www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2005/jan/06/010610310.html

Relief food drive begins for starving Iraqi police dogs

By KEN RITTER
ASSOCIATED PRESS

LAS VEGAS (AP) - An Army Reserve officer's plea to feed starving Iraqi police dogs at a Baghdad training center spurred an outpouring of aid that friends back home were struggling Thursday to handle.

Offers of help poured in from New Hampshire, Florida, Texas, Ohio and New York after Army Reserve Capt. Gabriella Cook begged for help, according to Cook's friend Diana Paivanas in Las Vegas.

A sports gambling handicapper ponied up $5,000, and the Las Vegas Valley Humane Society was trying to find a way to ship pallets of dry dog food to Iraq to feed the 12 undernourished German shepherds and one black Labrador retriever at the Iraqi Police Academy.

"The dogs are starving and urgently need dry dog food," Cook wrote in an e-mail that said the Iraqi Interior Ministry's only bomb-sniffing police dogs were eating table scraps and garbage.

"Some of them have already died," Cook said. "Half of them are sick. We have no way of buying any actual dog food here."

Cook, a Las Vegas police officer, is commander of the Las Vegas-based 313th Military Police Detachment. The unit arrived in Baghdad on Dec. 13 to train Iraqi police, including officers with bomb-sniffing dogs.

A Henderson veterinarian said his telephone started ringing with offers of help after he was first quoted by the Las Vegas Review-Journal about Cook's request to "please send all the dog food you can."

"If one dog smells one bomb and saves a platoon's life, it's worth it," Terry Muratore told The Associated Press. Muratore treats several pet cats and dogs that Cook has at home in Las Vegas.

Paivanas said Thursday that she heard twice by e-mail from Cook, who was excited by the stateside response.

"That is so wonderful," Cook wrote in an e-mail thanking Paivanas. "PS the Iraqi bomb dogs helped us Americans to sniff out a building."

Judith Ruiz, president of the nonprofit Humane Society in southern Nevada, accepted a $5,000 check from Las Vegas sports handicapper Wayne Allen Root, and said she was trying to find a way to ship several hundred pounds of dog food pledged by pet stores.

The southern Nevada effort appeared to be unique, said Stephanie Shain, spokeswoman for the Humane Society of the United States in Washington. She said the national organization was contacting officials on Capitol Hill about Cook's account.

An aide to Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said the senator was asking the Army about the health of the U.S. military's working dogs in Iraq. Ensign also is a veterinarian.

"The concern is that these animals play a vital role in the security operations out there by sniffing for weapons that could take lives," Ensign aide Jack Finn said. "They have to be taken care of."

In Baghdad, military spokesman Staff Sgt. Don Dees said the care and feeding of Iraqi police dogs was separate from U.S. military working dogs, which he said were well-supplied.

"Each dog handler deploys with their dog and 180 days of rations," Dees said of U.S. canine teams. "The MPs tell me sometimes the dogs eat better than the handlers."

Dees said U.S. military officials were checking Cook's report.

Stephan Bognar, a field agent with WildAid, a San Francisco-based animal welfare group, said he was not surprised by the report that dogs were going hungry in Baghdad.

"Dogs were a problem, even at the zoo," said Bognar, who helped rebuild the Baghdad Zoo after coalition forces entered the city in 2003. The facility lost 600 animals to theft, escape or death, Bognar said.

"There were pack dogs," he recalled. "Some became violent because they were starving."

Bognar said Iraqi police dog handlers could seek veterinary care at the zoo, if needed.

I have a copy of the article that I am going to show at my schutzhund club to see if we can get some folks to donate cash.

Maybe this should be posted on the Brothers of the Shield Section to see if there are any K9 handlers there that might donate some cash.

Let them eat insurgents.

Quoted: Let them eat insurgents.

yeppppppppppppp

"Some of them have already died," Cook said. "Half of them are sick. We have no way of buying any actual dog food here."

There is something wrong with a country without dog food for sale..............

Quoted: Let them eat insurgents.

Insurgents are unfit for dogs to eat.

Quoted: "Some of them have already died," Cook said. "Half of them are sick. We have no way of buying any actual dog food here." There is something wrong with a country without dog food for sale..............

WTF do the people eat there??

Quoted: "Some of them have already died," Cook said. "Half of them are sick. We have no way of buying any actual dog food here." There is something wrong with a country without dog food for sale..............

Do a bit of Googling and you'll find that Muslims don't really like dogs, they are considered "unclean".

Quoted: Quoted: "Some of them have already died," Cook said. "Half of them are sick. We have no way of buying any actual dog food here." There is something wrong with a country without dog food for sale.............. Do a bit of Googling and you'll find that Muslims don't really like dogs, they are considered "unclean".

Reeeaaaallllly....????  Maybe that could come in usefull later.....  Yes, food!

Quoted: Quoted: Let them eat insurgents. yeppppppppppppp

Are you trying to get PETA mad at you?

I would never feed any dog like that.  That is just too cruel to the dog.  We aught to ban you two to Full-Auto.com for even suggesting such a thing.
Feed them to the pigs!