Well, after I wrote that post last night I thought of another good one . . to be honest I am surprised I did not think of it earlier. It is about my new friend, Abbie. Abbie is a eight-nine month old part lab, part . . .something dog that we are trying to rescue. First off I need to say that we are not allowed to have pets here, or mascots as the army calls them, so for purposes of saving her life I will be referring to her as our "force protection dog". Anyway here is her story.
The base that we are at right now used to be ran by the British army. Well if you are watching on the news you probably know by now that the British are pulling out of Iraq. The British came to us about a month ago and asked us if we wanted a puppy. They stated that they found her when she was a newborn pup, "she was just a little fur ball when they found her". They have raised her, fed her, kinda trained her since then. However now with them going home, and the British having such strict regulations on foreign animals they asked if we could take her. If we could not take her she would probably be killed, as the stray dog population in Iraq is out of control and causes lots of problems.
Well, luckily we are a Civil Affairs unit. We have on staff a Lieutenant Colonel that is a Veterinarian. She is the one that is heading up the project to save the dog. Now as I mentioned before we are not allowed to have pets or mascots. So the first thing that we did was get her officially assigned the title, "Force Protection K9." Next she had to find a place for her to go home to . . .I volunteered. I have been looking for a good dog for home anyway, plus I am on the rescue squad back home and would love to have a dog that I can train in search and rescue. There are also several others that have volunteered in-case something falls through and I cannot take her. There are a few more steps that has to be taken, she has to get all of her shots, and she needs to be spaded.
The last and the biggest step is physically getting her to the states. We found an organization called "Baghdad pups". You can check them out on the web at www.baghdadpups.com. It is a great organization that is being used for cases just like this. If you are a dog lover I suggest you check it out as it is a very moving website. The hardest part is getting her excepted for the program but i dont think that we will have a problem.
Anyway I have been doing my best to take care of Abbie while here, this is a warzone and I do still have a job to do, but I do what I can, along with several other soldiers in the unit. When she was with the Brits she ran free, never put on a leash or caged up so her life has changed a bit now. We have to restrict alot to keep her out of trouble. Right now she has to stay in a cage pretty much 24/7. I take her out several times a day, give her lots of water, feed her, and try to entertain her some. But it is very restricted with our schedules. Below is a picture of me and her. I will let you all know what turns out, at the moment I am still unsure of the outcome.
Well, thats all that I have for today . . .I'll see you in the next post.
Nicholas, She is beautiful. We recently lost our Chocolate lab named Abby this last January. I had to tell our son on instant messenger while he was in Iraq that we had to put Abby down. He ended up looking for us a dog here in Houston from Iraq. We got a Golden Retriever Rescue that we named Dundee. We welcomed him to his forever home about a month before Tarren came home; so he was here to welcome Tarren home. (You have to love technology.) That sweet little Golden face got him in to the Golden Rescue but we are fairly sure he is half Border Collie. 
Comments(21)