Thread: Hero Dogs Win

Hero Dogs Win

Military dogs now guaranteed ride back to America after retirement

Matty / Stephen Gutowski

BY: Stephen Gutowski
December 2, 2015 1:30 pm

When President Obama signed the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act on the day before Thanksgiving, after originallythreatening to veto it, he approved $607 billion in military spending and small yet meaningful changes to how the military handles its retired working dogs, guaranteeing them a return ticket to the United States at the end of their service.

Until now the military’s policies had resulted in dogs being retired in overseas kennels and sometimes being separated from their handlers in the adoption process. Under the language in the new law, introduced by Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R., N.J.) and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.), all military working dogs will be guaranteed a ride home on military aircraft and their handlers will be allowed to adopt them before anyone else.

The American Humane Association pushed for over a year to see the changes put into law. Prior to the passage of the law, the association spent up to $6,000 per case to bring retired military dogs home and reunite them with their handlers. Last year the charity brought 21 dogs back from overseas.

“I was told by our political advisors, who are knee deep in this everyday, ‘Robin this isn’t going to happen we just want to set your expectations’ and I said ‘it’s gonna happen, we gotta make it happen,” said Dr. Robin Ganzert, president and CEO of the association. “To be told by the old timers on the Hill that there’s no way in heck this is going to happen and to do it? Oh my gosh, I can’t tell you.”

“It really felt so great.”

The Humane Association believes that reuniting a handler and the dog they were teamed with can help them with both physical and emotional wounds that can come from serving in a war zone.

As President Obama signed the act on Wednesday, the non-profit was working to bring another dog, named Freddy, back home.

“We were certainly overjoyed,” Ganzert said. “We were working with one more dog who was getting ready to retire overseas and we were getting ready to pay for the flight and make all the arrangements. And now we hope that this dog will be one of the first ones to fly back home for his retirement with his former Army handler.”

Ganzert estimated there were around 2,500 dogs currently serving the military overseas.

“And it’s not just those 2,500 precious canines it’s also their handlers at the other end of the leash,” she said. “When they come back suffering from those invisible wounds of war, we’re hoping that their four legged battle buddy will help them heal from PTS. We know it works. We’ve seen it work.”

Ganzert said she spoke with some of the veterans who had lobbied Congress alongside their dogsthroughout the year. “Thanksgiving Day was a great day of rejoicing with the handlers,” she said.

One of those handlers is Sgt. Brent Grommet, who was separated from his dog, Matty, after they were both wounded by an IED in Afghanistan.

Grommet, who credits being reunited with Matty last Thanksgiving with saving his life, was elated at news of it being signed.

“To have him, a year later, be able to be part of this legislative victory just gave him such a sense of purpose, to be able to pay it forward to future handlers,” Ganzert said. “These gentlemen that we’ve had the pleasure of working with as advocates for them on the Hill, it’s a new mission for them. And that mission is to pay it forward to future handlers so they don’t have to go through the bureaucracy and the pain of being separated from a battle buddy.”

“So this has been a beautiful mission these guys have been on and to bring it to them on Thanksgiving was a day, really, of thanks just to be so utterly corny about it,” Ganzert said with a chuckle. “It’s about as corny as a Hallmark movie to have this happen on Thanksgiving-eve. What a blessing.”

Now that the military dogs are guaranteed a ride home and their handlers are put at the front of the adoption list, Ganzert aims to make the job of caring for them easier. Since 2014, New Jersey’s Red Bank Veterinary Hospital has offered free specialty care for all veteran canines, but Ganzert is pushing for more.

“We also did a call to action to the private sector and said, okay guys, time to step up and provide for veterinary care,” she said. “We achieved free specialty veterinary care but I’m still calling for free primary care. These handlers that are former-military, a lot of them, to have a battle buddy in their home is a grand expense.”

The association is also working on a program to send care packages to currently deployed military dogs filled with canine care essentials, as well as some treats.

http://freebeacon.com/culture/hero-dogs-win/

Hero dogs—many of them trained in Alabama—are finally being reunited with their handlers

• WRITTEN BY CLIFF SIMS
• ON JANUARY 3, 2016 AT 7:15 PM CST

Watch the Video at This link
(Video above: Yellowhammer goes inside AMK9’s hero dog training facility in Anniston, Alabama)

1,500 Iowans crowded into a gymnasium in August of 2011 to mourn the loss of Chief Petty Officer Jon Tumilson, a Navy SEAL hero who was killed in Afghanistan when a rocket-propelled grenade shot down a helicopter on which he and 29 of other servicemen were riding.

After leading the funeral procession into the service, Tumilson’s faithful military working dog, a grief-stricken Labrador retriever named Hawkeye, laid down in front of the casket of his fallen master, creating one of the most enduring images of the Global War on Terrorism.

Hawkeye, the military working dog of Chief Petty Officer Jon Tumilson, lays by his master’s casket. (Photo: Screenshot)

The image perfectly captured the loving relationship between servicemen and women and their working dogs. But until this year, many handlers and their pups were separated from each other not by death, but by military policies.

“The military’s policies had resulted in dogs being retired in overseas kennels and sometimes being separated from their handlers in the adoption process,” explained Stephen Gutowski, who wrote about the issue for the Washington Free Beacon. But thanks to changes in this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), “all military working dogs will now be guaranteed a ride home on military aircraft and their handlers will be allowed to adopt them before anyone else.”

The change in the law is welcomed news for all military working dogs and their handlers, especially here in Alabama, where many of country’s hero dogs are expertly trained before deploying.

AMK9 in Anniston, Alabama, is among the world’s premier training facilities for military and law enforcement working dogs (See video above).

1st Foundation, an Alabama-based non-profit that provides assistance, training and resources to Special Operations Forces, Police Special Operations, and their families, is also focusing its efforts on placing former military working dogs with combat veterans to help them heal from the physical and psychological wounds incurred during their time in combat.

The American Humane Association believes reuniting handlers with their dogs can help them heal from the emotional scars of war.
“When they come back suffering from those invisible wounds of war, we’re hoping that their four legged battle buddy will help them heal from PTSD,” Dr. Robin Ganzert, president and CEO of the association, told the Free Beacon. “We know it works. We’ve seen it work.”

One of the handlers who has experienced the benefits of being reunited with his pup is Sgt. Brent Grommet. According to the Free Beacon, Sgt. Grommet was at first separated from his working dog, Matty, after they both were wounded by an IED while serving in Afghanistan. They have now been reunited, thanks to the changes to the NDAA.

“To have him, a year later, be able to be part of this legislative victory just gave him such a sense of purpose, to be able to pay it forward to future handlers,” Dr. Ganzert said of Sgt. Grommet. “These gentlemen that we’ve had the pleasure of working with as advocates for them on the Hill, it’s a new mission for them. And that mission is to pay it forward to future handlers so they don’t have to go through the bureaucracy and the pain of being separated from a battle buddy.”

(h/t Free Beacon)
http://yellowhammernews.com/politics...heir-handlers/

In 2014.

AMK9 Coming Home Documentary

Coming Home Update
AMK9



Published on Feb 23, 2015


Jon Wertjes, President/COO of AMK9, provides an update on the 92 K9 war heroes that AMK9 transported back to the United States after they completed contracted service work overseas. These K9s were either reassigned to new jobs or adopted to loving homes through Piper's Playhouse.

I love these dogs so much. I'm so glad people are standing up and donating to take care of them. They're so wonderful they break your heart. I love animals. We must treat them all right.