RUFF JUSTICE FOR BULLDOGS IN TUTUS

DID you read about the two French bulldogs in tutus and their owners who were ejected from a Norwegian Air flight to the USA after the animals ‘struggled to contain their emotions’? Is it April 1st? Is this for real or have I woken up in a parallel universe?

The range of animals accepted as essential props for travel have included kangaroos, turkeys and a miniature horse named Flirty. Just imagine in-flight announcements: please put on your own mask before attending to that of your dog/cat/kangaroo…

But what’s a bit surprising here is the fact that the female owners concerned ‘gender-stereotyped’ their bulldogs by dressing them in tutus. Pink ones! Though it may help explain why they needed emotional support animals…

Basically, it sounds as if their dogs could do with support animals of their own. All I know is I’d certainly end up in need of some sort of support if I tried to put a tutu on my cat.

To be serious, some of these ‘support’ animals are simply pets being transported by their owners, aren’t they? A peacock that was once rejected as an emotional support companion still made the journey by road, for instance.

It looks as if it’s just a way for some people to take their favourite pet along with them in the cabin. In the world of private medicine, doubtless the doctors get appropriately high fees for their service in signing it off. Money talks. Time this idiocy was stopped and all animals refused entry to planes.

All, that is, except guide dogs and, err … me! I’d very much like a tall, dark handsome man as my emotional support on my next flight, please. Because, frankly, it’d take more than a dog in a tutu to calm me down on any Boeing 737Max flight.

Monty Python eat your heart out! Just imagine what Cleese, Palin etc would have made of all this, back in the day, when a little satirical dig wouldn’t result in a snowflake blizzard of taking offence…

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Nora Johnson’s psychological crime thrillers ‘Betrayal,’ ‘The Girl in the Woods,’ ‘The Girl in the Red Dress,’ ‘No Way Back,’ ‘Landscape of Lies,’ ‘Retribution,’ ‘Soul Stealer,’ ‘The De Clerambault Code’ (www.nora-johnson.net) available from Amazon in paperback/eBook (€0.99;£0.99) and iBookstore. All profits to Costa del Sol Cudeca cancer charity.