Airport Baggage Worker Fired for Saving Abused Dog
He was bound for Corpus Christi, Texas, but the listless, bereft coonhound slumped in the pet carrier in Reno-Tahoe International Airport didn’t look like he’d make it out of Nevada, AP News reports.
Sores covered his body. His paws looked raw and worn. The dog was so thin, airport baggage handler Lynn Jones recalls, “it made me cry.”
Jones knew that if she loaded the dog onto the flight, it would surely die. But her supervisor insisted.
“He didn't even really look at the dog,” she said. “He just kept saying: ‘The dog is going, the dog is going.’ And I kept saying, ‘It is not.’ And we went back and forth, ‘Yes it is, no it isn’t, yes it is.’ ”
Jones, 56, who shares her home with three dogs, three cats and a bird—all rescues—soon became hysterical.
“I was crying and yelling because the plane was going to leave and I was afraid the dog was going to be on it. I kept saying, ‘Please, please, the dog is going to die,’ ” she said.
Airport police phoned the animal welfare agency, which took custody of the dog.
For refusing to ship the sick animal, for saving its life, Jones lost her job.
The bad news doesn't end there: after the coonhound rebounded, he was shipped back to its negligent owner, a preposterous move that infuriated Jones.
“It just breaks my heart to think that dog has been sent back to that owner. It’s disgusting. It makes me ill. I can’t fathom why they would send it back to someone who obviously was abusing the dog.”
While it’s not yet clear what if any actions have been taken against the dog’s owner, NBC Reno News 4 reports that Airport Terminal Services has since offered Lynn Jones her job back. Jones said she is considering the offer.
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