SALT LAKE CITY — The U.S. Department of Transportation announced that miniature horses can now officially fly as service animals on all commercial planes, according to Fox News.
Miniature horses were added among a new round of guidelines on emotional and psychiatric support animals, which includes cats, dogs and, now, miniature horses.
The agency released its latest recommendations last week in a statement.
“With respect to animal species, we indicated that we would focus our enforcement efforts on ensuring that the most commonly used service animals (dogs, cats, and miniature horses) are accepted for transport as service animals,” according to the statement.
Still, the department urges airlines to assess each support animal on a case-by-case basis.
“We stated that while we will focus on ensuring the transport of dogs, cats and miniature horses, we may take enforcement action against carriers for failing to transport other service animals on a case-by-case basis. We also stated that airlines are expected to continue to comply with the existing service animal regulation, which allows airlines to categorically deny transport only to certain unusual species of service animals such as snakes, other reptiles, ferrets, rodents, and spiders.”
Interestingly, the statement doesn’t mean airlines have to allow all miniature horses to fly by law. But the department could penalize airlines if they violate the rules, according to CBS News.
“Airlines will not be subject to enforcement action if they continue to deny transport to snakes, other reptiles, ferrets, rodents, and spiders; however, airlines will remain subject to potential enforcement action if they categorically refuse to transport other animals or species of animals,” the statement read.
Passengers are permitted to bring up to thee animals on a flight, per Fox News. But only one can be transported as an emotional support animal.
According to Mental Floss, the new guidelines don’t apply to full-sized emotional support horses. Emotional support animals don’t necessarily need training.
“For this reason, emotional support animals are much more difficult to get into the cabins of planes,” according to Mental Floss.