Soldier Dogs (34 page)

The old dog provided support beyond the technical. “He’s always had my back. He was always there to make sure I was OK, whether he needed to help protect me, or when I was a little down and he’d come over and put his head in my lap. He could read my body language, he could read my emotions, like no one else could.”

After numerous missions outside the wire, the team returned to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, and settled in for a couple of years.

But when Bailey’s turn for deployment came up again in 2010, he couldn’t take Robby. The dog’s back had gone bad in the interim. He had been diagnosed with lumbosacral disease, a compression of nerve roots in the area where a dog’s spine meets his hips. It’s not uncommon in larger dogs. In bad cases, nerve impairment can lead to weakness in rear limbs and even incontinence. Robby’s case was relatively mild, and the pain could be controlled by medication. But he was not fit for another deployment.

Bailey was relieved in a way—at least the old man would be safe—and went off to an undisclosed location with a four-year-old German shepherd named Ajax L523. They bonded, as soldiers do, “but nothing like Robby and me.”

When Bailey returned six months later, Robby, who had been living in the base’s kennel, had not forgotten his friend.

“I walked around the corner of the kennel and he dropped his
ears back and was wagging his tail like crazy. It was kind of cool because he still knew exactly who I was.”

Robby, now eleven and white of muzzle, has a new assignment: He has retired and will spend his remaining time with Bailey, who left the air force at the same time he adopted Robby. “I just wanted to get him out of the kennel and get him home so he could have a good couple of years before the end.”

They live together in a house with a fenced backyard and all the toys a dog could want. “It is absolutely wonderful having him at home. I like to call him my shadow. If I go to a different room, so does Robby. He follows me all over and will just lay and watch me do chores or lay on the patio while I cut the grass.”

Robby sleeps on a large tea-green orthopedic dog bed (a big improvement over the concrete floors of kennels he slept on for years) next to Bailey’s other dog, a sixty-five-pound shelter mutt named Gunner. Gunner is Robby’s first real dog friend, since working dogs are generally not allowed to fraternize with other dogs in the service.

“It’s a pretty awesome feeling to give Robby a safe, comfortable home. He kept me safe while we were in Iraq and protected so many people. It’s great to be able to give back to him and try to repay the lifelong sacrifice he has given to me, his other handlers, and the country.”

But what about the day when Robby is in too much pain to go on, the day Bailey has to make the decision no pet owner wants to face? Bailey pauses and takes a breath. “It won’t be easy, but I’ll know it’s my turn to help him and I’ll be there for him,” he says. On his walls hang framed pictures of the two of them. After Robby goes, Bailey plans to make a tribute wall or a shadow box to
memorialize him. “That way I can always show him off and give him the respect he deserves, even after he’s gone.”

And one more thing. He hesitates. It may sound kind of weird, he forewarns. “I’d like to think that one day we will be able to play fetch again on the other side.”

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I
n early 2011, John Engstrom, the former handler who had the shock of finding his old dog in the necropsy room, got a new job at Lackland. It’s a position he wishes existed when Max was still around. Engstrom, now a civilian, is the adoption coordinator for the military working dog adoption program. He has come full circle, in a way, from that terrible day in 1997.

When he started the job in March 2011, there was already a long list of people who wanted to adopt military working dogs. Engstrom had his work cut out for him. But that was child’s play compared to what would happen less than two months later, when the world learned a military dog took part in taking out the world’s most wanted terrorist. All hell broke loose. “The phone has been ringing off the hook since May 1,” he told me months later. “Everyone and his brother and sister and aunt wants one of these dogs now.”

Many people who call here want to adopt Cairo. It seems a lot of people don’t even realize there
are
other military working dogs, Engstrom says.

Engstrom breaks the news about Cairo (that he’s not here, and
he’s certainly not up for adoption), and then goes on to inform callers that some available for adoption are dog school washouts. These dogs might be gun-shy or slow to learn important skills. They’re good dogs with flaws that make them less-than-ideal military dogs. Many dogs on the adoption roster are training aids who may or may not have served overseas before becoming a little old or stiff for the work. Few dogs up for adoption to the public have recently deployed; one or more of the handlers of those dogs will usually step up to claim the dog before the dog is even retired.

Something Engstrom tries to remember to tell callers is that while the available dogs may be highly trained and very well bred, many are not house-trained. Think about it. The dogs live in kennels, where they do their business whenever and wherever. A few have stayed in hotels, so they probably have been trained. Those who stay in tents on deployment may have gotten the general idea that you saunter outside when nature calls. But most of these dogs have never set foot in a house.

