Battle Buddies

I can't enough of this picture..... Two Battle Buddies - No stronger bond on the battlefield than a man and his K-9 companion.  This is what 2 brave warrior look like

Riding Shotgun

You know it's serious when the dog is riding shotgun twitter.com/SEALofHonor/st…
— SEALofHonor (@SEALofHonor) April 26, 2013

“He’s not a dog. He’s a Marine.”

CBS' NCIS is the top show on television and the reason why is that it is well written, has a great cast lead by Mark Harmon and shows why HONOR, COURAGE & COMMITMENT matter, especially today more than ever.

I just watched an episode called "Seek" which covered the story of a Marine & his faithful Black Lab " Dex ". It aired earlier in the states but here in Afghanistan, we get the shows a few weeks/months behind the times.

As usual, the episode was great and I was emotinally touched by the story. Gibbs and his people got the bad guys and took care of those who needed his help. But there is more to it than that.....The story touched my heart as it involved a Marine and his faithful K9 buddy.

Here is the rest of the story from the Marine Times/AP. This great episode was dedicated to a real life pup and to "military working dogs and their brave handlers everywhere".

I'm glad that NCIS is one show we can count on in the vast wasteland that is broadcast network television.

Semper Fi and Semper Fidos to all those who stand in harm's way.  Your efforts and sacrifices are appreciated.

Navy SEAL’s loyal dog prompts ‘NCIS’ episode

The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Mar 23, 2013 15:00:46 EDT

DES MOINES, Iowa — The legend of Navy SEAL Jon Tumilson and his faithful Labrador retriever, Hawkeye, continues to grow.

A now-famous photograph of Hawkeye guarding Tumilson’s flag-draped coffin in 2011 inspired this week’s episode of the hit CBS television series “NCIS,” according to one of its executive producers.

“It all started with a photograph,” co-executive producer Scott Williams wrote on the show’s blog. The inspired result: Tuesday’s episode, “Seek,” the night’s top-rated show.

“It served as yet another stark reminder of the sacrifices made by our military men and women and their families (pets included),” Williams wrote. “It also set the wheels in motion for the (March 19) episode.”

Jon Tumilson, 35, who was born in Osage, Iowa, and grew up in Rockford, Iowa, died in Afghanistan in August 2011 when the Chinook helicopter carrying him and 29 others was shot down.
His cherished black Lab, Hawkeye, led Tumilson’s family into the funeral.

What happened next resulted in a photo that became an Internet sensation.

When Hawkeye’s new owner, close family friend Scott Nichols, went to the front to speak, Hawkeye came with him. The dog soon walked to Tumilson’s flag-draped coffin, dropped to the floor, and stayed there, as if on guard.

Tumilson’s cousin, Lisa Pembleton, captured the moment on behalf of 1,500 mourners at Rudd-Rockford-Marble Rock gym in Rockford.

The image prompted people around the world to comment on its depiction of faithfulness, companionship, bravery and duty.

Now, “NCIS,” which follows special agents of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, has joined the legions inspired by the photo.

This week’s episode opened with a soldier and a mine-sniffing dog in Afghanistan who watch as a boy’s soccer ball rolls onto a live mine, which explodes.

Just after the soldier and dog lead the boy to safety, a sniper shoots the soldier. The dog lies at the side of his fallen master.

Later, the lead character, special agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, says of the episode’s canine star, Dexter, “He’s not a dog. He’s a Marine.”

Many of the nearly 1,000 people who had commented on the producer’s blog post by Friday evening said the show, which incorporates a scene reminiscent of Tumilson’s funeral, brought them to tears.

The episode was dedicated to “military working dogs and their brave handlers everywhere,” Williams wrote.

The show won the ratings competition in its time slot, pulling in 19.8 million viewers, more than twice the No. 2 program, “Splash,” on ABC, and more than any prime-time show that night, according to the Nielsen Co. ratings.

Tumilson’s family hopes veteran actor Mark Harmon, who plays Gibbs, and others in the “NCIS” cast will help dedicate a statue of Tumilson and Hawkeye at Fossil and Prairie Park in Rockford this summer.

