Debbie Kandoll, founder of the group Military Working Dog Adoptions, calls this hogwash. “Uncle Sam transported those military working dog heroes over to permanent bases abroad. Uncle Sam has a responsibility to get the dog back to the continental U.S.,” she says. “There is no reason that half-empty U.S. military aircraft cannot transport these dogs back to CONUS [the continental United States]. At that point the adopter can pay for transport to the dog’s new residence.”
She says many people have adopted dogs from overseas sight unseen. They get information from the kennel master and the dog’s handler, and if they like the dog, they figure out how to make it work. (On her Web site she gives tips for situations like this and provides contact information for U.S. military dog kennels Stateside and around the world.) It takes time and money to do this. I’ve heard figures ranging from $400 to $2,000 for transport, depending on location, time of year, and size of dog.
In order for retiring dogs to be flown back home on the government’s bill, these dogs would need to be reclassified as MWD veterans instead of excess equipment, Kandoll says. Her group and a few others are pushing for an amendment to the Robby law that would make this possible. “We can’t let an ocean stand in the way of getting these deserving dogs wonderful homes,” she says.
51
A VERY GOOD LIFE
It’s not just people who adopt from overseas locations who put a Herculean effort into adopting a military working dog. While I was at Lackland, I met a couple who drove 1,047 miles, from rural Illinois, to pick up their dog. That the pickup happened to coincide with a wedding a few hours away was pure luck. “We’d have come down for her no matter what,” says Jerry Self, president of an engineering firm in Illinois.
Self heard about military dogs in December 2009, when a friend sent him a link to a video about the fact that the dogs need good homes when they retire. Shortly after, he put in his paperwork. In early 2011, Engstrom called to talk to him, to get to know more about his situation, and to give him the news that it wouldn’t be long now.
Self and his wife, Karen, had been in San Antonio for two days when I met them at Engstrom’s desk at Lackland. They were there to pick up Asta—the beautiful light fawn-colored Malinois I’d seen earlier in the kennel. They’d met her a couple of days earlier as they were looking for a good match. Self thought he wanted an old war vet German shepherd, but he and his wife saw Asta and knew she was the one. “There was something about the way she looked at us,” he told me.
Asta was only two years old. She was as green as they come. She had not received much military training, because she had gotten injured and had fractured a vertebra near the end of her spine. She had undergone surgery, but she was compromised, and the vets didn’t think it would be wise to put her into the program.
I waited to watch the Selfs and Asta meet in the adoption room and for them to walk off to their car with their new dog. But it turned out that Asta needed a couple more official clearances before they could bring her home. So they’d stay in San Antonio one more night. They were disappointed but took it in stride. “We waited this long, what’s another day or two?” Self said.
“She’s going to have a good life with us.”
We kept in touch. Asta rode the 1,047 miles home to Casey, Illinois, like a trouper, never a peep, Jerry Self wrote me. They stopped for breaks pretty often, and when they stayed at hotels along the way, Asta slept in her crate. There were no accidents, there was no barking.
Back at home, Asta was gentle with the Selfs’ grandchildren, and with their Chihuahua, who is grouchy about Asta being there. The Selfs don’t think Asta would have been a good patrol dog because “there’s not a mean bone in her body. She loves affection, and she gets quite a lot.”
Asta has a thing for Frisbees. She owns about a dozen, and while she likes to chase after them, she prefers to fold them taco style and trot around with them. When Jerry Self goes to throw them, they wobble badly because of all the teeth marks. And she slobbers on everything. And she is high energy. “She gallops around like a horse most of the time…. She is young and rambunctious and likes to jump up on the couch and office furniture, and knocks everything down,” Jerry says.
In fact, the Selfs find that at this stage, life is a bit more tame when Asta is enjoying time in a special 110- by 80-foot fenced-in area they built around their house for her. It has big trees and grass in it. Squirrels scamper up and down the trees, and the family’s three cats like to bask in the sunshine and watch the latest addition to the household. She doesn’t pay them much mind, though. She’s just enjoying her newfound life in this lush, green, bucolic land—a long, long way from the war zone where she could well be right now had she not been injured.
Which brings me back to Jake. If not for his own accident—an accident of birth—
He has the spirit, the loyalty, the can-do attitude. He has patience, a great nose, no crippling fears. But does he have the drive? Would he be willing to do anything for a reward? Since I can take a Kong or tennis ball out of his mouth and have him shrug it off with a smile, his drive for that kind of reward is not strong enough.
But what about food? He lives for food. (He is a Lab, say no more.) I think he could be one of those dogs for whom food is the reward that would lift him to great heights. But the dog program tends to frown on food rewards, as do most trainers these days, and he’d need so many treats he’d probably get so obese, he’d be dispo’d anyway.
The bottom line, though, really goes beyond whether or not he could have been a contender. As much as I have tremendous, undying admiration for military working dogs and their handlers—even more than when I began this journey—and as much fun as it is to fantasize that Jake could have the right stuff to be a soldier dog, I would not want him to actually do the job. I can’t imagine anyone these days really wanting his or her dog to go to war, be in harm’s way. Even most handlers would like their dogs to be with them somewhere other than military kennels, or FOBs, or outside the wire.
That’s why so many end up adopting. “I wanted him to know what it was like to be a regular dog in a regular house, before he crossed the bridge,” I was told in various ways many times. It’s something many of us take for granted, but imagine being the dog who suddenly finds herself away from war, away from the blasts of artillery, IEDs, the adrenaline, the heat, the loud concrete kennels. Imagine living in a comfortable home, with a soft bed, and a loving family. It must be like a dream.
There’s one situation where it would be handy if Jake were a military working dog, though—especially now that he’s getting a bit on in years: whenever he needs medical care. The medical care these dogs receive would be prohibitively expensive for most of us and is first-rate. It makes my health insurance look rather primitive.
52
THE BEST MEDICAL CARE MONEY CAN BUY
Ttitan N319 slowly slides into the CT scanner. He’s on his back, paws in the air. As he enters the tube, a red laser shines on him, creating interesting arcs and lines on his paws and then on his rear end and, finally, his tail, until he’s all the way in. A technician is beside him, making sure all is well. Outside the room, other CT pros, including two veterinary radiologists, look on, noting the dog’s image on a large computer screen in front of them. He’s a Malinois, but in black-and-white, with the perspective of this particular view from the scanner, he looks rather like a lizard.
This is a high-end CT scanner he’s in, but he’ll never know it, because he’s out cold. (He would not know it anyway, I suppose.) Nearly everything at the Daniel E. Holland Military Working Dog Hospital at Lackland Air Force Base is state-of-the-art. Opened in 2008 and named after an army veterinarian who was killed in Iraq, the $13 million hospital is a unique referral center providing top-notch veterinary care for pretty much every issue a soldier
