I live in Washington State USA. Especially in Olympia, Washington..home of Evergreen College and some out of the ordinary students..they want to bring their dogs on the buses. There are no papers, no special tags on dogs. All a person has to do here apparently is say this is a companion animal. The bus driver described some of the animals people have claimed. These were big dogs and lots of them and a holiday crowd on the bus. The bus driver said he was helpless. I was dumbfounded that a person just could say it was a companion animal and get any animal almost on a public, overcrowded bus.    There are a lot of walking mentally ill people..combine that with sometimes not a perfect match of animal, no laws about what goes, and you have public chaos.

The thing about animals being brought to shelters came about after Katrina, where many people could not take animals to shelters and refused rescue themselves. As long as they let their children be rescued, I guess that is their choice. As long as shelters are set aside for people with animals, I am fine with it. But no children there because it would be a dangerous place most likely. So a person hopefully would children over pets, but some would not. Also the thought of boa constrictors etc. on buses trying to escape a tsunami etc. is not appealing to me. mg