“We will be unveiling a life-size bronze statue of Jon and Hawkeye this summer in his hometown, and would like to personally invite Mark, and any of your cast members, to come and celebrate that special event with us,” Tumilson’s brother-in-law, Scott McMeekan, wrote on the “NCIS” blog.
Neither members of Tumilson’s family nor representatives of CBS could be reached for comment.

Veterans Administration refuses to provide Service Dogs for Veterans suffering from PTSD

IF no other post I write ever gets your attention here at US NAVY JEEP, I pray it is this one.

The Veterans Administration has issued a ruling that states they will not provide a service dog to Veterans who suffer from PTSD.

We are talking about providing Man's Best Friends to deserving Veterans as Dogs have proven to help our Veterans, especially those dealing with PTSD.  There are dozens of non-profit organizations that are training service dogs as they have seen that the presence of a trained service dogs helps those who suffer from PTSD.

And the reason why they refuse to offer the invaluable help of man's best friends?  They say there is no "clinical evidence" that Dogs help Veterans with PTSD.  In reality, it comes down to a simple answer - MONEY.  The Government doesn't want to pay for the dogs.

These gov paperpushers will hand themselves lifetime goldplated benefits but won't provide a suffering Veteran with a trained service dog.

I find it hard to believe but these self-serving hacks have put in place a federal rule that documents their refusal to provide an assistance service dogs for Veterans unless the Veteran has mobility, hearing or sight issues. They are hiding behind the usual " Sorry, we don't agree with it, regardless of how many others have proven it " BS.

Service Dogs have been shown to provide great help to those who deal with PTSD.  The number of non-profit agencies working to train dogs for the mission of helping our Veterans are proof enough that Dogs are of great benefit to our Veterans.  These agencies have hundreds of cases where they have placed a trained service dog and it was highly beneificial to the Veteran with PTSD.

My theory is that the pencil-pushers in the beltway don't want to shoulder the cost, just like they have been denying Veterans benefits over the last 7-10 years even though the Veteran meets all the criteria for VA assistance.  No, we got ours and screw you Veterans.

The words I would use on these gutless wonders can't be printed here as it wouldn't be best but I tell you if I got to meet them face to face, I would be using some of my best Sailor/Marine words on them.

There will be a special place in Hell reserved for these dishonorable bureaucrats. I hope one day they understand how wrong they are about how Man's Best Friend's are of great benefit to our Veterans suffering from PTSD.  Of course, by then it will be too late for those who needed the service dogs.


Veteran Affairs won't cover costs of PTSD service dogs by Laura Moss - www.mnn.com
 

More veterans are being diagnosed with PTSD, but there's little research about how service dogs help with this 'invisible disability.'           

 

The Department of Veterans Affairs will pay for service dogs assigned to veterans with impaired vision, hearing or mobility, but it will not cover the cost of dogs assigned for mental disabilities like post-traumatic stress disorder, according to new federal regulations.

Many dogs provide support to veterans suffering from PTSD, but although more veterans are being diagnosed with the anxiety disorder, the VA says there's not enough evidence that these dogs help with the symptoms of combat-related disabilities. A new Army policy has already made it more difficult for soldiers to obtain service dogs and keep them on Army bases.

There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that service dogs help veterans cope with PTSD, but research lags and the VA is skeptical.

"VA has not yet been able to determine that these dogs provide a medical benefit to veterans with mental illness. Until such a determination can be made, VA cannot justify providing benefits for mental health service dogs," the department said.

There have been no double-blind, randomized controlled trials on the benefits of service dog and PTSD patients, and there are no widely accepted standards for training dogs to alleviate PTSD symptoms.

Researchers at the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa, Fla., are conducting the first study to look at benefits of pairing veterans with PTSD with specially trained dogs. Congress recommended the three-year study, permitting the Department of Veterans Affairs to match as many as 200 veterans with dogs, but only 17 participants are currently enrolled.

Three service dog organizations partnered with the hospital to conduct the study, but Guardian Angels Medical Service Dogs (GAMSD) is the only association still involved in the research. The organization trains PTSD service dogs to perform such tasks as awakening clients from nightmares and reminding them to take medication.

Carol Borden, GAMSD’s executive director, says she’s seen dramatic improvements in veterans’ lives after they’ve been matched with dogs.

"The results are very immediate. They’re very quick. It’s not a cure, but they are able to manage their challenges much better than they have in years,” Borden told NBC News.

