Posted on 03/14/2012 8:01:11 PM PDT by Altariel
Is United Airlines profiling dog breeds? If so, I'm a logical person to ask for help. I've stood up against local governments banning specific breeds (usually municipalities seeking to ban any dog looking like a Pit Bull). Breed bans have never demonstrated success at lowering the number of dog bites.
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United Airlines confirmed its adoption of the Continental Airlines Pet Safe program as the merger of the two carriers became official earlier this month. The Pet Safe program, which had been in place for several years, bans nine dog breeds on planes, including the American Pit Bull Terrier and the American Staffordshire Terrier.
From the perspective of United, the decision was based, in part, on an incident which occurred on a 2002 American Airlines flight from San Diego to New York. A dog identified as a Pit Bull (who knows if the dog was really a Pit Bull, since so many dogs with Pit Bull characteristics are mistakenly identified as Pits) broke out of its kennel and wreaked havoc in the cargo hold. The dog chewed through the plane's electrical system, causing a potential safety issue, not to mention thousands of dollars in damage.
Luckily, there was no damage to the plane's vital flying systems, and the flight landed safely. The dog was not dangerous, per se, but apparently panicked. Had this happened with a Standard Poodle, I'm not sure if the response would have been so extreme. As a result of this one incident, American banned several breeds, including Rottweilers and Dobermans (even though these breeds were not involved in the 2002 incident).
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Actually, it is a conservative position, based on the knowledge that once breed bans start with the “evil” breeds, they keep going on principle.
If you have personal concerns about a certain type of dogs, that’s fine.
However, your personal concerns don’t make your fellow Freepers concerns de facto “liberal”. It isn’t “liberal” for your fellow Freepers to argue “since United made its decision, I’ve made mine—United is no longer on the list of airlines on which I will choose to fly.”
“To ask for and expect strangers like airline folks to be those ‘specially skilled/trained handlers,’ of known breeds is an unreasonable expectation. And for me that does indeed make it both a mute and moot point. “
No one has asked the airline folks to be “those specially skilled/trained handlers”; this is a straw-man argument.
What’ll your first act be, “Seas Cruelty” Salamander?
“Why create bad PR? Just have the pilots not flip the “dead dog switch.””
Because it is not logical to assume that only one of the undesired breeds will be on the plane.
If all the dogs on a particular flight were brought out dead, the airline would be sued. Repeatedly.
Rottweilers and Dobermans are banned from American Airlines, just not United Airlines.
I guess the German Shepherd and Belgian Malinois are next.
As far as which dog is a pitt and which is not, it is a breed that is very distinctive looking and those pitt characteristics come out clearly in a mix of breeds. Does that mean they are all bad dangerous dogs? No it doesn't but Pitt Bulls and part Pitts have shown that you need to be careful around them because they are so powerful and were originally bred for fighting.
Apparently we’re living parallel lives...;D
I guess we Arrrrrrrgggghhhhhhh!!! LOL
Plunder me some gold doubloons, of course....;D
LOLOL!
Good ‘un.
;D
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