Dog dies after United flight attendant puts it in overhead bin

[BananaHandsB]

Poor dog suffering due to a bunch of absolute idiots. Owner and the attendants should all be held responsible. Stupid as it is to put a dog up there, how did the owner not open it up every 5-10 minutes or so and replenish the air? Flight crew is even dumber. Put all these idiots together and it's not even surprising they killed a helpless animal. They all deserve to be punished or they'll never learn to use their brains.

[Pawstruck]

Interesting how the death of an animal gets these forums fired up, but the value of human life is constantly overlooked...

It's a dog. A dog. It's a furry piece of furniture upon which many people cast imagery of their own emotions. It's not a damn child.

[Celista]

Interesting how the death of an animal gets these forums fired up, but the value of human life is constantly overlooked...

It's a dog. A dog. It's a furry piece of furniture upon which many people cast imagery of their own emotions. It's not a damn child.

Yes we just overlooked the massive value of human life in a story where no humans died. Can you have any more of a victim complex?

[Socialhealer]

Interesting how the death of an animal gets these forums fired up, but the value of human life is constantly overlooked...

It's a dog. A dog. It's a furry piece of furniture upon which many people cast imagery of their own emotions. It's not a damn child.

so link the story where a child was put in an overhead compartment and died for us please.

[Goldielocks]

"I don't want to victim blame"

Fuck outta here. Victim blaming is more than justified in this situation. The dog would have certainly made noise up in that compartment. Absolutely nobody did anything to help. Not the onlookers, not the staff and not the owner. Everybody involved sound like a bunch of morons.

This is besides the point that the owner should have refused to fly when they were told their dog would have to be stashed away. I can't possibly see a reasonable explanation for why the owner accepted these terms. Anybody with a brain would understand the severity of them.

Interesting how the death of an animal gets these forums fired up, but the value of human life is constantly overlooked...

It's a dog. A dog. It's a furry piece of furniture upon which many people cast imagery of their own emotions. It's not a damn child.

You may think you are sounding reasonable with this, but all you're doing is coming off as a huge jerk.

[Wiyld]

It was a frenchie. A breed with horrible respiratory issues due to decades of egregious breeding practices.

It was in a very small soft sided 'crate'. In other words, it was in a flat bottomed shoulder bag with ventilated sides.


Putting the dog up in the overhead bin didn't restrict its movement or anything, it had the same available space in the bag either way.

The AC runs right past the bins, it didn't get too hot in there.

The flight was about 3.5 hours.

The dog barked twice, once on take off, once during some turbulence during the flight.

The woman who brought it on board had one young teen and a very young child as well as the dog.


The dog probably died of complications from respiratory issues. Frenchies don't need much variation in oxygen levels to have issues...they can hardly breath normally on a good day. Probably going to be tough to definitively say it was because of the overhead bin or not. Maybe it just had an anxiety attack and hyperventilated...maybe CO2 built up so much that it couldn't get enough oxygen...who knows.






Related anecdote: When I was very young, my mother was driving from Michigan to Minnesota, her aunt asked her to transport a cat for the trip. They put the cat crate in the back of the car and made the drive. When they arrived the cat was dead. It was fine when they left, it was in the same car as everyone else....it just croaked on the drive. Her aunt never forgave her, swearing my mom had done something to kill this stupid cat.

The obvious moral of the story being...sometimes shit just happens.

On the other hand...Fuck United anyway

[Celista]

Related anecdote: When I was very young, my mother was driving from Michigan to Minnesota, her aunt asked her to transport a cat for the trip. They put the cat crate in the back of the car and made the drive. When they arrived the cat was dead. It was fine when they left, it was in the same car as everyone else....it just croaked on the drive. Her aunt never forgave her, swearing my mom had done something to kill this stupid cat.

The obvious moral of the story being...sometimes shit just happens.

Travel is very stressful for cats, not to make you feel bad but it was probably the stress of the trip. But nothing you could have done would have changed that. You probably wouldn't have even known the cat was stressed, beyond pupil dilation they don't show it very well.

Maybe anxiety meds/sedatives or something could have helped but even that is questionable.

[Wiyld]

Travel is very stressful for cats, not to make you feel bad but it was probably the stress of the trip. But nothing you could have done would have changed that. You probably wouldn't have even known the cat was stressed, beyond pupil dilation they don't show it very well.

Maybe anxiety meds/sedatives or something could have helped but even that is questionable.

Entirely possible...this was back in like 1984 so it likely would have been tough to find anyone who would dose a cat with anxiety meds. My mom didn't know the cat at all, it was literally like 'take this box along with you, I'll meet you there in a few days'.