Demand for PTSD service dogs is high, according to Borden, who says that most recipients spend four years on her organization’s waiting list.

Determining the need for service dogs

 

It’s estimated that 13 to 20 percent of the more than 2.6 million Americans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001 have or could develop PTSD.

But unlike service dogs for people with more obvious physical disabilities, there can sometimes be confusion over who can have a dog accompany them into certain places. The American Disabilities Act requires businesses to allow people with disabilities to enter with service animals, but dogs whose sole function is to provide comfort or emotional support do not qualify as service animals under the ADA. However, according to the ADA, dogs that calm a person with PTSD during an anxiety attack are considered a reasonable modification to ADA policies.

Service dogs assist disabled people with specific tasks like opening doors and pulling wheelchairs. Therapy dogs, on the other hand, provide comfort, motivation and emotional support. With proper documentation they can often be taken onto planes and other spaces where animals aren’t usually allowed.

Although PTSD service dogs are trained to respond to certain cues, such as nudging an owner into a petting session if he exhibits panic attack symptoms, and to perform tasks like reminding him to take medications, some people are skeptical of the idea that a dog can assist with a so-called "invisible" disability.

However, there’s evidence that interacting with animals produces biochemical changes in some people’s brains.

Research shows that when people focus on petting a dog, it can increase oxytocin, a chemical that quiets the brain’s fear response. Caring for a pet also helps people become more secure and self-sufficient, according to Hal Herzog, a psychology professor at Western Carolina University.

Training service dogs can also be a form of therapy, according to Rick Yount, founder of Warrior Canine Connection, an organization that has PTSD patients train service dogs. After completing a 2008 training program at a veteran’s hospital, many participants reported lower stress levels, decreased depression, better impulse control and improved sleep.

Yount says that it might be most effective for veterans with PTSD to train a service dog before receiving one themselves.

"They have to convince the dog the world is a safe place, rather than letting the dog prove to them that the world is a safe place,” he told MSNBC.

For more information on service dogs, visit the International Assistance Dog Week website.

 

WAR DOGS - A Force Multiplier on the Battlefield for our Military

Man's best friends are vital to our Military succeeding on the battlefield

http://gizmodo.com/5943301/26-awesome-photos-of-war-dogs-showing-how-badass-and-cute-they-can-be

Check out the pictures at the link - awesome stuff !!

"I'M GUS. I LIKE BEEF JERKY." - NOWZAD Dogs rescues Soldier's K9 friends in Afghanistan

CADG is a international logistics and construction company working here in Afghanistan.  They have assisted NOWZAD DOGS in rescuing dogs that Soldiers have rescued from Afghanistan.

I am glad to share the good news of how people can make a difference when they try - It made a big difference for Gus and other dogs in need along with the Soldiers who love their 4 legged companions.

" I'm Gus . I like Beef Jerky. "

Gus  the  dog (left), Gus  with  Louise from Nowzad Dogs, her  Afghan  assistant,  and two pilots (right)

Soldiers who work out on the Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) often work for the better part of a year, isolated from family and friends, working in some of the harshest environments in Afghanistan. They are often subject to dangerous or deadly situations that can often take their toll. Soldiers often look for anything to take their minds off of where they are including befriending a stray dog or cat.

Since soldiers have been going to war, they have been befriending stray animals that they find out in the field or wander into camp. It’s a simple act of humanitarianism that has mutual benefit: a stray dog or cat gets food and comfort, and the soldier has a loyal companion. It is a powerful bond. In the Vietnam War, John Laurence, a reporter who covered the battle of Hue found a kitten in the ruins, cleaned the cat up and eventually took him home. Even though the cat was vicious, he couldn’t part with it. He ended up writing The Cat from Hue that became a best seller, documenting how the cat became a beloved family pet.

Afghanistan is filled with stray dogs and cats. They often congregate around the bases because they can pick through the garbage and find morsels of food. The Afghans keep dogs for fighting and often release the dogs who don’t win who then become wild. Go to any of the ISAF bases and you’ll see the animals, running in and out of the gates or rummaging through the garbage, searching for scraps. It’s a heartbreaking situation.

The problem is, after the deployment, the soldier goes home and has to part with the animal under their care. Even if the soldier wants the animal, due to regulations, the military won’t let the animals on the aircraft.

