I agree also - the dog is trained and needs to return to duty where he will serve the military, until he is retired. He is too young for retirement right now. Perhaps the soldier can make sure her name is known as someone who wants to adopt the dog when he is retired, or injured and can no longer work. Then at that point, maybe the military can make an exception to their rule, and give the dog to the soldier who wants to give him a good retirement home. At that point, he will certainly deserve such a retirement and owner who loves him so much.

molly

This dog is military property. While she may have trained and served with it, she did not pay for the training and does not own the dog.

I understand her emotional attachment, but it sounds like she is having difficulty separating personal from professional. She needs to let the dog go back and continue to do its job...IMO.

I'm glad others see the importance in keeping that dog working so he can keep others safe .

I wish more people could seperate their emotions from situations like this and realize keeping others alive far out weighs any emotional support the dog may give to it's past handler .

Unfortunately many can't seperate there emotions from these types of situations . To them I say , there will be many others that may go through an emotional tragedy because there loved ones were hurt or killed because they didn't have access to that highly trained dog meant to keep them safe .

I want to thank the Sgt. for her sacrifices for us . I hope she soon realizes that dog is serving a much better purpose protecting her fellow soldiers .

In a way I agree with all of you. Yes the dog is trained and yes the handler is very needy. And yes the dog is worth a lot of money.
The story I just read doesn't say if the dog safed her life or not, no one knows that part.
The dog is trained to find bomps, guess he missed one.
My heart does go out to this young women she was willing to give up everything for her Country. Her life will never be the same. Given the type of injuries she is healing from the fact she IS a lone, her husband is still in attation. I just can't call her selfish for asking for or wanting the dog, it would be different if she was asking for a human partner to help her get through this, she not.
The dog is trained as a working dog already sounds to me like the solider just may NEED a service dog. Why could'nt the Gov. provide her with this one, the dog she trained.
None of us can honestly say what or how we would react sitting in her place.

I agree with Will here. Though, she probably got civillians involved thinking it would help her get the dog.

Hmmmmm some very good points brought up here......Im in dubio on this one.

 Quote:

The story I just read doesn't say if the dog safed her life or not, no one knows that part.

Doesn't mean a hill of beans, this dog was a soldier and soldiers save each others lives in combat everyday, that shouldn't stop healthy soldiers from continuing to do their duty.

 Quote:

The dog is trained to find bomps, guess he missed one.

Kinda hard for the dog to sniff out for bombs when he's riding in a hummvw down the road when the lane just explodes no isn't it?

 Quote:

My heart does go out to this young women she was willing to give up everything for her Country. Her life will never be the same.

Mine does also, I to have been wounded in combat and I have lost many friends and had some die right in front of me, but your a soldier, you drive on and there is one standing rule amongst all branches and that is "MISSION FIRST" taking a healthy working dog/soldier out of the fight just for your emotional needs is NOT becoming of a soldier. This may sound harsh but it's reality, if you couldn't hack it shouldn't have signed up.

 Quote:

it would be different if she was asking for a human partner to help her get through this, she not.

No it isn't, that k9 is a soldier in the united states military and is needed and just as valuable to service as a human, because that dog can sniff out bombs show me a human soldier who can, we'll clone him and retire all the dogs to become emotional healing pets.

 Quote:

The dog is trained as a working dog already sounds to me like the solider just may NEED a service dog.

Sniffing out bombs will not help her in her service needs <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

 Quote:

Why could'nt the Gov. provide her with this one,

ummm, to prevent other soldiers like me from getting blown up if at all possible

 Quote:

the dog she trained.

She did NOT train this dog, in fact the very large majority of K9 handlers know nothing about dog training. I currently am doing OB training for 2 K9handlers now on their personal dogs. One is a kennel master. They are trained in care and handling not training, Two very different things.

 Quote:

None of us can honestly say what or how we would react sitting in her place.

Yes some of us can

Hmmmm You know Chris we all have are thoughts on this I stated mine, please not be sorry grabby.

[Yes some of us can ]

I'm sorry, but one person goes through the except same thing.

I respect your training thoughts, but please dont be so rude.

I mean craby !

Valerie,
I wasn't going to say anything but you need to get off your high ( and uninformed ) horse.


I don't think that Chris is being rude. You made a silly statement when you said "None of us can honestly say what or how we would react sitting in her place."
That's not true, there are several combat vets on this forum who have been injured and know exactly how they'd react ( or did react in the past ) when placed in the situation. So when you make a challenging statement like that when some of us know that the concept behind it is false, you're going to called on it. Think before you type, you're commenting on something that you have zero experience with, as opposed to Chris and I and others here.

Not to mentioned your inappropriately sarcastic comment about the dog missing a bomb - it was in a vehicle and not working at the time, as Chris pointed out. Maybe you should try reading the article before you make comments on it, ok?

And your comment about having the dog retrained as a service dog shows a total and complete lack of understanding about how both dog training and the Government works.