care of their pets as living, sentient beings.  They believe that the airlines staff people whose primary job is to take care  of the pets on a plane.  They believe the airlines CARE about the welfare of the pets on their planes.

And those beliefs are what makes them AMATEURS.  No disrespect intended.  We are all amateurs an awful lot of the time in life.  But being an amateur in this arena means an animal’s life is at risk.

MOST PEOPLE  don’t know the truth about how pets are treated when they are traveling as checked baggage or cargo.  And the airlines make it mighty difficult to find the truth.  Indeed, even checking the Pet Incident Reports (where Hector and his puppies are NOT listed) reveals little more than the tiniest little bit of the problem.  And there’s a reason for this:  there is BIG MONEY at stake.

Barbara paid $250 PER DOG to have these dogs brought from Hungary.  That’s $2750.  That’s not chump change.

Now, in the U.S., approximately 500,000 puppies are sold in puppy stores… and most of those puppies are shipped to those stores from other states.  If shipping each of those dogs costs just $100 (less than half what Barbara paid for international shipping 4 years ago), that makes commercial shipping of animals in the U.S. a $50,000,000 (yes, that’s $50 MILLION) a year business.  NO WONDER THE AIRLINES DO NOT WANT TO BE PUBLICLY ACCOUNTABLE FOR EVERY PET THAT IS LOST, IS INJURED, OR DIES WHILE IN THEIR CARE.  If people knew how many dogs (and, to a lesser extent, cats) were dying on planes, they would be horrified.

(BTW – Barbara said she looked into having a vet tech fly from Hungary to Utah with the dogs – she was happy to pay round trip airfare – but that wouldn’t have gotten the dogs out of cargo.  So it seemed pointless.  Of course, if a person had been flying with the dogs, the dogs would have been listed on the Pet Incident Report for that month, but that wouldn’t have changed the outcome.)

So, this suit has the potential to open up the discussion in a whole new way.  Let’s wish Barbara well… and let’s see if this can help us make the changes we all want to see made.  Can you help us??  Please SUPPORT THE CAUSE if you can!!!!

Almost every day, beginning August 26, 2011 (the day after Jack went missing), I have spent some time wishing I had done something different.  Wishing I had INSISTED that I fly out to Cali with Karen, each of us taking one cat under the seat.  Wishing I had gone up to New York to look at her cat carriers myself.  Wishing I had told her to take Jack under the seat and let Barry fly cargo.  Wishing, wishing, wishing… but as the old saying goes, “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”  I could be riding a whole stableful of horses right now.

But instead, I’ve learned sooooooo much…

• I’ve learned that airlines really do consider companion animals to be luggage.
• I’ve learned that there are a whole bunch of different entities that have a voice in if and how lost animals are searched for when they are lost in an airport.
• I’ve learned that there are a few laws in place to protect animals that are being transported; and like all laws, sometimes they are violated.  These violations seem to have almost no punishment attached to them.
• I’ve learned that there are an awful lot of people out there that are willing to give their heart to a cat they’ve never met in person.
• I’ve learned that keeping animals safe when they travel by air is a much bigger and more complex problem than I ever would have imagined.

Now if I had just gone up to NYC and flown with Karen, Barry, and Jack out to Cali, I never would have learned all this.

BUT I DIDN’T.  I DIDN’T PREVENT THE PROBLEM WHEN I COULD HAVE.

So instead of having two anonymous cats living happily in the California sunshine, we now have one poster boy for safety in pet air travel, a Facebook page with 25,000 followers, and a new non-profit  that seeks to make sure Jack is not just another statistic on a “redacted” report to the government.

If I had prevented this from happening all these “exciting” developments wouldn’t have happened.

What is even more important, though –  if I had prevented this from happening, a very frightened Jack wouldn’t have spent 61 days crawling around in the ceiling at JFK airport, hungry and thirsty and alone.

And that is why we keep going on this mission.

Luckily, there is some good news… we have made some progress!  Alaska Airlines did an amazing job looking for (and finding!) Wenty!!  And Byrdie the Rhodesian Ridgeback was retrieved from the runway at La Guardia before tragedy struck!!

And yet, I still think about Jack – and what he went through during the last 73 days of his life –  every day.  And I also think about the dogs that have escaped from their crates and have run out into the world, scared out of their wits, looking for their families, unsafe and – far too often – unlucky.  Vivi.  Nahla.  Tosha (who was a lucky one).

But all those animals give us a focal point.  If our quest is successful – if we keep the animals SAFE – there will be no more focal points.  No more drama, no more “poster kids” like Jack, like Wenty, like Nahla, like Tosha.

GOOD.  I hope, with everything in my body and soul, that we never have to report on another lost dog or cat at an airport ever again.

Unfortunately, without these “poster kids,” it’s hard to make that dream a reality.  It’s hard to convince people to put themselves out there to PREVENT another sad story.

If I ask you to give $10, or $25, or $100 dollars to help keep a sweet kitty or puppy with big eyes and huge ears alive, it’s a pretty easy call.

But if I ask you to donate the same amount to help us print posters that will go in every vet’s office in the U.S., to help pay the fee for a table at a veterinary conference so that we can spread the word about the dangers of air travel to the people who certify that a dog or cat is healthy enough to fly, or to cover expenses for a trip to Washington to really talk to people that can help us create a safer system, weeeeeeeellllllll…

Those things just aren’t CUTE.  And there will be no story with a happy ending.  Because – if this works – there will be no more stories at all.