This is where Nowzad Dogs comes into the story. They are an NGO that have one mission: to rescue the cats and dogs that have become the soldier’s or sailors pets, get them medically checked, and send them on to their owners in America, Great Britain, Australia, South Africa; anywhere where ISAF troops or contractors have come from.

Started by a Royal Marine sergeant who wanted his camp dog brought home to England, Nowzad Dogs (Nowzad is the FOB in Helmand province where the sergeant was posted and became the charity namesake) relies completely on generous donations to operate the charity and get the dogs home. The sailor or soldier has to pay a certain amount up front. Then a page on the website is set up to ask for donations for the particular animal. Moving the animals can be extremely expensive and complex and Nowzad is always in dire need of funds.

CADG has stepped in to provide logistics free of cost. We fly the animals from specific military bases to Kabul and deliver the dog or cat to representatives of Nowzad who then clean up the animals and get their transport out of Afghanistan to their new home. It’s our way of providing a service to the ISAF soldiers. They spend the better part of a year with the animal and it becomes a pet, a companion who makes their experience in Afghanistan tolerable.

I watched as Gus the dog was loaded on to the plane in his crate at Camp Bastion with a small sign that said “ I'M Gus. I Like Beef Jerky”. A true mutt, he looks like he has a lot of Border Collie combined with a dash of Corgie and a few other breeds all mixed in. When we landed in Kabul, we had no idea what to expect of his temperament. When the door was opened, he came out, wagged his tail, ate some beef jerky and drank some water out of his bowl. His owner Zach, a sailor who has gone back to the States, will be reunited with Gus in about a month after the dog has been health checked and readied for transport with all the proper documents and certificates.

Gus’ story is an all too common one. But with donations, Nowzad Dogs will continue to care and transport the animals to their owners. And CADG is more than happy to help!

For more information or to make a donation, please have a look at www.nowzad.com

Man & Dog have been together a lot longer than we ever imagined....

By all accounts, man & dog have been living together for about 15000 years, since the end of the last ice age. Man has altered dogs to serve our needs and due to man, the dog is the most genetically altered species in the world. We have bred dogs to serve the needs of hunting, farm duties and for vanity.

Now, researchers have found that the partnership between man & dog may go back as far as 33,000 years ago based on new evidence found in cave dwellings in France.

All I know is our lives would not be the same without our 4 legged friends. I am glad to say that the three that reside with my family are valued for their companionship, attentiveness and that they make sure no one comes near our home without us knowing about it.


From the Cave to the Kennel

What the evolutionary history of the dog tells us about another animal: ourselves. From a cave in France, a new picture has emerged of canines as our prehistoric soulmates.
By Mark Derr - Wall Street Journal

Chauvet Cave in southern France houses the oldest representational paintings ever discovered. Created some 32,000 years ago, the 400-plus images of large grazing animals and the predators who hunted them form a multi-chambered Paleolithic bestiary. Many scholars believe that these paintings mark the emergence of a recognizably modern human consciousness. We feel that we know their creators, even though they are from a time and place as alien as another planet.

What most intrigues many people about the cave, however, is not the artwork but a set of markings at once more human and more mysterious: the bare footprints of an 8- to 10-year-old torch-bearing boy left in the mud of a back chamber some 26,000 years ago—and, alongside one of them, the paw print of his traveling companion, variously identified as a wolf or a large dog.

Attributing that paw print to a dog or even to a socialized wolf has been controversial since it was first proposed a decade ago. It would push back by some 12,000 years the oldest dog on record. More than that: Along with a cascade of other new scientific findings, it could totally rewrite the story of man and dog and what they mean to each other.

For decades, the story told by science has been that today's dogs are the offspring of scavenger wolves who wandered into the villages established by early humans at the end of the last ice age, about 15,000 years ago. This view emphasizes simple biological drive—to feed on human garbage, the scavenging wolf had to behave in a docile fashion toward humans. And—being human—we responded in kind, seeking out dogs for their obsequiousness and unconditional devotion.

As the story goes, these tame wolves bred with other tame wolves and became juvenilized. Think of them as wolves-lite, diminished in strength, stamina and brains. They resembled young wolves, with piebald coats, floppy ears and shorter, weaker jaws. Pleading whiners, they drowned their human marks in slavish devotion and unconditional love. Along the way, they lost their ability to kill and consume their prey.

