Parker County Today November 2018 | Page 81

Continued from page 4 Thanks For Reading, Marsha Brown, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Parker County Today Both Delta and JetBlue recently released a press alert stating that pit bulls are no longer allowed as emotional support animals on their flights. I love pit bulls as much as anybody but, seriously? The way some people react to them would make flying far more stressful for me as a dog owner. They probably don’t belong on a flight. In 2016, a man found himself at odds with the airline he was trying to fly when he brought along his emotional support marmoset. Airline officials went ape! Pun intended. The trouble wasn’t the little monkey, but rather his master’s failure to produce the proper paperwork.  The “misunderstanding” was resolved when the plane landed in Las Vegas, but unfortunately the monkey master was not allowed to fly back to his home base because Frontier Airlines slapped him on the no-fly list.  Frontier Airlines recently changed its policy on support animals, only allowing cats or dogs, and only allowing one animal per passenger. A few years ago, a pot-bellied pig accompanied a woman as an emotional support animal but was booted out, along with his owner after he became “disruptive.” He was reportedly tied to an armrest, pacing back and forth.  A woman who was a PTSD sufferer traveling from one end of North Carolina to the other created something of a “flap” by bringing her emotional support animal on a small plane for a short flight.  Her feathery support buddy was a duck dubbed “Daniel Turducken Stinkerbutt.” The traveler had actu- ally received certification to take Mr. Stinkerbutt with her onboard flights as an emotional support pet.  The airline never cried, “fowl,” but I’m guessing his presence was some- what disruptive to the other passengers and the crew — especially if he lived up to his name. 79