http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Furious-owners-claim-Delta-lost-their-show-dogs-at-airport--292816431.html
SEATAC, Wash. -- The owners of several dogs returning from the prestigious Westminster Dog Show in New York say Delta Airlines lost their show dogs at JFK Airport.
One of those was a standard poodle named Paris. It was the responsibility of the owner's grandfather, Greg Gorder, to bring Paris home to Seattle on Wednesday.
But as Groder was sitting on Delta's 4:05 p.m. non-stop flight from JFK to Sea-Tac Airport, he and other show dog owners on the flight didn't see their dogs being loaded into the cargo hold of their Boeing-737.
"We suddenly realized our dogs aren't on there, even though the stewardesses were telling us they were," said Gorder.
One dog owner used his FlyDelta app to determine the crates of some of the dogs were not loaded onto the plane. The app allows passengers to track the location of their tagged luggage. The dog owners complained.
"We just wanted to establish that our dogs where still on there," Groder said. "They couldn't do it, wouldn't do it."
Show dog owner Sarah Pearce says the plane sat at the gate for an hour while the owners waited for an answer from Delta personnel about their dogs.
"Once they realized they couldn't find our dog and had no idea where they put him, we had to get off the plane and wait until they could find them," she said.
The owners were given the choice to either fly on without knowing where their dogs were or take a later flight with their dogs. All the owners with dogs not accounted for got off the plane.
"They didn't know where the dogs were, period," said Gorder.