I am absolutely 100% certain that if all of us don’t think at least a little bit ahead… if we don’t make air travel for animals safe… if we don’t take a stand and say IT IS NOT ALRIGHT TO TREAT ANIMALS LIKE LUGGAGE, what happened to Jack will happen over and over and over again.  And there will be more pretty kitties and darling doggies who will be lost, injured and killed as a result of air travel.  We’ll look at their pictures and we’ll worry or we’ll cry — but ultimately, these fur-kids will be the ones who pay for our unwillingness to think ahead, to think beyond the story of the cute animal in front of us right now.

When we began Where Is Jack? Inc. (“we” are a core group of determined and concerned volunteers, who all met online as a result of Jack’s plight), we drew up a preliminary budget.  We need about $50,000 to do just the basics of what we’re hoping to do in the next year…

• to go to national and regional veterinary conferences, to talk to vets about the realities of air travel for pets in checked baggage or cargo – since they are the ones who must certify that a dog or cat is healthy enough to fly;
• to print and distribute posters and information cards in the 50,000 veterinary practices in the U.S.; and
• to get to DC to work with people who are willing and able to help us make sure what happened to Jack NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN.

But WE NEED YOUR HELP to make this happen.  To those of you who have become a member of Where Is Jack? Inc. already,  we thank you.  Please ask all your animal-loving friends to join you in supporting this work!!  And if you haven’t yet become a member…

Remember the 61 days Jack was in the ceiling, hungry and alone.  Remember the 12 days he was in veterinary ICU, with that tube in his nose.

Remember that ultimately, he couldn’t survive his ordeal, and that he is now watching us from the other side of the Rainbow Bridge.

Help us print the posters, go to the conferences, and change the laws so that his suffering will never, ever happen again.

It won’t make what Jack went through”worth it,” but at least it won’t make his death another utterly pointless tragedy in the history of animals on planes.

So, it’s happened again – another animal has gone missing as a result of airline mis-handling (this time the airline is LOT Polish Airlines).  On Tuesday, May 15, Tosha went missing from LOT checked baggage/cargo and her people were told she was missing after they had boarded the plane.

And on top of this, the Friends of Jack have heard rumors (still unconfirmed) that another dog went missing from a different airline the previous week.

REALLY????

So what did anybody who works in the airline industry at JFK or the Port Authority (JFK’s governing body) actually learn from Jack’s ordeal??  Or for that matter, from any of the animals that have been lost as a result of airline mishandling?

Clearly, they did not learn that COMMUNICATION is critical to finding the lost pet.

The team of searchers from Heavenly Angels Animal Rescue (the agency that placed Tosha with her family, who had boarded that LOT plane), and searchers Bonnie Folz and Angela Vitucci (FoJs), found that the Port Authority Police AND employees of LOT airlines were unaware that a dog had been lost on airport grounds.  They were unaware of this 48 hours after Tosha had gone missing!!!

Jack went missing on the evening of August 25, 2011.  Before dawn on the morning of August 26, I spoke to a very nice woman at an AA call center who gave me the direct dial number to JFK baggage.  I began calling them at 7am.  I spoke to the supervisor there at 730am – and the baggage supervisor was totally unaware that Jack had been lost! To say I was horrified was an understatement. There was a cat lost in his baggage area, and he didn’t even know to look for it!!

Surely, this was just a problem with AA. Other airlines had to be more together than this.

But it seems not.

After a two month period in which we’ve seen 3 – and possibly 4 – dogs be in danger as a result of air travel, it just becomes clearer and clearer that the system isn’t really working to keep our pets safe.

Now I hear the naysayers – “How many dogs and cats have travelled through just the New York City airports in the last 2 months?  And there have only been 3 (well, maybe 4) incidents?  That’s not so bad, really…”

Of course, if you think pets are just “things” – no different from a sofa or a laptop or a purse – you’d be right.  I’m sure that far more than 3 (or maybe 4) pieces of luggage have been mishandled at LGA and JFK in the last two months.

But I refuse to accept that our loving, loyal, smart, devoted COMPANIONS are no different than a laptop.

And because they ARE DIFFERENT – they deserve to be treated with more care, more diligence, and MORE RESPECT.

Accidents happen.  But when an accident effects a pet, it is an accident on a different level than merely finding all one’s sweaters on the ground in baggage claim.

When an accident happens with a pet, that pet deserves to be searched for beginning the moment it is lost.  And if they aren’t immediately found, they deserve to be searched for by concerned experts until they are found.

Here’s my bottom line:  If a dog or cat is lost by airline mishandling the airline involved is responsible to begin intensive search IMMEDIATELY.  If the pet is not found within an hour, airport police and local experts (e.g., Missing Pet Partnership or its local equivalent) should be contacted to immediately intensify the search.  This is not a situation where an animal is just running around its neighborhood and can walk back in the front door.  The pet is in unfamiliar – and dangerous – territory.  Search efforts must be made quickly, and with extraordinary intensity.

It seems like common sense, doesn’t it?

But I guess common sense is not so common.

And unfortunately, it seems to be in especially short supply at airports.