21-year old Texas State student Belen Aldecosea needed to fly home to South Florida, and she wanted to take her emotional support dwarf hamster, Pebbles, with her. Prior to her flight, Aldecosea twice contacted Spirit Airlines, the company with which she was flying, to confirm that the very cute and very tiny Pebbles would be allowed to accompany her—they said yes.

When Aldecosea showed up for her flight, the first Spirit agent she saw allowed Pebbles—who is smaller than a cell phone, BTW (Dwarf hamsters are roughly four inches long)—to check in.

But, according to Aldecosea, when she and Pebbles hit the second airport checkpoint, a Spirit attendant told her that Pebbles couldn’t fly and that the hamster must be either let loose outside or flushed down the toilet.

(Photo: GIPHY)

 

Aldecosea told The Miami Herald that she had no choice—her friends were hours away from the airport on campus, there weren’t any cars available for rent and she had to get home urgently to manage a medical issue.

With that, Aldecosea flushed Pebbles.

“[Pebbles] was scared. I was scared. It was horrifying trying to put her in the toilet,” Aldecosea said. “I was emotional. I was crying. I sat there for a good 10 minutes crying in the stall.” Aldecosea considered ending her life more humane than letting the hamster go. “I didn’t have any other options,” she said.

Derek Dombrowski, a spokesperson for Spirit, admitted that, yes, the airline attendants gave Aldecosea conflicting instructions for what kinds of pets were allowed in-flight. However, Dombrowski insists that no one from Spirit told Aldecosea to drown her hamster: “at no point did any of our agents suggest this guest (or any other for that matter) should flush or otherwise injure an animal,” said Dombrowski.