But it was never clear, in this old account, just how we got from the scavenging wolf to the remarkable spectrum of dogs who have existed over time, from fell beasts trained to terrorize and kill people to creatures so timid that they flee their own shadows. The standard explanation was that once the dump-diver became a dog, humans took charge of its evolution through selective breeding, choosing those with desired traits and culling those who came up short.

This account is now falling apart in the face of new genetic analyses and recently discovered fossils. The emerging story sees humans and proto-dogs evolving together: We chose them, to be sure, but they chose us too, and our shared characteristics may well account for our seemingly unshakable mutual intimacy.

Dogs and humans are social beings who depend on cooperation for their survival and have an uncanny ability to understand each other in order to work together. Both wolves and humans brought unique, complementary talents to a relationship that was based not on subservience and intimidation but on mutual respect.

It seems that wolves and humans met on the trail of the large grazing animals that they both hunted, and the most social members of both species gravitated toward each other. Several scholars have even suggested that humans learned to hunt from wolves. At the least, camps with wolf sentinels had a competitive advantage over those without. And people whose socialized wolves would carry packs had an even greater advantage, since they could transport more supplies. Wolves benefited as well by gaining some relief from pup rearing, protection for themselves and their offspring, and a steadier food supply.

The relationship between dogs and humans has been so mutually beneficial and enduring that some scholars have suggested that we—dog and human—influenced each other's evolution.

The Chauvet Cave "dogwolf"—the term I use for a doglike, or highly socialized, wolf who kept company with humans—is controversial, but it cannot easily be dismissed. Over the past three years, it has been grouped convincingly with a number of similar animals that have been identified in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and the Altai Mountains in Southern Siberia, dating from 33,000 to 16,000 years ago.

Identification of these early dogs, combined with recent genetic evidence and a growing understanding of animals not as stimulus-response machines but as sentient beings, has broken the consensus model of dog domestication—leaving intact little more than the recognition of the grey wolf, Canis lupus, as progenitor of the dog. Everything else, it seems, is up for grabs.

According to the old view, the dog arose around 15,000 years ago in the Middle East. (Or in China, south of the Yangtze River, an alternate possible origin point added in the last decade in an attempt to reconcile archaeological evidence with emerging DNA evidence.)

The first major challenge to the consensus came in 1997, when an international team of biologists published a paper in the journal Science placing the origin of the dog as early as 135,000 years ago. Their date was based on analysis of mitochondrial DNA, which is passed on to offspring through females and is believed to change little from generation to generation; it allows scientists to calculate the time when populations or species separated genetically. This analysis suggested that wolves could have become dogs wherever in Eurasia they associated closely with early humans, and that even after the split was made, dogs and wolves continued to interbreed.

In short, because of their natural affinities, wherever and whenever wolves and humans met on the trail, some of them began to keep company. Often, when socialized wolves died, there were no others immediately available to replace them. But sometimes several socialized wolves would mate or a socialized female would mate with a "wild" wolf and then have her litter near the human camp. The pups would stay or go, according to their natures. This kind of arrangement could have continued for a considerable period. Any number of them could ultimately have produced dogwolves or dogs. Most of those lines would have vanished over time.

The DNA evidence remained controversial for years, even as most major studies placed the genetic separation of wolf and dog at earlier dates than those favored by archaeologists. Hard proof was slow to appear. The Chauvet Cave paw print once provided the only physical evidence for the existence of dogs before 15,000 years ago—and it was, at best, an indirect piece of support.

Then in 2008, Mietje Germonpré, a paleontologist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Science and the leader of an international team of scientists, re-examined fossil material excavated from Goyet Cave in Belgium in the late 19th century and announced the identification of a 31,700-year-old dog, a large and powerful animal who ate reindeer, musk oxen and horses. The dogwolf from Goyet Cave was a creature of the Aurignacian culture that had produced the art in Chauvet Cave.

Last July, another international team identified the remains of a 33,000-year-old "incipient dog" from the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia. This month, Ms. Germonpré confirmed another find, this one in the Czech Republic, of the remains of a 26,000- to 27,000-year-old dog that had been buried with a bone in its mouth—perhaps to fuel it as it accompanied its human companion to the afterlife.