Who knows

[gutnbrg]

i just dont understand how they went the entire flight without checking on it? I feel like the family is at blame as well, like they didnt even really care about the dog that much...If i was forced to put my dog in the overhead bin and he was literally 2 feet above me for 4hrs, i would have checked on him like 40+times at least.

[Santti]

I don't understand. How was the dog let in with the passengers in the first place? Aren't they supposed to go in with the cargo or something, in their own boxes meant for pets and most definitely not in with the passengers?

And when the passengers got in, they were ordered to put the dog in the overhead bin? What the fuck?

I'm not sure who to blame here the most, but I'm leaning towards blaming the United here. When an attendant in uniform in an airplane tells you to put the dog there, you assume they are following policy, that they know what they are doing. That the dog does indeed belong in there. I mean, pets in an airplane can't be all that rare of an occurrence, so it'd be logical to assume they know their shit on mundane shit like this, which is why I'm blaming United.

But then again, weren't the owners checking in with the dog, that it was okay during the flight? You can do that during the flight, right? Open the overhead bin?

[lockedout]

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ai...ad-bin-n856361







Hope the owner sues them for everything they are worth, Fuck United Airlines they are such a shitty company.

What a shitty dog owner.

[Santti]

Interesting how the death of an animal gets these forums fired up, but the value of human life is constantly overlooked...

It's a dog. A dog. It's a furry piece of furniture upon which many people cast imagery of their own emotions. It's not a damn child.

Don't see anyone mentioning dead babies in the overhead bin.

[DrStiglit]

Interesting how the death of an animal gets these forums fired up, but the value of human life is constantly overlooked...

It's a dog. A dog. It's a furry piece of furniture upon which many people cast imagery of their own emotions. It's not a damn child.

Right. It’s much better than any child.

[Travis B]

Interesting how the death of an animal gets these forums fired up, but the value of human life is constantly overlooked...

It's a dog. A dog. It's a furry piece of furniture upon which many people cast imagery of their own emotions. It's not a damn child.

Yes, how dare people get upset over a completely innocent life being snuffed out for no reason.

Your post is bad and you should feel bad, but I'm sure you won't.

[grexly75]

That article sounds like it's missing a lot of information.

Did the woman who brought the dog onboard notify them she had the dog with her? Or was she trying to smuggle it on to save on pet fees?

Why wasn't the dog in a proper pet carrier? Those things wouldn't fit in an overhead.

What type of dog was it? Something small, obviously, but did the attendant KNOW they were putting an animal in overhead?

Why the fuck did the woman allow it? Why didn't she get it out when it started barking? Why didn't the woman ask for clarification from another attendant? Why was she stupid enough to think this was the rule? Why the fuck didn't ANYONE do anything about it?

These are rather important questions. The first one could really turn this story around on the owner, rather than the attendant. All this article really says is "Attendant puts a dog in the overhead, it dies, airline apologizes, and in other news --"

Which makes one wonder if the owner of the dog may have been just as much at fault as the Airline..

- - - Updated - - -

Poor dog suffering due to a bunch of absolute idiots. Owner and the attendants should all be held responsible. Stupid as it is to put a dog up there, how did the owner not open it up every 5-10 minutes or so and replenish the air? Flight crew is even dumber. Put all these idiots together and it's not even surprising they killed a helpless animal. They all deserve to be punished or they'll never learn to use their brains.

My thinking as well, in that the owner is probably as much at fault as the airline..

[Ashnazg]

I don't understand. How was the dog let in with the passengers in the first place? Aren't they supposed to go in with the cargo or something, in their own boxes meant for pets and most definitely not in with the passengers?

No, if the dog is sufficiently small, many airlines allow them to travel in the passenger cabin. I've personally flown on United and Delta flights with people adjacent to me keeping dogs in their laps/under the seat in front of them.

[Santti]

No, if the dog is sufficiently small, many airlines allow them to travel in the passenger cabin. I've personally flown on United and Delta flights with people adjacent to me keeping dogs in their laps/under the seat in front of them.

Huh. I see. I had no idea that was a thing. Never saw any pets myself with the passengers when I've flown.

[kail]

Regardless of what the whole story entails, the dog died due to human stupidity. That is something I'd call tragic.

[Lochton]

How bloody stupid must that person have been!? Storing a live animal in a sealed compartment designed for luggage only. The poor thing suffocated due to sheer stupidity. I hope the owner wins the court case, and that the employee is fired. It wasn't an accident.

[Deathknightish]

What kind of psychopaths work at airports and planes? Wasn't there some story a while back where the airport staff suggested that a girl should flush her hamster down as it wasn't allowed on the plane?

Zero emotion towards animals. To these people, animals are just objects moving magically on their own.