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Since May 2005, the U.S. Department of Transportation (“DOT”) has required all U.S. airlines that operate scheduled passenger flights to file monthly reports on pets that died or were lost or injured during transport, pursuant to the requirements of section 710 of the 2000 Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century (as subsequently codified at Title 49, Section 41721 of the United States Code and Title 14, Section 234.13 of the Code of Federal Regulations).

The DOT publishes redacted versions of these reports on its website, but unfortunately they are not easy to find. This page provide links to those reports, organized by (1) the total number of reports filed by each carrier, (2) the reports filed at DOT on a month-by-month basis, and (3) the reports filed at DOT on a carrier-by-carrier basis. Please note that the data for each airline does not necessarily indicate the quality of service that it provides, because the number of animals transported by each airline varies widely. For example, Continental Airlines, which transports numerous pets, has emphasized that incident reports are filed for less than 0.05% of the pets that it transports. Further, Southwest Airlines until recently did not transport pets (in contrast to service animals, as required by law), and no reports have been filed by Southwest to date.

In addition, the DOT does not require reports to be filed for all incidents involving animals; the scope of the regulation is discussed in an FAQ that the DOT issued shortly after it adopted the reporting regulations. Notably, reports are not required to be filed for incidents involving animals:

Further, in a letter to the author, DOT elaborated that it also interprets the reporting requirements not to apply to "escapes [which] last only a few minutes or a few hours."

 Hi, all you animal lovers!

The Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) hasissued an emergency alert warning pet owners to avoid transporting their animalsby air, particularly during the hot summer months. ALDF cited airlines continueddisregard for the safety of the animals they carry as the reason for thewarning. "Despite hundreds of incidents in which animals have been lost, injuredor killed while being transported by airplane, the airlines have shown littleregard for the safety of the animals who are entrusted to them," saidValerie Stanley, ALDF senior staff attorney. "We feel compelled to letconsumers know that they are risking their pets' lives when they transport themby air."

Stanley said the summer travel season is the most dangerous time of the yearfor pets to be loaded aboard an airplane. If planes are delayed on the ground,the extreme temperature in an airplane's cargo hold can cause animals to sufferbrain damage or die due to hypothermia. Some pets are left to swelter ontarmacs. Others are mistakenly freed on the way to or from the plane, where theyare lost or killed.

Flagrant violations
According to ALDF, although the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and the UnitedStates Department of Agriculture (USDA) require that animals be transported in amanner that ensures their safety and well-being, virtually every major airlinehas a long record of flagrant violations of these rules.
The results can be tragic: Five hours after 81 healthy puppies were putaboard a TWA passenger jet en route from Kansas City to St. Louis, baggagehandlers discovered 50 of the puppies were dead due to heat exposure ofsuffocation. When a Continental jet bound for Denver was delayed for three hoursin Philadelphia, three of the five Samoyed dogs being transported in the plane'scargo hold were found dead on arrival. Too many animals needlessly suffer injuryor die each year -- and an airline's only liability for the often gruesome deathof a beloved pet is limited to the value of a piece of luggage.

"The airlines consider payments or USDA fines for an injured or deadanimal as merely a `cost of doing business,'" Stanley said.

Just last December, Stanley noted, United Airlines declined to pay the $4,000medical bill and related expenses incurred by the owner of a dog who sufferedruptured eardrums and other trauma on a flight from Los Angeles to Miami. Unitedcontended that "there was no value declared for this shipment" andhence the airline's liability was limited to 50 cents per pound for the116-pound "shipment," or $410.50. United's letter never onceacknowledged that the "shipment" was a dog.

ALDF, the nation's only public interest law firm specializing in protectingthe well-being of domestic animals and wildlife, is preparing a petitiondemanding that the USDA adopt stricter regulations and improve conditions foranimals transported by air. Accompanying this demand will be thousands ofpetitions from individuals who want safer conditions for animals traveling inairplanes. In addition, ALDF is asking corporations to put pressure on airlinesby pledging to favor only those carriers that sign ALDF's cruelty-free pledge totake better care of animals entrusted to them. The Houston Rockets, Frederick'sof Hollywood and John Paul Mitchell Systems have already signed the pledge.

"The skies are not friendly to pets. Most airplane cargo holds areunsafe for animals. Until conditions improve, pet owners should never put theirtreasured companions aboard a plane. Doing so could seal their doom," saidStanley.