While the old consensus model held that the first dogs were small, these and other recently identified early dogs are large animals, often with shorter noses and broader faces than today's wolves. These early dogs appear in the camps of hunters of horses, reindeer, mammoths and other big game. From all appearances, they were pack animals, guards, hunters and companions. They are perhaps best viewed as the offspring of highly socialized wolves who had begun breeding in or near human camps.

Our view of domestication as a process has also begun to change, with recent research showing that, in dogs, alterations in only a small number of genes can have large effects in terms of size, shape and behavior. Far from being a product of the process of domestication, the mutations that separated early dogs from wolves may have arisen naturally in one or more small populations; the mutations were then perpetuated by humans through directed breeding. Geneticists have identified, for instance, a mutation in a single gene that appears to be responsible for smallness in dogs, and they have shown that the gene itself probably came from Middle Eastern wolves.

All of this suggests that it was common for highly socialized wolves and people to form alliances. It also leads logically to the conclusion that the first dogs were born on the move with bands of hunter-gatherers—not around semi-permanent pre-agricultural settlements. This may explain why it has proven so difficult to identify a time and place of domestication.

Taken together, these recent discoveries have led some scientists to conclude that the dog became an evolutionary inevitability as soon as humans met wolves. Highly social wolves and highly social humans started walking, playing and hunting together and never stopped. The dog is literally the wolf who stayed, who traded wolf society for human society.

Humans did wield a significant influence over dogs, of course, by using breeding to perpetuate mutations affecting their shape, size and physical abilities. Recent studies suggest that the dog has unique abilities among animals to follow human directions and that its capacity for understanding words can approach that of a two-year-old child. To various degrees, humans appear to have concentrated those and other characteristics and traits through selective breeding.

Since the advent of scientific breeding in the late 18th century, humans have altered the look and temperament of the dog more than they had over thousands of preceding years. A team of gene-sequencers at the Broad Institute of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimated that the dog lost 4% of its genetic diversity during its initial separation from the wolf. Much greater losses have occurred as a result of modern breed formation, one result of which is the more than 400 inheritable diseases to which purebreds are uniquely vulnerable.

Recent genetic evidence has confirmed that certain basic types—pariah dogs, sight hounds, mastiffs, spitz-type dogs and small dogs—arose very early in the transformation of wolf to dog. These dogs adapted to their homelands and often had special talents as hunters, guards and eventually herders. These characteristics were often perpetuated over time.

Scientific breeders believed they could improve on nature by consolidating several similar types into one breed or isolating a few prize specimens from a larger population. In both cases, they relied on inbreeding to create and perpetuate the look and talents they wanted. With the advent of kennel clubs in the mid-19th century, the pace of breed creation picked up.

Breeders began to create dogs to fit the needs of the wealthy—from sporting dogs that could point and retrieve fowl, to little puppy-like lap dogs. The dog proved to be a wonderful animal for testing the skill of breeders, since it could be stretched in size from two to 200 pounds.

Purebred dogs were expensive commodities until after World War II, when they became symbols of arrival in the middle class. Increased demand led to increased breeding, often in puppy mills. The resulting dogs had health and behavior problems from bad breeding and the poor care of pregnant females and newborn puppies.

In some cases, the traits that breeders desire are inherited along with unwanted, debilitating conditions—such as when blindness and epilepsy accompany particular coat styles and eye colors. In many regards, the original, naturally occurring breeds were healthier and better at their appointed tasks than their purebred heirs.

But this is just the most recent chapter of a long tale. The tableau in the mud of Chauvet Cave is a stark reminder that dogs and humans have traveled together for tens of thousands of years, from ancient hunting camps to farms, ranches cities and suburbs—from the tropics to the poles. The relationship has endured not because dogs are juvenilized wolves but because they are dogs—our faithful companions.

—Mr. Derr's most recent book is "How the Dog Became the Dog: From Wolves to Our Best Friends."

K-9 Veterans start to get respect they deserve from the public - US NAVY JEEP supports our K-9 Veterans

In the almost two years that I have authored this MILBLOG, I have focused on many issues and themes. One of the main themes has been our four-legged friends, especially those who serve side by side with our military as K-9 Veterans.

