Originally Posted by Mountain Trader
So a baby with a high likelihood of bothering a lot of passengers is ok, but a pet who bothers no one should be banned because it is a pet?
Not much logic there-I thought the thread was about passengers being bothered, not their right to tell other people what to do without cause.
No, it looks like this thread is about people having allergic reactions to pets on aircraft, which can be very different from being "bothered." I consider the threat of a life-threatening asthma attack sufficient cause to say pets do not belong in the passenger cabin. I've lost one family member to dog allergy, I'm not interested in repeating the experience.
This thread prompted me to research how many Americans are actually allergic to dogs, and I was startled to read that it may be up to 30%, and probably a very large percentage of asthmatics react on some level to dogs, as "dogs came out on top as promoting greater disturbances in pulmonary function measurements for asthmatics" according to a study presented at the American Thoracic Society's International Conference in 2003.
As for whether your dog has ever "bothered" someone: have you verifed that no one within 5 rows of your pet has had a sudden onset of allergy or asthma symptoms to any degree? If not, perhaps you are just unaware of how your dog bothered someone who did not even know what triggered their symptoms.