On a flight from Denver to Portland Monday night, a woman had quite a mess on her hands (and clothes) when she took her
Chihuahua out of the carrier and it went to the bathroom created a big stink and some unhappy passengers an hour before landing.
“All of a sudden … a poop smell hits you, and a lady behind me who’s pregnant said that she has heightened senses, and so she hit the call button,” a passenger who only identified himself as Nick said. “I turned on my phone light, and that’s when I realized the dog was out. And we were debating was it her or was it the dog. Then a flight attendant came over, and that’s when we kind of realized what was going on,” he continued.
It took about ten minutes for the flight attendants wearing gloves and hazmat outfits to clean up the mess.
“The lady was reluctant to move or to deal with it, and the flight attendants were slow to come,” Burton Bix, another passenger on the flight, said. “They cleaned it eventually. They were wearing hazmat-type clothes, and they cleaned the seat around it.”
The airline's policy is that all dogs and cats on board must remain in a crate or carrier beneath the seat at all times.
It’s a rule that passengers on the plane said the dog owner broke.
“She had said, ‘I’m going to take him out anyway,’ earlier, as the flight was taking off, and we were talking. She said, ‘I’m going to take him out,'” Bix said.
Because it was a full flight, those sitting in the same row weren’t able to move to another seat.
“She mentioned earlier, when I was first seated, that she hadn’t taken it to the bathroom during the airport. I think they have relief centers, so it probably was cooped up in the cage the whole time. So yeah, maybe if you’re going to bring an animal, let it go to the bathroom before you get on the flight,” Nick said.