In 2007, my wife and I hosted a Benefit Car Show where we raised approximatley $1000 for K-9 Veterans. We donated the proceeds among three organizations that supported K-9 Troops. I firmly believe the link between Man and Dog is one of the key events in human history. Without them, we are weaker. With them, we are an unstoppable team.

In the wake of the info about the K-9 Trooper who went with the US NAVY SEALs to get OBL, the public has finally caught up with what some of us knew all along. Our K-9 Veterans have been doing their part to support the military for decades and all they ask in return is that we show them we care, give them an occasional walk & toss of the tennis ball.

My thanks to all our 4-legged Vets who keep the military safe and those that protect the homefront while we work out here. Dogs may not be our whole life, but I know life is not as whole without them.

"The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man's."
- Mark Twain, Letter to W D Howells, 4/2/1899

SEALs canine commando piques interest in war dogs
Military officials receive over 400 adoption applications after canine helped during mission to kill bin Laden

(AP) SAN DIEGO -- Life after the military is looking brighter than ever for America's four-legged veterans since one of their own helped in the mission to kill Osama bin Laden.

War dog organizations say the number of people asking about adopting retired military canines has risen dramatically since the mission involving Cairo, the Navy SEALs dog tasked with tracking anyone who tried to escape from bin Laden's compound and alerting the special operations forces to anyone approaching.

While about 300 retired U.S. military dogs are put up for adoption each year, military officials say they've received more than 400 adoption applications in the three weeks since the May 2 raid. In past generations, most military dogs were euthanized once their tours of duty were done.

"They made a really big deal about Cairo being a super dog, but all dogs in the military are super dogs," said Ron Aiello, president of the U.S. War Dogs Association. "These dogs are fully trained, are worth probably $40,000 to $50,000 each at least, and it's a dog that has been saving American lives. It's kind of a hero in a way."

Aiello, a dog handler for the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, started his organization with other former dog handlers to teach Americans about the long and often sad history of the dogs that have been deployed with troops.

The attack on Pearl Harbor sparked the U.S. military's interest in war dogs, which Germany and France used in World War I. Prior to the Vietnam War, the canines were trained to be fierce attack dogs that greatly distrusted humans. But the military soon found that limited them too much and started training German shepherds and other breeds to be patrol dogs.

Today, military dogs are used to find explosives, insurgents and drugs, and to help search for missing people. Some are so highly trained they can work off leash and follow commands whispered by their handlers through a specialized communication system attached to the dog.

The dogs are credited with saving thousands of lives. Last year, Aiello said, a dog on patrol in Iraq detected a fertilizer bomb on the other side of the door in a building. The dog sat down and alerted U.S. troops, who spotted the explosive by looking under the door.

If the dog had not sat down, troops would have opened the door and the building might have blown up, killing all inside.

Other times, the dogs can only do so much. When a sniper's bullet struck Pfc. Colton Rusk in Afghanistan, the first to reach his body was his best friend Eli -- a bomb-sniffing, black Labrador so loyal he snapped at other Marines who rushed to his fallen handler. Rusk died Dec. 6. His parents have since adopted his dog.

After the Vietnam War, only 204 of an estimated 4,900 war dogs returned to the United States, according to military dog organizations. The others were euthanized, given to the South Vietnamese army or abandoned by soldiers trying to save the dogs.

That changed in 2000 when President Bill Clinton signed a law allowing the dogs to be adopted. Dog lovers say the military has made dramatic strides since then. Last year, 338 dogs were adopted, including 34 that were given to police departments or other government agencies.

None are euthanized now, said Gerry Proctor, a spokesman for Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, where the military's dog adoption program is based.

"All the animals find a home," he said. "There's a six-month waiting list right now for people wanting to adopt. And (the applications) have gone up substantially since the raid."

The nonprofit Military Working Dog Adoptions has received over 300 inquiries in the past two weeks, said Debbie Kandoll of Las Cruces, New Mexico, who founded the organization after getting her first war dog in January 2008. Her group and Aiello's help raise awareness about the retired dogs, make sure they are treated well and help people through the process of adopting the animals.

Aiello said the most common breeds for military canines are Belgian Malinois, Dutch shepherd, German shepherd and Labrador retriever. They are generally older than 10 when they retire, and some have a litany of medical problems.

