I had to share this, it was too horrific an experience to go untold!
I took my Papillon with me from California to the East Coast these last two weeks. Fortunately he was able to travel in-cabin with me, and was doing pretty well with everything. Until the return flight.
For unknown reasons (perhaps he got into the cat food?) my poor little guy had an upset stomach the morning we were leaving D.C. I should have known that his unusual flatulence was a bad sign, but I'm just a stupid human, what do I know? I figured since he hadn't eaten since the night before (his choice), had pooped quite prolifically that morning, and had peed outside the airport, we were good to go, right?
Wrong! We weren't in the air for 30 minutes when little Rascal started whining uncharacteristically. When I stuck a few fingers into his carrier to try and calm him, he started pawing desperately to get out. That's when I knew we were in trouble. I asked the flight attendants if I could take him to the bathroom, but of course they wouldn't let me. I just prayed he could hold it in...
But no such luck. A few minutes later the unmistakable smell of puppy poo found its way to my nostrils, and looking down at the floor I saw a HUGE puddle of drippy diarrhea oozing out of the mesh walls and all over the floor and my foot. GROSS.
I did the best I could with a handful of napkins, and then before anyone could protest I whisked us both off to the lavatory where I spent the next 20 minutes or so trying to clean us off.
Those of you familiar with airplanes will understand that a cramped lavatory is not the ideal place to try and wash a dog, a carrier, and a person. With the brief jets of water from the sink I managed to clean the fleece pillow bottom of his carrier a little bit, and with lots of paper towels I got the worst of it off him and me. Humiliated, we returned to our seat and I held my breath until we touched down in Atlanta.
As soon as we landed I rushed us off to the crowded bathroom in the terminal, and finally decided that the fleece pillow had to go. I tossed it in the trash and gave Rascal my sweatshirt to cuddle up with instead. At this point the poor fellow was embarrassed, smelly, and wet (from the fleece), as was I. Fortunately for us there was a Body Shop in the terminal, where I stopped and found some "deodorizing peppermint foot spray" which I liberally applied.
His bowels emptied and environment mostly cleaned, we had an uneventful trip back to California. But boy, were we ever glad to be home!!