Dog’s death on United flight — proof we baby our pets too much

I hope we have learned a lesson from the death of a dog that was traveling the way humans do — in the cabin of an airplane.

There are going to be the usual cries of protestation and calls for the beheading of a flight attendant who insisted that the dog be put in an overhead bin on a United Airlines flight. And although it’s sad, one has to sympathize with the plight of the flight attendant as well.

I’m not exactly sure when it became imperative for everyone to travel with pets. When I was younger, pets always traveled in the cargo hold of a plane. The only exception would be a seeing-eye dog or what they like to call service animals today. I guess animals have changed and become snowflakes just like their human counterparts, because apparently, now they are way too delicate to be put in the cargo hold of a plane.

If you needed to transport a monkey or a koala bear, you would never think of carrying it along with you in a cute little carrier in the cabin of an airplane. So I’m not exactly sure why cats and dogs can now be carried with you and accompany you at your seat.

But as far as I’m concerned, we need to go back to the days when we treated animals like the animals that they are, instead of the furry humans we have made them out to be, and put them in the cargo hold of airplanes where they belong. It’s for their safety, too.

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Dennis & Judi are on the air weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tweet them @DennisandJudi or @NJ1015.