/Mother Part o/ the Forest
Whether Dogs Can Fly
By STR1X
FROM now until after Christmas—in other words, during the shooting season —the number of persons who wish to travel from one point in the United Kingdom to another ac- companied by a dog or dogs tends, I would guess, to increase. If their jour- ney is a long one, the best,
and often indeed the only taY of making it is by rail or by air. So illiberal,
c'Wever, are the conditions imposed by both these forms of public transport on the carriage of dogs that many of their owners (the dogs' °miners) will use them only as a last resort. , MY only experience of 'flying with a dog was i'vvo years ago, when I booked a passage from -10ndon to Shannon for myself and a Labrador. The airline gave me the address of an agent who, after being furnished with the dog's vital !tatistics, built a crate for her and sent it to 1-ondon Airport. Here, wisely, I arrived an hour ahead of the scheduled time and reported to Passenger Reception. They knew nothing about the crate, but it was eventually tracked down it sortie distant depot and brought over post- haste on a lorry.
The crate looked large enough to house a camel and after some behind-the-scenes delibera- tions the airline said they couldn't carry it; they admitted that they had been informed in advance of its dimensions but the aircraft originally scheduled for that particular flight had had to be replaced by another type with a less com- modious hold. They were very sorry, but there it was. By this time little was left of the care- free atmosphere in which one likes to begin 'a holiday.
A kindly and resourceful official got me out of the dilemma. He produced one of the narrow iron cages in which, apparently, racing grey- hounds are flown hither and thither, and into this the poor Labrador, then only two years old, was inserted. Apart from being not at all the sort of receptacle in which a young dog ought to be immured amid strange and disconcerting surroundings, this cage, which might have been• designed to hold a freshly captured puma, was immensely heavy; and as you pay for a crated dog by the overall weight of the dog and its container, the Labrador's flight to Ireland cost me slightly more than my own.
Otherwise it all ended happily enough; but the experience put me off ever again trying to fly anywhere with a dog.
Canophobia on the Trains British Railways accept dogs as passengers without, as far as I know, acknowledging any responsibility for their comfort or well-being while in transit. Dog-tickets (which are fairly ex- pensive: London to Inverness costs 33s. 6d.) are issued, as it says on the back of them, 'subject to the regulations and conditions in the British Transport Commission's publications and notices applicable to British Railways.' I have never studied these regulations and conditions, but experience suggests that they are markedly one- sided, imposing a number of restrictions on the dog and his owner and no obligations of any sort on Dr. Beeching, who is not, for instance, required to provide so much as a drinking-bowl for the dog unless it is travelling in the guard's van (where, if unaccompanied, it is supposed to wear a muzzle).
One sees, and up to a point sympathises with, the Railways' point of view. Because some dogs are liable to misbehave, it is only prudent that no dogs should be allowed to accompany their owners to the dining-car or in a sleeper. But in a year when thousands of pounds' worth of damage has been done by human vandals to the rolling-stock in which they were travelling, it does seem rather academic to legislate so drastically against the occasional unruly or in- continent dog; and I am sure many owners, who hate the idea of their dog spending a disconso- late night in the guard's van, would gladly put down a substantial deposit to be forfeit if he misbehaved himself in a sleeper.
Previous page