In the very worst cases, they freeze to death on icy tarmacs, or overheat andsuffocate in stifling cargo holds. They're dogs and cats. Thousands of them are killed, injured or lost annuallyafter their owners entrust airlines to carry and deliver them safely. Heat alone - typically from the cargo holds of planes delayed on hot tarmacs- kills or "severely" injures more than 500 animals a year, accordingto the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which keeps only a partial accounting. For the pet, these holds turn the skies into a hell.

A November study by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty toAnimals in San Francisco found that animal crates are almost always shippedalong with routine baggage in cargo holds with no air- conditioning or aircirculation. Temperatures routinely exceed 115 degrees.

"These are animals that are struggling to breathe, their hearts areracing, and they're in a panic, suffering extreme stress and anxiety," saidDr. Lila Miller, a veterinary adviser for the New York-based ASPCA. Their paws are often bloodied, and their teeth chipped and broken, in theirfrantic attempts to break out of their shipping crates to escape the infernalheat. "That's torture," police-dog trainer Mike Cain told the CharlotteObserver last year after his five Belgian Malinois arrived dead from heat strokeand suffocation in Atlanta on a Delta Airlines flight from the Netherlands.

More common - and virtually unpoliced and uncounted - are the dogs and catswhose shipping crates are dropped, crushed, sent to the wrong location, ordamaged enough to allow the animals to escape. There's the Staffordshire terrier from Boise, Idaho, whose crate was droppedand smashed from a height of four feet last year by a Delta baggage handler ashis owner watched in horror. The Air Transport Association boasts of the industry's "excellentrecord" shipping pets, and says less than 1 percent of the 500,000 petsthat fly each year experience health problems.

"We carry hundreds of pets throughout our system each day, normally withcomplete satisfaction to their owners," said a spokeswoman for Delta, anairline that turned up again and again as this story was researched.

• The USDA has only 70 inspectors to police nearly 11,000 sites - not onlyairports, but puppy mills, zoos, circuses and research labs.
• Airlines are not required to report pet mishaps. No one knows how many ofthe nearly 170,000 passenger baggage complaints logged each month by theU.S.Department of Transportation involve pet cargo.
• An airline's civil liability is limited by federal tariff law to only $2,000per piece of luggage - and a pet in a crate is legally luggage.

Unless a pet is small enough to qualify as carry-on luggage, "You can be99 percent certain you are putting your pet in a cargo hold that is notventilated and has no temperature control," said Nancy Blaney, the ASPCA'snational lobbyist, who is currently fighting for a bill that would address allof these problems.

This summer I had the privilege to be involved with one of the most heart warming rescues that I have ever done. Below you will find the links to the "live" video that one of the local TV stations captured and also a story that was written in the Tribune, a local paper. Please click on the links to view the story.

Gale Lang / TLC Pet Transport / Owner

Here’s a TV story that a local Albuquerque station did on Rice and Brett/Adam

Turning 13 in the Wasserman family is a special occasion. It means the new teenager gets to chose between a party or a puppy as a birthday present. Lani, now 19, opted for the party, although she later ended up with a cat named Matt. Zach, 17, chose a Chesapeake Bay retriever, Flash. In February, Brett Adam turned 13. He wanted a puppy, preferably a lab cross. The home-schooled eighth-grader (who goes by Adam) got a dog bed and a toy hippo for a puppy on his birthday. The search began online. That's when the Wassermans stumbled across a photo of a white, scraggly looking dog with captivating brown dog eyes. Adam was in love. No matter the pup wasn't a lab cross or that he would no longer be a puppy by the time Adam would get him. That's because the dog, then 2 months old, lived in Bangkok, Thailand.

"It just felt right," Adam said last month, almost two weeks after Rice became an American canine citizen.

Rice and five siblings had been abandoned in May in the outskirts of Bangkok. Volunteers from a rescue group called Soi Dog Rescue took in the pups. Rice and four of his siblings - one was hit by a car before it could be adopted - were put up for adoption on the Soi Dog Rescue site that the Wassermans stumbled upon. The Wassermans contacted Soi Dog Rescue in July. Workers were so excited that they didn't notice the Wassermans' New Mexico address. The organization usually sends animals to New York and Boston airports.

"We try to avoid a domestic flight in the States because a third flight is a lot of stress for the dog and also a lot of extra cost for us," said Carrie Pinnow, adoption coordinator for Soi Dog Rescue, in an e-mail from Bangkok. Sherry Conisbee, co-founder of the organization, said they almost had to give up when they realized it would be difficult to send Rice to Albuquerque. Pinnow was determined to get Rice and Adam together.

"Because I felt it was a perfect fit for Rice, I knew that we could find a way to get him there," she wrote. "I didn't doubt for a minute that we could do it."

