In this blog we like to celebrate working dogs — those who sniff out drugs, explosives or bodies, guard, guide or help people, draw loads, and retrieve objects. But some of those working dogs are taken into war.
Landmine Clearing Efforts of the UN Mine Action Centre
It’s amazing any of them cope with the experience, but some develop stress disorders, like Gunner:
Out of the 58 bomb-sniffing dogs the [US] Marines have in Afghanistan, only one — a brown-eyed, floppy-eared yellow Lab named Gunner — is suffering from such severe canine post-traumatic stress disorder that he had to sit out the ongoing offensive …
[Gunner] reacted so nervously to the rattle of gunfire and deep boom of artillery commonplace around military outposts that he never even got a chance to test his mettle on a real patrol. …
Gunner was sent to the main kennel at Camp Leatherneck, a rear base. There, bomb dogs recuperate from illness or injury …
For weeks after he arrived at Camp Leatherneck, Gunner refused to leave the kennel compound. Even now almost any sound sends him into a panic.
[Via : Even His Red Squeak Toy Can't Get First Sgt. Gunner, USMC, to Fight - WSJ.com.]
It’s very sobering, and I feel sorry for both Gunner and all other dogs taken into danger.
Photo by United Nations: Landmine Clearing Efforts of the UN Mine Action Centre.
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