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My pug of 8 years of age is a seasoned traveler by commercial plane since she was 6
months old. She flys in the cabin ONLY & has never had any problems even flying cross
country. I have worked thru various safety scenarios. However, it recently occurred to
me that I do not have a plan ( other than sharing my own cannula) should it be
necessary to put on oxygen masks. Is there something to supply oxygen in emergency
for small dogs that can be bought & is acceptable to take on board commercial flights?
If not, what do you suggest?
-- Marie DiCowden, August 10, 2014
I assume you are talking about a commercial airliner only. In that case at 35000' the time of useful consciousness for a human is 30-60 seconds in the event of a rapid decompression. Put on your own mask first, obviously. After that if there is a spare mask I would hold it up to your dogs face near their nostrils, but I would not take off my mask. This is an extremely unlikely event and if it were to happen the crew would be descending very rapidly. I fly with my labradors all the time with no oxygen in a small airplane that isn't pressurized. They are fine up to about 16,000' and mostly just sleep. I asked a friend of mine that just retired from the airlines about this. He said one time they accidentally depressurized the cargo area carrying the dogs just before they began their descent. They thought all the dogs would all be dead, instead all of them were just fine on landing. Dogs have much younger lungs that most of us, I wouldn't worry about it.
-- Alex Baker, August 12, 2014