Scumbags at ATS fire woman who saved a poor dog's life!

What? No not THIS ATS. This article is about Airport Terminal Services Inc.



Apparently a baggage loading employee noticed a dog about to be loaded onto a plane was emaciated and covered with sores. When her supervisor ordered her to load it onto a plane, she refused until animal control could come to take the dog into its care.

Airport worker fired after refusing to load dog

Airport baggage handler Lynn Jones saw the sad look on the listless, emaciated dog sitting in a pet carrier and knew something was wrong. Then she saw that its body was covered with sores and its paws were worn raw.

"It was so thin, it made me cry," she said.

If that dog gets on that plane, she remembered thinking, it would certainly die. And when she refused a supervisor's orders to load it onto the Texas-bound flight, she was fired.

Now, a month after the incident at Reno-Tahoe International Airport, the dog has recovered. And Jones, while her former employer and airport officials have praised her for her actions, remains without her old job.

A statement posted on the company's web site said officials were investigating, and that the company "commends this employee's situational awareness and her desire to raise the concern on behalf of the canine."

"ATS is reviewing the actions of all employees involved to determine if the appropriate action was taken," it said.

AP story


I just though it was funny the company was named ATS and decided to share it here.

They say the dog belongs to a hunter who takes it along on hunting trips. It recovered while in the custody of Animal Control but, has now been returned to the custody of its original owner.

The fired worker says she is not sure if she would take her old job back if it was offered to her.

"Just following orders..."

I would have done the same and refused to put the dog in harms way. The bigger fish is always right even when they are wrong, that's just business as usual.

Good for her! Sounds like she really should take her job back if they offer it. Obviously they need more caring people like her in her position. She should be offered her job back, with back pay for the time she was off.

Wow..what a sad day friend..these are really the kind of stories that make my blood boil at Corporate America..don't care about the life of this animal..just shut up and load him or else..I think this employee who was fired needs to find the best lawyer she can..preferably one who who is involved in the animal rights movement and sue the pants of this airline..they need to be taught several lessons here..wasn't their another way to handle this situation without firing this person?

Thanks for sharing this story..I feel it's an important story, this employee made the humane choice..and did try and stand up for someone who could not speak for them self (the dog) she/he went with their conscience and they can go home and look into the mirror and like what they see..the airline boss..well...I hope that person one day finds them self in a small cage..covered with sores and hungry..being loaded into a cold storage bin..wow now that sounds very harsh doesn't it? I bet that poor dog felt the same way...SnF Cheers Coco

Just another case of a psycopath in charge of a human being. No compassion, no empathy.....

90% sure she will get her job back with back pay.

The psycopaths up top don't want a big PR mess. They will give her the job back and get her another way thats more quite to the public.

reply to post by FortAnthem


I agree with the firing.

She had no idea the situation of that dog. Perhaps it had been lost by its owner, on a cross country trip, found, and was now being returned to its rightful home? Perhaps it had some special health concern and was being flown to a specialist and her concern could have cost it its life. She was way out of line. Common sense would tell someone that a dog owner that is abusing its pets does not spend the money to fly them commercial.

Personally, I don't want nosy people loading my bags.

reply to post by getreadyalready


I thought about that to. What if the dog was on its way to some special vetrinary center to deal with an unusual disease or something? I admire her compassion but, more thinking should have gone into this whole thing.

Unless the dog looked like it was ready to keel over right there on the spot, she should have trusted the owner to do the right thing for the dog instead of butting in like that.

This time her intervention had a good outcome. Maybe next time she could be holding that dog back from a life saving procedure and it could end up dead as a doornail.

It's not her job to judge if a dog is being cared for properly...her job is to load luggage. She failed to do her job, so why wouldn't she be fired.

It may be a nice thing that she did, but she nor anyone else should be surprised or shocked that she got fired.

I am so sick of these wannbe rescuers who make themselves judge and jury when they know nothing about the situation.
Working animals are lean, if the dog had been in the marshes flushing out waterfowl I can completely see how it would get leaner, scraped up, footsore.
So do the dogs running the iditarod race and I can see the sled driver being out for blood if some idiot do gooder stole the dogs while claiming they were being 'rescued'.
Rescue is just another word for livestock Rustling.
Far too many people who know nothing about animals are pointing fingers.

I hate to cross post but this thread shows an almost military style raid on expensive horses that were 'stolen' for profit not rescue. Several of the horses were on loan from the polish government stud and it got very politically ugly.

It goes on for 88 pages but several of the posters know the person who's horses were seized and people on this board know how much it costs to rehab an animal and the 'rescues' were claiming that it would cost 10x as much I wonder into whose pockets the excess funds went???

www.chronofhorse.com...
www.chronofhorse.com...

