Originally Posted by roberton

I just got back from a BOS-DCA US Shuttle flight. I was in the front row of Y, in a bulkhead aisle seat. A young man traveling with a dog had been seated farther back in the plane, but a flight attendant moved him up to the window seat in my row because the bulkhead would provide more room for the dog. This was a large golden lab -- a very cute and friendly dog, but clearly not a trained service animal, given the way it behaved.

It was pretty calm until takeoff -- sitting half on the floor and half in the guys lap -- but then as soon as the plane was in the air, it flopped onto the floor, stretching the entire width of the row, lying on top of my feet and the feet of the guy in the middle seat. The dog's owner tried to pull it back over so it'd just be at his feet, but the dog was pretty insistent on staying where it was, and after a while he just gave up.

The plane was completely full, so there wasn't any other seat for me to move to. The flight attendants knew there was a problem, but it's not clear what they could have done. So I spent the whole flight (which, thankfully, was only a little bit over an hour) with the dog lying on my feet. I'm pretty annoyed -- I like dogs, but I don't like having a big dog lying on my feet for an entire flight. Even if it is a genuine service animal, there's no way a dog that size fits well on a completely full flight. And this dog clearly wasn't well-trained, so I really doubt it was a genuine service animal.

Should I complain to US about this? If they'll just ignore the letter, I don't want to bother. But if they'll compensate me and/or keep that guy from flying with the dog in the future, then it's worth writing them an email.