By Morieka Johnson, MNN.com
Jack the cat made
news last year when he escaped his crate and spent 61 days lost in JFK airport,
and model Maggie Rizer's September blog post about her golden retriever's death during a United Airlines flight still has pet
owners buzzing.(MNN.com) -- Horror
stories about pets flying in the cargo hold tend to travel quickly.
Jack escaped when an American
Airlines clerk stacked his kennel on another kennel and it fell, opening on
impact. The cat had to be euthanized because of malnourishment and dehydration,
which made him prone to severe infection and organ dysfunction. On her
"Bea Makes Three" blog, Rizer says she followed detailed instructions
outlined in United's PetSafe program. Her dogs, Bea and Albert, traveled in carefully labeled
crates that included water bowls filled with ice for their cross-country flight
to San Francisco. But, according to Rizer, a necropsy report revealed that Bea
died of heatstroke.
"Please, don't trust that
an airline will truly care and provide safety to your beloved pet," Rizer
wrote. "At some point in the two hours that Bea was in the care of United
Airlines before she died, someone made a mistake and because of that, our
loving, happy sweet Bea is no longer in our lives."