Of all the skills a military dog needs to know, the locale in which to do his business is not among them. Jake may not know how to sniff out IEDs, and he’s no attack dog, but I’ll say this for him: He doesn’t use our floor as a toilet. Fortunately the military dogs are fast studies, and usually it just takes a couple of times until they learn the ropes.

While Engstrom is in charge of adoptions through Lackland, other bases around the United States and abroad adopt out dogs, as well. Unless a dog is already at Lackland as a dog school student or training aid, or is there to be checked out medically at Lackland’s veterinary hospital, the dog will be adopted straight from his home base.

Engstrom does his best to encourage people to fill out the applications or, if they’re far away, to contact local military dog kennels to see about “dispo’d” dogs in need of adoption. Plenty do. “They want to help these great American heroes,” he says.

The average wait for a member of the public (you and me, as opposed to handlers or law-enforcement agencies) to adopt a dog at Lackland is about eighteen months, but that may fade as the Bin Laden story fades into the past. Handlers and law enforcement get top priority, depending on the dog and the situation. If a dog’s handler wants to adopt his old dog, she’ll usually take precedence. There’s a waiting list of about sixty law-enforcement agencies hoping to get their hands on a good dog with a strong drive for a reward. They’re not looking for war heroes. And about forty to fifty new applications from the public come in each month. Only five to ten dogs get eliminated from the training program during the same time frame. That makes for a backlog of willing homes.

Whether or not the would-be adopters qualify is another matter altogether.

Engstrom has heard it all from potential adopters. I promised him I would not give away key words or phrases that make him automatically suspect a home is not suitable for adoption. The dogs are to be pets, nothing more, certainly nothing less. I won’t go beyond that, because he needs to do the screening his own way, and I don’t want anyone getting clues and circumventing his process.

He doesn’t hesitate to talk in general terms, however, about the breadth of people who want to invite a military working dog into their lives. On one end are the people who want a fearsome dog and are probably up to no good. On the other are the people who write pages and pages of flowery prose about how they are psychically in
tune with a dog who is sending them messages that they were always meant to be together, that no other match must be made, and who cares if they’re eighteen months down the waiting list—their intuition is never wrong and they must have that dog (whoever he or she is) now.

The barking frenzy in the adoption kennels is at a fever pitch, but I can still hear Engstrom. His voice sometimes hits the excited praise notes of trainers and handlers, and at other times it’s quiet and more reverential and serious. It depends on the dog we’re passing.

“What’s up there, handsome stranger?! Nigel!
Niiigelllllll!
Isn’t he a dark handsome wonder?!”

“There’s Bono. You are an
excellent
dog. He’s got degenerative arthritis in his hips. Poor guy.”

“Asta! Your new parents are coming to get you today! Isn’t she a beautiful color?”

“This is Jerry. Jerry is really cool. He’s always down for fun.”

“Pepper! You’re going to be in the San Antonio police department! Way to go!!”

We stop at Buck’s kennel. He’s the one with canine post-traumatic stress disorder. “Hang in there, buddy. Tomorrow you’re going home with a couple who loves you a lot.”

Buck’s neighbor is Rony. He is a beautiful German shepherd—everything a shepherd should be, from his regal stature to his alert demeanor. I instantly like this dog. He’s not barking, but he’s not curled up. He’s just kingly. I get his tattoo number, R262. He’s
young, then, since this is an R year for tattoos. He may be two or three. He probably failed dog school. I learn that Rony has a paralyzing fear of thunderstorms. He literally bites the cage sides of his kennel and pulls his way up the kennel wall, nearly hanging from the ceiling, during storms. In San Francisco we get thunder maybe once a year. Rony wouldn’t be so tormented. I could see this dog in my house, passing the storm-free days away snoozing next to Jake. But I was nowhere in the running. I hadn’t even filled out an application yet.

I was worried about this fellow, but everyone told me there are few storms in San Antonio that time of year—especially with the wicked drought that was going on. I felt better knowing that Rony wouldn’t have to deal with storms while living in his kennel. At least next time one hit, he’d likely be in the comfort of someone’s home.

That night, as I drove to the airport, I was caught in a storm so torrential I had to pull off the side of the road with all the other traffic. The thunder was so strong I could feel it in my chest. I worried about Rony. I wished I’d filled out an adoption form eighteen months ago.