When my husband and I moved to NL he cried when handing out dogs over to security, he had the same fear as you. It does happen unfortunately, but it’s not common. Depends of course on the dog as well (ours were 3 and 4 and healthy), but we had no issues. OP mentioned potentially giving dog a sedative pre flight, in my experience this was actually not allowed as this is what can cause dogs to die in the hold (as they cannot adequately regulate their body temp on sedatives).
When my husband and I moved to NL he cried when handing out dogs over to security, he had the same fear as you. It does happen unfortunately, but it’s not common. Depends of course on the dog as well (ours were 3 and 4 and healthy), but we had no issues. OP mentioned potentially giving dog a sedative pre flight, in my experience this was actually not allowed as this is what can cause dogs to die in the hold (as they cannot adequately regulate their body temp on sedatives).