Pinnow sent an e-mail to all Soi Dog volunteers. A volunteer in Boston knew someone in Los Angeles, whose daughter picked up Rice. She also found a Crittenden, KY. pet transport company that would bring Rice to Corrales for a discounted price of $200 instead of the normal $500. Rice embarked on his journey Aug. 13, leaving Bangkok and traveling to Amsterdam, where he got to stretch his legs and take a potty break before he was on his way to Los Angeles. He arrived in Los Angeles on Aug. 14, spending the night with the daughter of the volunteer.

The next day, he was in hands of Gale Lang from TLC Pet Transport, Inc. Around 11 p.m. on Aug. 15, Rice arrived at the Furr's Family Dining parking lot by Coors Boulevard and I-40. The entire Wasserman family greeted the new arrival. "He just seemed to know Adam was his person," said Patty Wasserman, Adam's mother. Ten days after Rice arrived, boy and dog ran around the grassy backyard, chasing each other. Rice enjoyed chewing on a green tennis ball, slightly smaller than normal to fit his mouth, or on a denim bean bag. And he nipped his human; Adam didn't mind. That was part of the fun. Patty made sure Adam washed the bite. 

"I've gotten a lot of dog bites and never washed them," he told her.

Even the two other Wasserman dogs adjusted to Rice, although they still believe they are the boss of the home, Bob Wasserman said. Oh, and Matt the cat isn't too thrilled. The Wassermans, for their part, are happy they rescued Rice from a place not known for its humane treatment of animals. Conisbee, who started Soi Dog Rescue in 2002, said Bangkok is home to around 300,000 stray dogs.

"The vast majority of Thai people have no education about animal welfare or the humane treatment of animals - even the educated, middle-class ones - and the neglect, apathy and abuse is shocking and commonplace," she said in her e-mail.

No laws govern humane treatment of animals. There are also cultural differences that prohibit euthanasia, and promote dumping of puppies when they mature and killing or cooking dogs. "He probably would have ended up on someone's dinner plate," Patty said. The dog bed meant for Adam's new puppy is too small for Rice, now 5 months old, but the hippo toy is Rice's favorite - a sign, the family says, that the match between Adam and Rice was meant to be. "It's just a love story," Bob said. "Adam was just looking for a dog to love, and it happened to be from Bangkok." Boy and dog have since started obedience school at Petsmart.

Thanks again to all who helped get Rice and Adam together. They're
quite a pair, and both continue to thrive!

Cheers,
Robert

Contrary to popular belief, one "dog year" does not equal seven human years. We've seen many 20-year-old dogs in our practice, but we are yet to even hear of 140-year-old humans. Along the same line, a dog that is two years old is an adult. A 14-year-old teenager is just that....a teenager.

The most accurate way to determine the relative age of your dog is to know the life expectancy of your dog's breed. Small breeds tend to live longer, frequently 14 to 17 years or longer. Giant breeds, like Great Danes, have a life expectency that is significantly shorter. Even with that knowledge, however, there is no easy multiplier you can use to determine the relative age of your pet because of the many variables in the aging process of canines, particularly in the first few years.

While it is fun to know the relative age of your pet in human years, it can also help you understand your dog's behavior, his special needs as he gets older, and different nutritional requirements as he progresses through life.

The chart shown below is a fairly accurate measure of the relative age of the average dog when compared to human.

The good news is that pets, like people, have a longer life expectancy today that ever before: primarily due to better healthcare and nutrition.

AGE OF DOG HUMAN YEARS AGE OF CAT HUMAN YEARS

DOGS............ CATS 

1 year 15 years 1 month 5-6 months
2 years 24 year 2 months 9-10 months
3 years 28 years 3 months 2-3 years
4 years 32 years 4 months 5-6 years
5 years 36 years 5 months 8-9 years
6 years 40 years 6 months 14 years
7 years 44 years 7 months 15 years
8 years 48 years 8 months 16 years
9 years 52 years 1 year 18 years
10 years 56 years 2 years 25 years
11 years = 60 years 3 years = 30 years
12 years = 64 years 4 years = 35 years
13 years = 68 years 5 years = 38-40 years
14 years = 72 years 6 years = 42-44 years
15 years = 76 years 7 years = 45 years
16 years = 80 years 8 years = 48 years
17 years = 84 years 9 years = 55 years
18 years = 88 years 10 years = 60 years
19 years = 89 years 11 years = 62 years
20 years = 93 years 12 years = 65 years
21 years = 96 years 13 years = 68 years
22 years = 99 years 14 years = 72 years
23 year = 103 years 15 years = 74 years

* information obtained from Doctor's Foster & Smith web site