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Dayton Daily News
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LIFE
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Critter Corner
Retirement From Marines Means Model Canine Must Be Destroyed
IF WE ALL PULL TOGETHER, we might be able to save Robby.
Robby is an 11-year-old Belgian Malinois who has a death sentence looming in less than six months.
It isn't because he is ill or has done anything horrible to anyone. In fact, he is glorified as a `top dawg' on the Marine Corps' own Web site.
He is simply not going to be allowed to live after the military retires him as a professional military working dog - even though his handler, Shawn Mathey, would love to adopt him.
A reader who recently met Robby and Mathey, both based in Quantico, Va., at a promotional event in Columbus is horrified that the military would not allow the dog to be adopted even though Mathey wants to own him. Other handlers apparently share his feelings and would like to adopt their dogs once they retire from active military use.
But the military has a policy that such dogs, after their years of service as military K-9 officers trained to sniff out explosives and drugs, are euthanized when they retire - even though they may have several good years ahead of them.
The reader who met Robby said: `It brought tears to my eyes to hear this story and meet this loving animal. Shawn said that he takes Robby to schools and that he is great around children. After meeting this unbelievably gentle creature, who laid his head in my lap as I sat down next to him, I just can't believe that the handlers would not be given the option to adopt. It's just wrong.'
A Marine spokesman in Washington, D.C., said the dogs are given ratings based on their abilities. When a dog can no longer perform its tasks to make its ratings, it is sent to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, where the older dogs train new handlers. When no longer able to do that, they are `retired' - in this case euthanized.
Asked if handlers are ever allowed to adopt retired dogs, the Marine spokesman said he wasn't sure but thought there could be a problem with federal liability. In other words, because the dogs are trained to attack, there could be some liability for the federal government if such an adopted dog ever did something wrong.
Many police departments who use dogs for similar purposes allow their handlers to adopt them and keep them home as family pets when they are too old to go to work. Why shouldn't the military? Especially if trained dog handlers are interested in caring for them?
Robby has spent his years going to schools to interact with schoolchildren, winning awards at competitions - his section took home three of the five trophies the Marine Corps won at the Department of Defense Championships - and putting a warm, fuzzy face on the military's image, not to mention risking his life sniffing out bombs and other explosives.
And his reward?
Rather than allowing a caring owner to keep him and care for him as he slips into canine old age, Robby will be killed.
Unless of course, enough people raise a fuss and try to get the Marines to change their minds.
If you would like to try to get the military to allow handlers to adopt their retired dogs, contact your legislators. The e-mail addresses for Sens. Mike DeWine and George Voinovich are senator_dewine@dewine.senate.gov and senator_voinovich@voinovich.senate.gov. © 2000 Cox Interactive Media |
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Dayton Daily News
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LIFE
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Critter Corner
Robby might be sent to Lackland to help break in new dog handlers A MONTH AGO, I WROTE about Robby the Marine dog with an uncertain fate. Today, the military says Robby is being treated for arthritis and will likely be sent to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, where aging military dogs train new handlers. They maintain Robby, who actually and sadly is only 8, not 11 as I was told earlier, is not in danger of being euthanized. I truly, truly hope and pray that Robby is safe. But there is some disturbing information on the military's record on dogs since World War II. While the military maintains it only ends a dog's life to ease pain or suffering or when a dog becomes ill, one has to wonder whether the same type of illnesses civilian dogs live long lives with--while undergoing medical care--might end a military dog's life. For example, lots of pets undergo treatment for arthritis and successfully live for many years afterward. I spent the last few years of my 14-year-old dog's life taking her to eye specialists for her cataracts. The main purpose of writing about Robby was to encourage the military to allow his handler or another qualified person to adopt him--much as dogs from World War II were adopted after their duties ended. Police departments allow their officers to adopt their dogs when they no longer are used on patrol. Training of both military and police dogs is similar if not the same, according to dog handlers. But the military repeats its stand that military dogs trained for aggression are not adoptable because of the potential for liability. Still, liability is a real concern for any pet owner when an animal does something wrong. Some law firms even seek dog-bite cases. Mary Thurston, an author, anthropologist and a member of a nonprofit group made up of veteran war-dog handlers, is very concerned that the government has euthanized its dogs for 50 years, even though they might have been adoptable by civilian terms. That hasn't always been the case. In World War II, Thurston said, military dogs were considered soldiers, some even getting promotions that outranked their handlers. The book War Dog Heroes by Jeannette Sanderson records that several thousand K-9s used during World War II were returned to civilian life after extensive retraining, which included exposing the dogs to different people in civilian clothing and taunting them with sticks and verbal abuse. The dogs were trained not to attack. Sanderson writes that the dogs who responded with friendliness were given a final physical exam and shipped home at government expense with certificates of faithful service, an honorable discharge and a kit containing the dog's collar, leash and a copy of the War Department's manual, War Dogs. Thurston said 85 percent of those dogs were retrained and adopted. Later, a euthanization policy was written into the 1949 Federal Surplus Property Act after World War II. This reclassified military working dogs as equipment. Thurston said that allowed the government to abandon or euthanize 2,000 dogs at the end of the Vietnam War, rather than shipping them home. A 1997 amendment to the property act was designed to allow federal dog handlers, such as those in the Drug Enforcement Administration to adopt their aging K-9 partners. But Thurston said many military dog handlers have never heard of the amendment. Thurston and other veterans, dog handlers and dog rescue organizations are working to get the military to recognize the amendment applies to military dogs, even dogs trained for aggression. Thurston said even sentry dogs, who are trained to apprehend and restrain someone, release that person on command. "These are not stupid dogs; these are not mentally disturbed dogs," she said. She relates the anecdote of Chips, a highly decorated World War II dog who stormed enemy bunkers, captured soldiers and even tried to bite a visiting Gen. Eisenhower. He was considered a cranky sentry dog and the most ferocious of the bunch. After the war ended, he was retrained, retired and took his Purple Heart, Silver Heart and numerous other commendations and lived out his life as a family pet. "If the military can't use them, what's the difference between euthanizing them or putting them into responsible homes?" Thurston asks. She and other dog handlers propose the military limit a dog's service, possibly to seven years, and then develop a retirement protocol that allows these dogs to be retrained and placed into carefully screened homes to live out their days. She said dog rescue groups would love to help, even if a dog's former handler doesn't want the animal. Thurston said that, while the dogs' physical needs might be cared for well by the military, an aging military dog doesn't need to spend its last days on concrete dog runs when it could be very adoptable in a family home. She suggests those interested in getting more information about military dogs check out the Vietnam Dog Handlers Association Web site at vdhaonline.org or scoutdogpages.com. Frankly, if I had my choice between living next door to a retired military dog, such as Robby, or a dog chained in a back yard and simply left there with no training, interaction with humans or any kind of attention--as far too many are--I would choose Robby. In the end, if all the attention given to Robby by lots of caring people who took the time to send e-mails or make phone calls to inquire about Robby's fate makes the military carefully consider what happens next to this dog, it is time well spent. And maybe someday, if Mary Thurston and others get their way, we won't have to worry about animals being used up and tossed away. © 2000 Cox Interactive Media |
