Stop X-Raying Your Pets At The Airport, TSA Tells NYC

QUEENS — New Yorkers love pets, paws, and puppies, but the staff at LaGuardia Airport are getting an overload.

Transportation Security Administration officials are seeing “too many passengers place their pets in an X-ray unit at checkpoints,” according to an airport spokesperson.

That's why the TSA and two volunteers decided to take matters (by which we mean a furry white pup) into their own hands and teach passengers how to travel with their four-legged loved ones.

Officials hosted a demonstration on Tuesday morning at LaGuardia Airport to show travelers the proper way to screen small pets at security checkpoints. Fifi the chihuahua/poodle and the mini poodle Chino helped with the lessons.

“One of the most important things to know is that pets should never be screened through a checkpoint X-ray unit,” said Robert Duffy, TSA Federal Security Director for LaGuardia Airport.

All pets should be brought to a security checkpoint in a hand-held travel carrier. The pet should then be removed from the carrier prior to the beginning of the screening process.

Travelers must place the empty travel carrier on the checkpoint conveyor belt so it can be X-rayed and should never place the pet in the X-ray tunnel. Passengers should carry the pet through the walk-through metal detector during the screening process or walk through the screening process if the owner has the pet on a leash.

After a TSA officer gives the owner’s hands an explosive trace detection swab, passengers should return their pet to the travel carrier.

LaGuardia isn’t the only airport seeing an increase in pets going through X-ray tunnels.

In November, an X-ray machine at John F. Kennedy airport uncovered a cat in a suitcase. But Eventually the owner let the cat out of the bag: it had climbed in of its own accord.