The biggest change that has happened is that the dogs are now allowed to be adopted out if they do not make the grade upon training and when they retire. If the dog retires at it's base then the handler has first option in adopting the animal without it having to be transported back to Lackland. If the dog is a "trainer" at Lackland for students and is retired then it is also put up for adoption by either handlers, civilian officers or the public. This is a giant milestone the military has overcome and I think it should be commended. I say this to you just because I noticed that you still say on your website that the dogs are euthanized when they can no longer work, and thankfully this is no longer practiced. Thank you for your time and thank you for taking the time to recognize these amazing animals.
Heather
The following is an email from a customer regarding scout dogs:
Hi Cathy,
Thought I'd mention to you how great your website is! I've gathered a great deal of information that will be extremely useful in raising the pup.
I also thank you for your recognition of war dogs and support of the troops. As I may have mentioned, I retired from the Army after 24 years of service. I spent most all of my military time flying helicopters and perhaps the defining part of my career was the year I served as a medevac (medical evacuation) pilot in 1967-1968. I noticed after reading the scout dogs/handlers killed in action during those years was extraordinarily high. Of interest, our company had a triage ranking for casualties because sometimes we didn't have enough helicopters or pilots to fly all missions, so we had to prioritize. You might be interested to know that our priorities were as follows:
1.American GI's & Scout Dogs
2.Coalition forces; ie South Vietnamese, Koreans, Australians and mercenaries
3.Vietnamese civilians
4.POW's
If we had several missions, one for a scout dog only and any of the rest of the triage priorities, we went for the dog. That's how important they were to us.
One of the sad tales of our departure from Vietnam was the desertion of our dogs. I'm not sure that they could have integrated back into society, but their service and valor deserved a better end in my opinion.
I shudder to think how often it was that we had to evacuate dogs. And, of course, when a dog needed evacuation, the handler was sure to go because they were such an integral team. I quickly developed tremendous respect for the great things scout dogs did.
Dave Pearsall
Support our Troops! www.troopsupportusa.com/
Tunisian Sniper Scout/German Krieghund strangevehicles.greyfalcon.us:80/krieghund.htm
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