"They only have a couple of years left, so why not have them spend it with a loving family where they're not going to hear gunfire go off, explosives go off," Aiello said.

Not all the dogs could do well in a home with, say, children or other pets, but some are remarkably docile after spending years on the battlefield.

A dog named Chyba was deployed to Iraq before Madeleine Pickens, wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, adopted her last year. Pickens said Chyba is a sweet, relaxed dog who is happiest stretched out in the shade of a tree.

It's not cheap to adopt a military dog, in large part because adoptive owners often have to pay $1,000 to $2,000 to bring them back to the U.S. on commercial flights. Putting a retired dog in a crate on a military cargo flight is against the rules.

When dogs are adopted, they no longer belong to the military, "so it would be fraud, waste and abuse for the DOD to transport that pet," Maj. Gen. Mary Kay Hertog told the Air Force News Service in 2009.

Officially, military dogs are considered equipment, and retired dogs are excess or surplus equipment. Kandoll wants the military to reclassify the dogs as canine veterans. That would take an act of Congress, but it could also ensure that all dogs shipped out of the United States are brought back.

"Uncle Sam gave the dogs a ride over. He should give them a ride back," Kandoll said.

"To me, it's like leaving a soldier behind," said Pickens, who spoke in Encinitas last month at the dedication of a monument to military working dogs.

It's unlikely that Cairo will have any trouble getting adopted, but military officials aren't saying how far the dog is from retirement. They aren't releasing his age or any other details about the special operations canine because his work is classified.

WAR DOGS...There's a reason why they brought one along when they went to take down Bin Laden

In the enclosed picture, U.S. Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade wait for helicopter transport as part of Operation Khanjar at Camp Dwyer in Helmand Province in Afghanistan on July 2, 2009.

I've been to Camp Dwyer and it is in the middle of Helmand Province.....Dogs are the unsung heroes of the War in Afghanistan.....I love our K-9 Troops and support them whenever I see one on base here.


War Dog
There's a reason they brought one to get Osama bin Laden.
BY REBECCA FRANKEL MAY 4, 2011 - Foriegn Policy Magazine

Dogs have been fighting alongside U.S. soldiers for more than 100 years, seeing combat in the Civil War and World War I. But their service was informal; only in 1942 were canines officially inducted into the U.S. Army. Today, they're a central part of U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan -- as of early 2010 the U.S. Army had 2,800 active-duty dogs deployed (the largest canine contingent in the world). And these numbers will continue to grow as these dogs become an ever-more-vital military asset.

So it should come as no surprise that among the 79 commandos involved in Operation Neptune Spear that resulted in Osama bin Laden's killing, there was one dog -- the elite of the four-legged variety. And though the dog in question remains an enigma -- another mysterious detail of the still-unfolding narrative of that historic mission -- there should be little reason to speculate about why there was a dog involved: Man's best friend is a pretty fearsome warrior.

The question of how the dog got into bin Laden's compound is no puzzle -- the same way the special ops team did, by being lowered from an MH-60s helicopter. In fact, U.S. Air Force dogs have been airborne for decades, though the earliest flying dogs accompanied Soviet forces in the 1930s.

Dogs usually jump in tandem with their trainers, but when properly outfitted with flotation vests they can make short jumps into water on their own. A U.S. Navy SEAL, Mike Forsythe, and his dog, Cara recently broke the world record for "highest man/dog parachute deployment" by jumping from 30,100 feet.

According to Mike Dowling, a former Marine Corps dog handler who served in Iraq, there's a simple explanation for why the Navy SEALs took a dog along on the Osama raid: "A dog's brain is dominated by olfactory senses." In fact, Dowling says, a dog can have up to 225 million olfactory receptors in their nose -- the part of their brain devoted to scent is 40 times greater than that of a human.

"When you're going on a mission," Dowling says, "a raid or a patrol, insurgents are sneaky -- they like to hide stuff from you. But a dog can smell them. .... [Think about] Saddam Hussein ... what if Osama had been [hiding] in a hole in the ground? A dog could find that. A dog could alert them to where he's hiding because of the incredible scent capabilities. ... You can only see what you can see. You can't see what you don't see. A dog can see it through his nose."