Whining Puppy Kicked Off Plane — By Flight Attendant Dressed As A Cat

CALIFORNIA — Sitka, an 8-week-old puppy, and her new human, a California woman who had just taken her from everything familiar, were kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for what in any other circumstance would be considered normal bonding.

Passenger Sara Price uploaded clips on TikTok showing the woman as she was removed from the plane. Before the incident ended, Price and her husband were also kicked off the flight, apparently due to their “attitudes.” The videos have been widely viewed, shared and commented on.

Not surprisingly, Sitka was whining a bit in the unfamiliar surroundings of an airplane that would take her from Colorado to her new owner’s home in California. A flight attendant warned the passenger that “if your [dog] doesn’t be quiet, you may not be able to fly,” Price explained in the video captions. “She sticks her hand in the soft carrier and pets the puppy. It stopped whining.”

The carrier was in the passenger’s lap. It needed to be zipped completely and stashed under the seat, the flight attendant said.

“Everyone around us was like, ‘what’s going on here!?’ ” Price wrote on TikTok.

At that point, another flight attendant — who Price said was dressed as a cat — got involved in the situation and asked, “Are we going to have a problem here?”

The passenger complied and put the carrier under the seat. Sitka let out a “soft whine” as the plane moved to the runway, Price wrote, and the passenger “leaned over and started petting it from the outside of the carrier but right at the mesh.”

At that point, flight attendants conferred at the front of the cabin, and it was decided the plane would return to the gate and the woman and Sitka would be removed from the flight, Price wrote.

“You are rude,” the woman said to the flight attendant. “You are a mean person, and I’m never going to fly Southwest again.”

Off-camera, Price’s husband can be heard telling the flight attendant he should be ashamed of himself and, to the woman and her puppy, “we wish you two the best of luck, honey, this is ridiculous.”

“It’s insane,” the about-to-be ejected passenger replied.

Price’s husband, Tyler, wasn’t willing to let it go. He complained to the pilots. “They decided that because my husband said that, we had an ‘attitude’ and they wanted us off the plane also,” Price wrote in the caption of a video of her and husband’s removal from the plane.

Price and her husband, the passenger and her puppy all caught a later flight to California on United Airlines.

The video garnered plenty of sympathy for the woman.

Other TikTok users said a puppy is a minor distraction that doesn’t annoy customers and may, in fact, amuse them.

“I had a flight from Oakland to Palm Springs,” one person said. “A lady with a puppy was told if the puppy whines, then she off the plane. All while 3 kids were SCREAMING!”

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Some people said they’d had the exact opposite experience while traveling with pets.

“Once took my li’l dog out because she was whimpering,” one person said. “Put her under my blanket, attendants saw [and] smiled, people in my row asked to hold her.”

“I flew my bulldog puppy from Dallas to [Pennsylvania],” another person offered. “They had me take her out and she was carried around by flight attendants.”

Several other people, all Southwest loyalists, said Price’s account of what happened doesn’t fit with their experiences.

But What About The Cat?

It’s not the elephant in the room, but the cat that several people on TikTok wondered about.

“K,” one person said, “but why isn’t anyone addressing the caption about a flight attendant dressed as a cat?”

“I was scrolling forever trying to see if anyone else caught that,” another person chimed in. “I’m like, oh so we’re just all ignoring that?”

“The person identified as a cat didn’t feel safe with a dog there,” someone suggested.

“Natural enemies,” another person said.

“I hope the lady kicked off sues ’em for discrimination,” someone else said. “Cat flight attendant kicking a puppy off flight seems pretty clear discrimination to me.”

Several people pointed out Southwest allows its employees to wear costumes during the last two weeks of October.

Airlines set weight and size restrictions, acceptable carrier sies and set fees. Most airline require pet carriers to fit under the seat in front of you and count them as a carry-on item.

Fees are not charged to bring emotional support animals into cabins, but the U.S. Department of Transportation cracked down on what qualifies as an emotional support animal after people began bringing peacocks, pigs, squirrels and snaes into the cabin during flights.

The 2020 rule states that only trained dogs that “perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability” qualify as service animals. After that ruling, multiple airlines, including Alaska, American, Delta, Frontier and Southwest, announced they would no longer allow emotional support animals on board.

@_sara_price_ Met this lady in the boarding line today @Southwest Airlines She flew out to Colorado Springs to pick up her new little puppy and fly her back home to CA. The puppy was whining a little and the flight attendant boarding everyone walked up to her and said, if your dogs doesn't be quiet, you may not be able to fly. She sticks her hand in the soft carrier and pets the puppy. It stopped whining. We board the plane and she has the carrier in her lap still petting the puppy when the same flight attendant came up and said the carrier needed to be zipped completely and put under the seat. Everyone around us was like, what's going on here!? Another flight attendant, dressed as a cat comes up and says "are we going to have a problem here!?" The lady does as she is told and we start to taxi to the runway. The dog gave a very soft whine, so she leaned over and started petting it from the outside of the carrier but right at mesh. All the attendants got in a group at the front of the plane and decided we needed to return to the gate and that she should be removed from the flight. #southwestairlines #southwest #southwestair ♬ original sound - Sara Price