The very first time Kurt and I took the cat with us to Michigan for Christmas we asked the type and dimensions of acceptable cat carriers and if there were ANY other things with needed to do or bring in order to fly with the cat. Nope. We flew there and back without incident (none dealing with the cat anyway). It was our second or maybe third trip out to Michigan with the cat that nearly caused me to go to jail. We had flown to Michigan without incident, even while switching planes. The way back home was quite a different story all together.
We arrived at the airport, got our tickets, waited to board, gave my ticket to the boarding person, and I had walked halfway down the gangway when the ticket person stopped me. “Do you have a health certificate for the cat?”
“A what?”
“A health certificate – You need one to get on the plane with the cat.” I still didn’t understand what he meant. I had never heard of such a thing. I showed him on the ticket where it specified cat in cabin. “No” he said, “You need a health certificate from your vet for the cat to fly.”
“But I’m on my way home! – I got the cat here without one.”
“Well Seattle must have dropped the ball, because it’s required on all flights.”
“I’ve flown several times with the cat and have never heard of this.” At this time he’s lead in me back out of the plane and Kurt who was held up behind me was on his was to the plane.
Kurt saw me heading the opposite direction and turned, “What’s going on?”
“They won’t let the cat on.” Kurt and I were upset. We had a long vacation and were ready to just go home. They informed us that we had been informed of the rules regarding pets. I love it when people who weren’t there tell me what was told to us. I asked them why on earth I would have taken my cat to the vet a month before the flight and not obtained a health certificate at the time if I knew about it. Police were summoned as we were quite visibly irritated, and the attendants started to try and come up with a solution. Our flight had left but there was hope that we may catch the next one. We used our out of area cell phone to get my vet’s number and then call the vet, so that we could have a health certificate faxed to the airport. The vet sent the cat’s shot record but no health certificate. This wasn’t accepted. We had to call again. The vet informed us that it had just been over thirty days since the last visit and therefore she couldn’t issue a health certificate. Kurt and I were enraged that they wouldn’t just accept the record of shots, and we began cursing.
The cops at this point became a little more interactive. I was doing the bulk of the cursing, but they warned KURT to stop, hence Kurt’s favorite phrase from Officer spunky in-your-face midget, “You do realize that you’re in the Dane County Airport?”
“What the Fuck does that have to do with anything! – What are you going to do Arrest ME!?” I yelled for the entire terminal to hear.
“Yes” Officer spunky midget said.
“Fine, GO AHEAD!” I had nothing to loose, I was unemployed at the time. It would be fun to ague about freedom of speech with him.
We finally had to call our friends to come pick us up and then find a vet in the area. Even the vet couldn’t believe that we were only there for a health certificate. I took Bailey out of the carrier and she didn’t even touch him. She just filled out the form and handed it to me to sign, and I had to pay her for this.
I wrote a letter to the airline and had a battle for a while about it and all they gave us was a $200 voucher that would expire after one year. Kurt and I haven’t flown Northwest since.
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