Pets Hunters

FT. LEONARD WOOD, MO -- Families and friends said their farewells to about a dozen military men, women, and dogs Monday.

Ft. Leonard Wood held a deployment ceremony for the Engineer Canine Company, 5th Engineer Battalion.

The group included 5 working dogs and their handlers, plus 4 veterinarian technicians.

The soldiers are headed to Afghanistan to support Operation Enduring Freedom.


Source

Fox Lake, Illinois, American Legion Post has a new member with four legs, a bite of about 1,200 pounds of pressure per square inch and a willingness to eat meat on a floor.

Dexter became the first military working dog to receive a membership card for American Legion Post 703 at a ceremony Wednesday. Post 703 Cmdr. Jerry Kandziorski said national Legion officials indicated it may well have been a first in the United States.

"He was a tried and true veteran," Kandziorski said. "He took his time in service and performed his duty. We think he deserves the recognition that should come to anybody."

Dexter is a Navy veteran who served in Iraq with his handler, Petty Officer 1st Class Kathleen Ellison. One of the 10-year-old German shepherd's heroic actions occurred in July 2004, when he detected explosives on the gas tank of a garbage truck that would have targeted a mess hall for U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

About 75 guests watched Dexter's membership ceremony at the Fox Lake American Legion hall, which was complete with an honor guard and invocation by Post 703 chaplain Bill Gordon.

Source: Daily Herald

There are 20-25 dogs based throughout Helmand province in the south of Afghanistan where British troops are based.

Most are German Shepherds, Labradors or Spaniels. They may look cute and friendly, but these animals have a deadly job - sniffing out roadside bombs, and chasing and catching Taleban fighters, alive.

One sniffer or protection dog along with their handler can do the job of "four-six men" on the ground, meaning that those men can be deployed on other tasks.

Source: BBC

In better times, the Baghdad Zoo had more than 500 animals, including giraffes, elephants and exotic birds. But its location, inside Zawra Park in the city's center, put it in the middle of heavy fighting between invading U.S. troops and Saddam Hussein's forces in 2003. U.S. shells damaged the compound and inadvertently freed some animals; looting that followed the fall of Baghdad stripped away everything else.

Thousands of North Carolina-based soldiers and Marines are trying to make things as normal as possible for Iraq's people. North Carolina-based veterinarians are trying to ensure that for some animals in that embattled country, life is a zoo.

Veterinarians, students and animal researchers across the state are leading the effort to help the Baghdad Zoo -- once the Middle East's largest -- return to its pre-war glory days.

The U.S. established a Green Zone in Baghdad that included Zawra Park. Soldiers from the U.S. Army civil affairs were given oversight of the zoo. Cages and pens were rebuilt, and some animals were brought in. Last year, the N.C. Zoological Society raised money to buy computers to send to the zoo and got help from the military in getting an Internet connection. Eventually, zoo staff could use the connection to ask advice on how to treat the animals in their care.

While still not up to the standards of most zoos in the United States, the Baghdad Zoo is now an oasis for Iraqis, who stroll with babies amid grass and shade trees. The zoo has lions, camels, monkeys, bears, 23 aquariums' worth of fish, swans, eagles, donkeys, a hyena, a leopard, a fox, a few wolves and dogs.

Source: Red Orbit

Iron, a German shepherd trained to sniff out explosives, weapons, wires and other threats, and handler Sgt. Joshua T. Rose, right, wait as military explosives experts investigate a bomb that Iron found south of Baghdad.

Sgt. Joshua Rose and Iron are one of about 200 canine teams deployed in Iraq, where the bond between soldiers and their dogs is so deep that some handlers have asked to be buried with their canine partners if they are killed together.

On frigid winter nights in the Iraqi desert, Rose shares his cot and sometimes his sleeping bag with Iron to keep him warm. In the scorching summer heat, he makes sure Iron has enough water before taking his own share. If the heat is too much for Iron, who has a thick coat of glossy black fur, Rose lets him rest, no matter what the platoon leader might want.

"These dogs are like our children. I'm closer to my dog than I am to anyone other than my wife," said Staff Sgt. Charles W. Graves, the kennel master at Forward Operating Base Kalsu, about 20 miles southeast of Baghdad.

Since the start of the Iraq war, about 1,000 dogs have passed through the combat zone, and three have been killed in action.

Their duties include sniffing out the roadside bombs, detecting booby-trap wires, searching for drugs and illegal weapons at border crossings, finding human remains and tracking and chasing down insurgents.

The war in Iraq is the first in which the military has sent dogs to serve as therapy animals for stressed-out troops.

Source: LA Times

The above referenced story was written by Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, she has also created a war dog blog entry with more photos : IRAQ: Dog duty

In 1998, the Cambodian government destroyed 125,000 weapons across the country.

The Peace Art Project Cambodia (PAPC) was created in November 2003 to get rid of the weapons in an artistic way.

See pictures of weapons sculpture and furniture at funnytogo.com.

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Royal Navy officers are paying tribute to Simon the cat, a rat-catcher on the HMS Amethyst who continued his duties despite being hit by shrapnel and singed during shelling raids by Chinese communists on the Yangtze River in 1949.

Simon stuck to his task despite injury during the 101-day summer siege that followed.

The communists withheld supplies for over three months while they used the ship as a political bargaining chip. But the black and white cat kept up morale and crew credited him with saving their lives by protecting dwindling food stores from a rat infestation.

The first military working dog team killed in action together since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were laid to rest together July 18.

Cpl. Kory D. Wiens, 20, of the 94th Mine Dog Detachment, 5th Engineer Battalion, 1st Engineer Brigade of Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and his partner, Cooper, were killed July 6 by an improvised explosive device while on patrol in Muhammad Sath, Iraq. They had been in Iraq since January.

The cremated remains of Wiens and Cooper, a Labrador retriever, were buried together at Salt Creek Cemetery in Wiens’ hometown of Dallas, Ore., at the request of his family.

The Army has 578 dog teams, and they have served several hundred rotations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Research indicates that the last military canine team to be killed together was during the Vietnam War.