Once again, the United States government has deplorably neglected vulnerable servicemembers: our military working dogs.
A blistering report, released by the State Department’s Office of Inspector General last week, found that since 2008 at least 100 American bomb-sniffing dogs have been starved and abused, and at least 10 — possibly more — neglected to death by our ally Jordan.
One American veterinarian, among five sent to Jordan by the State Department in 2016, unequivocally told the US government to shut this program down.
Instead, State sent 66 more dogs to Jordan, where they were ignored, left to languish in filthy kennels under extreme heat. Their Jordanian handlers expressed nothing but contempt, throwing the dogs’ food on the floors — floors with improper drainage, broken and sharp tiles, floors covered in dirt and feces.
These are dogs whose only purpose is to save human lives. It is what they are bred for and trained to do.
Fresh water bowls were nowhere to be found. The dogs have suffered rampant tick bites that go untreated, causing engorgements, disease and death.
Even their nails are left to grow wild.
These warrior dogs are spared no indignity by the Jordanians.
The first to die — according to this report, which only dates back to 2016 — was Zoe, a 2-year-old Belgian Malinois who died of heatstroke. A State Department veterinarian reported that all of the MWD heat-related deaths have been caused by outright negligence — not accident — and that this manner of death is brutal.
Next was a 3-year-old Belgian Malinois named Mencey, who arrived in Jordan healthy. Nine months later, a tick-borne disease led to renal failure, and he was sent back to America, where he was euthanized.
As ugly as this is, here’s something uglier — something neither the OIG report, nor most subsequent news coverage, will admit: Dogs in Jordan, as in much of the Middle East, often are loathed. They are viewed by many as akin to rats, dirty and diseased, never to be touched. Abuse is not just condoned but considered normal.
None of this is a secret. It’s been well documented by news outlets ranging from Al Jazeera to Fox News to the Jordan Times to — as recently as 2017 — The Atlantic.
How could we have sent these dogs to Jordan?
The report offers a rationale. “The Department explained in its 2017 Antiterrorism Assistance Year In Review that ‘[t]he U.S. priority of building sustainable counterterrorism capabilities of our international law enforcement partners not only safeguards the security of critical U.S. allies, it also helps to contain transnational threats before they reach the U.S. homeland or challenge regional or global stability.’”
But when it comes to these dogs, this only makes sense if they are properly fed, vaccinated and cared for (Parvo is a main cause of death among MWDs in Jordan — a disease any dog owner knows is easily prevented by vaccine). They have a high prey drive and need constant stimulation and training. Plus, these dogs and their handlers only benefit from intense bonding. If we know our Middle Eastern allies are going to treat our dogs like trash, why do we continue to sacrifice them?
Three years ago, I reported on the US Army’s careless attitude toward its own military working dogs, which led to at least 200 of them — whose handlers in the military, by law, have the right to adopt first — dumped out to civilians here at home, missing forever, all done with the knowledge of at least three US government workers.
These dogs don’t just sniff out explosives. They often wind up in combat conditions, and more than one handler told me that despite what they are trained and ordered to do, almost every soldier partnered with a military working dog would rather step on that bomb themselves, or take the bullets.
“The few times you safeguard your dog are slim compared to what he does every time you go outside the wire,” a handler named Daniel told me. “That’s your dog. The dog saves you and saves your team. You’re walking behind this dog in known IED hot spots. In a firefight, the dog doesn’t understand.”
Two months into his tour, while clearing 15 houses in a no-name village, Daniel and his dog Oogie came under fire. His first thought? “S–t. My dog’s gonna get shot.” Daniel grabbed Oogie, hustled the dog into a shallow roadside trench, and threw himself on top.
They survived unscathed, and the first thing Daniel did was get Oogie to shade, then hydrate him intravenously before going back out to clear two more towns. Daniel was as protective of Oogie as Oogie was of Daniel and the platoon; long ago, the enemy picked up just how much American troops are devoted to these dogs, which makes the dogs No. 1 targets.
By the way, we also supply American military working dogs to Afghanistan. A footnote in this report — a footnote — states that a US subcontractor called Hill County provided MWDs between 2015 and 2016, but “no data was given to OIG regarding the number of dogs at issue” (love the passive verbiage) nor is there any information as to their welfare.
The US governmental anti-terrorism office responsible told OIG that it doesn’t keep records for the dogs in Afghanistan (something the US Army has claimed, and which my exposé revealed as a lie), “but had unofficially heard that one dog died of natural causes and the others were in good condition.”
Well then. Clearly nothing to see here.
Here, in black and white, the government plainly admits to callous disregard for the health and welfare of dogs who give their lives for our troops, dogs who cannot advocate for themselves.
Nothing was done in 2016, and it looks like nothing will be done now. Of the five recommended steps by OIG, the State Department agreed to four and ignored the most important one: Despite no improvement, no safety or protective protocols in place, we will not stop sending dogs to Jordan.
To painful and certain deaths, and to our nation’s great disgrace.