SAN ANTONIO, Texas (AP) -- A $15 million veterinary hospital for four-legged military personnel opened Tuesday at Lackland Air Force Base, offering a long overdue facility that gives advanced medical treatment for combat-wounded dogs.
Dogs working for all branches of the military and the Transportation Security Administration are trained at the base to find explosive devices, drugs and land mines.
Some 2,500 dogs are working with military units.
Like soldiers and Marines in combat, military dogs suffer from war wounds and routine health issues that need to be treated to ensure they can continue working.
Dogs injured in Iraq or Afghanistan get emergency medical treatment on the battlefield and are flown to Germany for care. If necessary, they'll fly on to San Antonio for more advanced treatment -- much like wounded human personnel.
"We act as the Walter Reed of the veterinary world," said Army Col. Bob Vogelsang, hospital director, referring to the Washington military medical center that treats troops returning severely wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The dogs can usually return to combat areas if they recover at the Military Working Dog Center, he said.
Before the center opened, veterinarians treated and rehabilitated dogs in a cramped building that opened in 1968, when the military trained dogs for work in Vietnam.
The hospital was already overloaded by Sept. 11, 2001, but since then, demand for military working dogs has jumped dramatically. They're so short on dog breeds such as German shepherds, Labrador retrievers and Belgian Malinoises that Lackland officials have begun breeding puppies at the base.
Lackland is training 750 dogs, which is nearly double the number of dogs there before the Sept. 11 attacks, Vogelsang said.
To treat the trainees and injured working dogs, the new hospital has operating rooms, digital radiography, CT scanning equipment, an intensive care unit and rehab rooms with an underwater treadmill and exercise balls, among other features. A behavioral specialist has an office near the lobby.
"This investment made sense ... and somehow, we were able to convince others," said retired Col. Larry Carpenter, who first heard complaints about the poor facilities in 1994 and later helped to launch the project.
Training a military working dog takes about four months. With demand outstripping the number of dogs available, hospital and veterinary workers were trying to keep them healthy and working as long as possible, Vogelsang said.
Working dogs usually enter training at 11/2- to 3-years-old, and most can work until they're about 10, he said.
Then, the military tries to adopt them out and "station them at Fort Living Room," Vogelsang said.
By: John Stewarthttp://www.mississauganews.com/article/19746October 8, 2008 03:15 PM - In the end, Gabriela Nowakowska had to put the interests of her dog Rambo ahead of her own.
"It was very difficult losing my dog," the 21-year-old Mississaugan said, referring to the fact that Rambo was picked up last Christmas Day and has been held in a cage at the Mississauga animal control centre ever since. "But now, Rambo is going to have a life and he's going to be free."
The dog, who has been held at the City's animal control centre on Central Pkwy. for the past nine months, is headed for a farm in Nova Scotia run by Ador-A-Bull Dog Rescue after a deal was struck in a Mississauga courtroom early this afternoon.
Nowakowska pleaded guilty to possessing an illegal dog and received a suspended sentence.
Rambo, who was examined by a veterinarian yesterday and found fit, will be transferred by the rescue group to the East Coast, where he will be trained with a number of other dogs and then could be adopted to a loving home.
"As long as the dog goes free, that's what I want," Nowakowksa told The News a few minutes after the ruling. "The only thing that's important to me is that he's still alive."
Justice of the Peace Karen Jensen commended Nowakowska, who works two minimum-wage part-time jobs as a waitress and at a deli counter, for her efforts on behalf of Rambo. "You've suffered the loss of your dog but you have made some gains ... for which you are to be commended."
Those gains include the change in City policy that now permits dogs like Rambo accused of being pit bulls to be sent to another province rather than automatically being put down.
The City's application to execute Rambo will be withdrawn Oct. 20 if all goes well.
"By then, he should be in a whole new province and everyone's happy," the Justice of the Peace said.
Nowakowska's lawyer, Anik Morrow, told the court that as time passed his client realized that nothing could be gained by going forward. "Her concern is ultimately the dog," she said.
Rambo is now much bigger and it would be difficult for his owner to care properly for him in her apartment, the lawyer said.
"We are now seeing the impact of the long-term incarceration of the dog," Morrow said, noting the animal has begun to groom himself frequently, which is often a sign of stress.
The City agreed to waive the pound fees for Rambo, who has been kept for the longest-time ever at the shelter. Those fees were estimated at $3,000.
Elaine Buckstein, the City's director of bylaw enforcement, commented that, "whether you agree with it or not, we have to enforce the law. The shelter staff did an excellent job of housing Rambo for eight months."
Ward 6 Councillor Carolyn Parrish, who championed Rambo's cause, was "delighted" at the outcome.
"We've learned from this that this law is very difficult to enforce and it breaks people's hearts," the councillor said. "Saying that something looks like something else is a very poor basis for a law."
Nowakowska was convicted of owning a dog that was "substantially similar" to breeds of dogs generally known as pit bulls.
jstewart@mississauga.net
http://www.mississauga.com/article/10519Three years ago Jazmine Humble, then aged five, bent down to play with a neighbour's dog and was so badly bitten that her lip was almost torn in half and she required surgery.
But she didn't blame the dog that bit her, which was subsequently put down. In fact, the next day, the animal lover asked her mother Natalie if she would take her to a relative's farm so that she could play with the dogs there.Now, despite her own personal experience, Jazmine has gone to bat for a dog who's in trouble — the pit bull named Rambo who could be euthanized if his owner doesn't win a court case to free him. Jazmine has started a petition to save the dog.
The Grade 3 student at Cooksville Creek Public School read about Rambo in The Mississauga News. Jazmine recognized the dog's owner, Gabriela Nowakowska, as someone who works at the deli counter at Starsky Foods on Dundas St. E., where the family shops.
That's when Jazmine, "started asking a lot of questions," says her mother. "She wanted to know about the legislation. She was trying to understand why this was happening and why the dog was taken away from Gabriela," says Humble. "She was angry and confused."
Nowakowska's dog escaped from the backyard of a house on Christmas Day and was seized by the City's animal control department.
When she identified the dog as a pit bull cross, the City told her it was a prohibited animal under amendments to the Dog Liability Act made in 2005. Rambo was not neutered or muzzled as required by law.
The owner is in the process of raising funds to hire a lawyer to fight the case in court. In the meantime, the dog spends its days in a cage at the City's animal control centre.
"Jazmine was ready to go down to the pound to picket and she has already asked to be taken out of school when they go to court," says Humble.In an interview, Jazmine did not want to elaborate much on the dog bite she suffered. "The dog bit me across the lip," she said. " I was, like, surprised."
It was an older Cocker Spaniel that injured her."She required major surgery but she's fully recovered now," says her mother. "There's just a scar. At the time she told me, 'the dog is just stupid, Mom.'"
The family, which lives in Mississauga Valley, has its own dog, a half-schnauzer, half-fox terrier cross named Ronin.Jazmine got her mother and people at her mother's workplace to sign her "Free Rambo" petition and presented the 40 signatures to Nowakowksa at work.
She took up the petition, "because I think it's wrong, what they're doing to Gabriela and Rambo. I think it's murder. We're going to go to court and help her."
jstewart@mississauga.net
