Thankfully, You Can Still Bring Your Miniature Horse on a Southwest Flight

Southwest Airlines is updating their animal policy, and it looks like the horse girls can claim victory. Effective September 17, emotional support animals will be limited to cats and dogs. So that emotional support bunny? Yeah, it’s staying at home, boo. Your emotional support peacock? Don’t even think about it. Same goes for emotional support ferrets, ducks, hamsters, hedgehogs, etc.

As for service animals, Southwest will abide by Department of Transportation guidelines and allow only, “the most common service animals—dogs, cats, and miniature horses.”

Yes, miniature horses!

Their inclusion in this policy seemed strange as I have only seen service dogs. Technically, the Americans with Disabilities Act only recognizes “dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities,” as official service animals..

However, there are provisions in place that allow miniature horses to act as a service animal. According to the ADA, as long as the miniature horse is potty trained, well behaved, and doesn’t pose a safety risk, they’re fair game as long as they can fit in a given facility. I suspect that perhaps horse girls are more powerful than we ever could have imagined.