New US government rules for dog travel has led to more Fido-related confusion in the sky.
Americans love their pets. More than 60 percent of US households have them; more than half of pet owners say they’re as important to their families as any human. So maybe it makes sense that more people are taking their pets on flights. More than 1 million pets travel by air in the US every year, according to the International Pet and Animal Transportation Association, an industry group, and pet trips by airline have jumped in the past decade.Airlines are still trying to catch up with the furry fervor. In recent years, a spate of new US government regulations and airline policies have grappled with the influx. Now new rules from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aimed at stemming the spread of rabies have added more complexity to the process of traveling with dogs. In an effort to bring the US in line with other developed countries’ pet rules, the regulations have dramatically upped the bureaucracy and paperwork involved with moving dogs into the US, and stressed the US’s existing pet importation infrastructure. Airlines are having a hard time keeping up.