I'd have to agree with her firing, simply because of the dangerous precedent this could create. If the company allowed and approved her actions, do they now have to start inspecting every animal they load onto planes? Do they have to hire trained vets to inspect all these animals? Like other people have said, what if it was on its way to a specialist for treatment? It's really not the baggage handler's nor the company's place to determine whether or not an animal is too sick to fly. I do love animals and am glad this one was saved, but it's really impractical to ask companies like these to take on these responsibilities.

reply to post by itscocobaby

.I hope that person one day finds them self in a small cage..covered with sores and hungry..being loaded into a cold storage bin.

Don't worry, what goes around, comes around - the guardian of the dog and the people who fired her will get theirs.

If people wrote or e-mailed this story to the airline and said they supported this brave woman and would boycott their airline and tell their friends unless she was reinstated AND they would also recommend their friends do the same that might have some effect..................$$$$ talks.

Airport police phoned the animal welfare agency, which took custody of the dog.

I would think if the police intervened and the animal welfare agency had to come take the dog, then nurse it back to health she did the right thing. I'm surprised by some of the responses in this thread and wonder if everyone read the article. Having compassion for a suffering animal should not cause someone to lose their job. Sure the dog could have been on the way to a specialist, but why not contact animal services if it looked incredibly ill? I'd call the cops if I saw a dog locked in a hot car, how is this all that different? What if the owner was unaware the dog was sick, and the dog died as a result of stress on the flight? Seems like that would be on the airline if they ignored the animals health. Too bad the dog was returned to the owner.

Wow I am surprised at the obvious display of sheeples on this site! It is a sad story and the employee did the right thing. Then one moderator says that she should not have been nosy and should have been fired - which in turn changes the responses from then on to all agreeing that she should have been fired! Sheeples. She should not have been fired and we need more people like this woman working in the larger co-orpoarations. You never know when we all need someone like this lady (with a conscience) on our side and working for us one day.

reply to post by Domo1


If she would have put it on the plane, it would have been home in a few hours, and the owner could have nursed it back to health. She made a mistake in interfering with little to no information. By the time the dog was actually at the animal shelter, it could have already been home. Her actions didn't do any good, she could have done significant harm, and she was insubordinate in the process. She has no expertise to judge an animal, and she has no information as to why the animal is being transported.

I'm glad she is a caring woman. I hope she finds a great job at an animal shelter, or a Hallmark store, or anywhere that her compassion will be a good fit and she won't cause anybody any harm. She just can't load my bags.

reply to post by getreadyalready

She has no expertise to judge an animal, and she has no information as to why the animal is being transported.

I suppose not, but common sense is pretty powerful. Lets take this in another direction. What about a dog with a broken leg, bone sticking out of the skin? Just do your job? We don't know how sick or malnourished this dog was. I suppose owning a dog grooming shop doesn't make her an expert, but I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt. Also, I think what she took issue with was that the dog was going to be back with it's owner (aside from the whole the animal is suffering and so sick it might die thing).

It's always fun to read replies which have strong opinions and harsh judgements on someone's assessment of a situation, questioning someone's right or ability to assess this situation when those opinions are based on a laconic report in a news page

Just curious if pets that travel by plane are subject to body scanning and or patdowns ?
if you get my drift .

Heart felt story and I probably would have advocated for the dog myself.

If I was the owner of the dog and it was injured during a hunt I too would want it shipped home and be cared for by my vet. Dog may have appeared more injured then what a baggage handler could assess.

Also need to clarify she didn't get fired for attempting to assist the dog but for leaving her post. She contends her supervisor asked her to leave. So the firing is a completely different argument in my mind.

Rhain

reply to post by Domo1


The broken leg is a little different story, because perhaps it could have happened in the custody of the airline? If she saw something that looked like a fresh injury, and she thought it needed first aid attention, then it might have been appropriate to alert her supervisor. I'm sure they have some protocol for that.

In this case, the back story could have been anything, and it wasn't her call to make. This obviously wasn't a fresh injury. How can one assume that a person would pay hundreds of dollars to ship an animal that they aren't even feeding? That was a stupid assessment on her part. If she saw this dog tied out by a tree, or cowering in the back of a truck, maybe her assessment would have more validity, but people don't spend hundreds of dollars to ship a dog that they are also starving to death, LOL!

Considering it was going into the baggage area it very well could have died in a few hours due to the extreme temperatures.

If the dog was just lean and footsore I doubt animal control would have taken it. If it appeared healthy they would have said send it to the owner.

The caption a couple of posts up says after a month it was healthy. Did it take a month to get healthy or is a month after it happened and the dog is healthy. If it took a month to nurse it back to health then it was in pretty serious condition.

Also, it was airport police that called animal control so apparently they thought it was a necessary move.

Just because it belongs to a hunter doesn't mean it is well cared for.

Wish she had taken pictures of the dog or we could get another perspective from animal control.