he actress Amber Heard with one of the two Yorkshire terriers she sneaked into Australia in May. CreditSplash NewsI don’t identify with celebrities, especially ones with superstar husbands. But when Amber Heard, the actress, got caught last spring, I felt her pain. She has been ordered to appear in court next year,
the BBC recently reported, for smuggling two Yorkshire terriers into Australia.
Ms. Heard, the wife of Johnny Depp (who was in Australia to film another “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie), neglected to declare the couple’s two dogs upon arrival by private jet at Brisbane. Unlike actors and tourists, dogs traveling from the United States must spend 10 days in quarantine.
The incident gained attention when Australia’s agriculture minister threatened to put down the dogs (named Pistol and Boo) if they were not removed from the country. He had seen them when a groomer posted a photo on Facebook, and in a TV interview said he did not care that Mr. Depp had been voted the sexiest man alive; he still had to follow quarantine rules.
The tabloids have dubbed the ongoing canine kerfuffle “the war on terrier.”
I deem it newsworthy only because a nervy dog owner finally was caught. These days half the people I know, myself included, are sneaking their dogs everywhere.
I know one couple who take their undeclared Norwich terrier into France with as much thought as they would give carrying a loaf of bread out of a boulangerie, and another who sneak their Brussels griffon into Mexico, where I’ve seen them frolicking on the beach in Tulum.
In this world of the privileged who won’t take no for an answer and will take pets everywhere, we sneak them onto flights to avoid steep fees and into hotels to do the same. And sometimes we sneak them into hotels that don’t allow dogs at all.
We sneak them into restaurants, too, often by providing questionable letters from therapists or Internet outfits saying the animals offer us emotional support for anxiety disorders. And we keep getting away with it because laws are just unclear enough to intimidate anyone who questions a disability. Never mind that misrepresenting our pets as service animals (when, like mine, they don’t always behave like them) makes life more difficult for those who really need them.
“Is that a service animal?” I heard a hostess ask a very healthy-looking young couple the other night as they entered a TriBeCa pub with a big black dog. They pulled out a letter, showed it, got the O.K. and proceeded to walk the dog through the restaurant as if they were on a sidewalk. I marveled at the nerve, although I myself have a letter from a psychologist that says I have a panic disorder and suffer from fear of crowds, and that my dog allays my symptoms.
Making matters worse (or better, depending on your point of view), United Airlines recently placed “
comfort dogs” in seven airports “to help take some of the stress out of holiday travel for our customers.” (Another way to do that would be to stop charging $150 each way to have a small dog in a carrier bag under the seat.)
It’s no wonder passengers like me are playing the emotional-support-animal game, although I’m not sure that entitles us to shamelessly walk our dogs around the airport as if they were no different than children with interesting haircuts.
All of this is nothing new, even as it has become more common. To avoid having their four dogs set foot on English soil, which required a six-month quarantine,
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton lived on a yacht while he was filming a movie in the 1970s. Several decades later, the quarantine in Britain was lifted in time for the 2012 Olympic Summer Games.Photo
The actors and twice-married couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor with their pet dogs, a Pekingese and two Yorkshire terriers, aboard the yacht Beatriz on the River Thames to avoid British quarantine regulations. CreditBob Aylott/Keystone, via Getty Images
As goes the British government, so go all kinds of luxury hotels. After a recent premiere of his short film celebrating the new “open pet policy” at the W Hotel Times Square, Alan Cumming
told The New York Post he can now sit at the bar with his dog.
And this year, guests at the Standard no longer have to be sneaks to avoid a pet fee. An article on the hotel’s website featuring Anjelica Huston posing on a bed with several dogs
announces that two per guest are welcome free. Children, on the other hand, are (without irony) prohibited. “They don’t ask questions,” Ms. Huston says of dogs in her interview. “They just understand the answers.”
In other news, Amtrak, after a decades-long pets ban, has
started allowing small cats and dogs on trains. Representative Jeff Denham, a California Republican, set things in motion when he realized he couldn’t ride with his French bulldog, Lily. “We are always looking for ways to enhance the passenger experience,” an Amtrak spokesperson told The Washington Post.
If only they had thought of that for the two years my husband and I were shuttling back and forth between New York and Washington for his job. Our options were either sneaking our longhaired miniature dachshund onto an insufferably slow bus, which was harrowing given her tendency to want to get out of her bag. Or we had to sneak her onto flights to avoid the outrageous fees that cost as much as our airfare.
At least we had the perfect accessory for the crime: a small perforated black shoulder bag that looked more like a Chanel knockoff than a pet carrier.
For a person who was annoyed by the entitlement of dog owners up until the moment I got one myself, I’ve become more cavalier than a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. I’ve taken my dog to restaurants, concerts, barbershops, tailors and therapy, where it is always noted that the dog’s name,
Zoloft, is metaphorically, if not clinically, appropriate.
Recently, when invited at the last minute to participate in a group reading in Miami, I brought Zoloft onto the stage and offended both audience and participants by inadvertently distracting the viewers from the readers.
“It’s a well-known rule,” one participant said, “that dogs and children always upstage adults in performances.” It was a smack on the snout but also a wake-up call.
Those with objections are biting back more, it seems. When The New York Times published an article about
pet travel, there was a barrage of comments from allergy sufferers and people who did not want to share space with someone’s “fur child” as we who are obsessed call them.
And now organizations like the
Board of Guide Dogs for the Blind, a California group, and
Canine Companions for Independence are taking up the issue of dubious service-dog designations by pushing the Department of Justice to regulate the sale of service animal equipment and IDs.
As for Amber Heard, when she was caught last spring, she vowed never to return to Australia. That’s not possible because she is expected at her trial next year.
Every dog has its day. And sometimes sneaky celebrities get their due.
A version of this article appears in print on December 31, 2015, on page D2 of the New York edition with the headline: When Dog Owners Are Off the Leash. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
