You may have heard about the young dog dying after a United flight attendant insisted that it be placed in an overhead bin. And then just a day later, a family flying United went to claim their elderly German Shepherd at their arrival in Kansas — and found only a Great Dane someone else was missing. Their German Shepherd had been accidentally sent to Japan.

There is enough outrage over these incidents, as there should be, that I do not need to repeat it here. What I want to do is share how pet owners can prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future.