Saving Ratchet

Update: October 21, 2008:

Ratchet arrived in the US today, decked out in a stars n’ stripes bandana!

Times Online

Update: October 20, 2008:

One lucky Iraqi dog is flying to a new home in the US after winning a battle against army regulations!

The animal rescue group Operation Baghdad Pups flew into Baghdad on the weekend and picked up Ratchet after the army relented. On Sunday, a private security firm collected Ratchet from the small base, put him into a pet carrier and transported him to the airport on Baghdad’s western outskirts. Baghdad Pups coordinator Terri Crisp then took custody and boarded him on the charter flight that took off Sunday night for Kuwait. He’s due in Minnesota later this week.

It was the third try by Operation Baghdad Pups to get Ratchet out of the country on behalf of Sgt. Gwen Beberg, who says she couldn’t have made it through her 13-month deployment without the affectionate mutt.

Beberg has been transferred to another military base to prepare for her departure from Iraq next month.

Seattle Times

Original story:

Young Ratchet was in danger of facing the death-penalty from U.S. Army officials.

Over 65,000 people signed an online petition urging the Army to let an Iraqi puppy come home with a Minnesota soldier, who feared that “Ratchet” could be killed if left behind.

“I just want my puppy home,” Sgt. Gwen Beberg of Minneapolis wrote to her mother in an e-mail on Sunday from Iraq, soon after she was separated from the dog following a transfer. “I miss my dog horribly.” Beberg, 28, is scheduled to return to the U.S. next month. Beberg, a decorated soldier, has been held by the military more than 15 months past her original commitment due to the stop-loss policy. During her tour in Iraq, she sent regular dispatches to her home in Minneapolis charting the puppy’s process, with hundreds of fans tuning in on Facebook to follow Ratchet’s life.

Ratchet’s defenders ratcheted up their efforts to save him. On Monday, the program coordinator for Operation Baghdad Pups, which is run by Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals International, left for a trip to the Middle East to try to get the puppy to the U.S. And last week, Beberg’s congressman, Democrat Keith Ellison, wrote to the Army urging it to review the case. Operation Baghdad Pups, which has the motto ‘No buddy gets left behind’, is pleading with the U.S. Army to allow Ratchet to fly out of the country – amid fears the dog will die if left behind.

Beberg and another soldier rescued the puppy from a burning pile of trash back in May. Defense Department rules prohibit soldiers in the U.S. Central Command, which includes Iraq, from adopting pets, but has made exceptions. Operation Baghdad Pups says it has gotten 50 dogs and six cats transferred to the U.S. in the last eight months.

But the U.S. military takes a strict line with soldiers befriending animals, and confiscated Ratchet as Sgt. Beberg prepared to fly home from Baghdad Airport. Bringing wartime pets back home has always been a haphazard affair. It’s also against U.S. military rules.

Sgt. Beberg’s mother Patricia said: ‘This year has been extremely difficult on my daughter and her family. It has been a year of disappointments, loneliness, and fear because of all the sacrifices the army has required of Gwen.

Ratchet was the savior of her sanity. Now they have cruelly ripped Ratchet away from her and sentenced him to death. I don’t know how my daughter will cope. Ratchet has been her lifeline.”

Sgt. Beberg is also under military investigation for befriending the dog that saved her life.

A close friend of Sgt Beberg said: “It hasn’t been easy for her – and the puppy she saved has been one of the few things that has kept her going. She’s shared pictures of him as he grew from a frightened ball of fur to an adorable young dog.”

Ratchet served America by protecting his troops as a loud alarm system for nighttime movements and by providing urgently needed morale to lonely troops (not just me!). If a citizen of, let’s say Mexico for example, enlists in the U.S. Army and serves honorably, he or she gets fasttracked for naturalization as a U.S. citizen. Several people here from multiple nations have already taken advantage of this policy and become American citizens. Well, Ratchet didn’t enlist, but he served honorably, and I think that should entitle him to a chance to continue that service in the States.

My plan for Ratchet is simple: take him home, train him as a service dog, and love him until his last day. Ratchet would be a valuable asset for troops back home. Who better to tell your troubles to than a dog who has been there, who won’t judge you, and who will love you unconditionally no matter what you had to do to survive? Even Army mental health workers in Iraq are incorporating dogs into their therapies, with great success! Ratchet is first-line defense against PTSD and suicide. He has made me think twice about some seriously self-damaging actions several times. He really has helped me to survive.

“Soldiers can face immediate court-marshal for befriending animals and some even see their animals brutally murdered by a direct gunshot to the head from commanding officers who will not bend the rules.”

“It was so close… Ratchet was on his way to the airport. And now he might be killed, just because some power-hungry officers decided to flex their muscles and punish an innocent animal because Gwen dared to care about him.”

One soldier wrote to Baghdad Pups: ‘I have sacrificed a lot to serve my country. All that I ask in return is to be allowed to bring home the incredible dog that wandered into my life here in Iraq and prevented me from becoming terribly callous towards life.’

Friends have launched a campaign to get American senators to intervene.

Full story at the Chicago Tribune.

In Gwen Beberg’s own words.

Update on Facebook

More about Operation Baghdad Pups.

From Baghdad with Love.

Operation Baghdad Pups

He hesitated just a bit as he rounded a corner inside Dulles International Airport and spotted the flock of television cameras and cooing journalists awaiting him. Then, with posture erect like a soldier’s, he trotted straight toward the action — he was used to bomb blasts and gunfire, after all, so this was nothing.

Post-escape from Baghdad and fresh off a 13-hour flight from Kuwait, Charlie the border collie mix actually seemed to be smiling for the crowd.

Five months after the SPCA International received a plea from American soldiers hoping to transfer their beloved Iraqi stray to U.S. terrain, the 9-month-old mutt became the first beneficiary of the animal advocacy organization’s effort to rescue pets from the war zones where they provide solace to service members. Charlie eventually will live in Phoenix with one of his caretaker soldiers.

It being Valentine’s Day, the SPCA dished out the emotional hyperbole. Charlie’s bond with his caretakers, the organization said, “is the ultimate love story between a man and his dog.”

Washington Post (sign-in may be required)

US Soldiers that have befriended stray cats and dogs while on duty in the Middle East will start to be able to bring those “adopted” animals home.

The SPCA International program is called “Operation Baghdad Pups” and the program will assist in arranging the transportation of the animals who have been brought into the unit as mascots and companion animals to the brave men and women. This is a carefully planned mission says Terri Crisp, Animal Resource and Rescue Consultant, SPCA for Operation Baghdad Pups. Baghdad Pups will be able to bring home approximately 35 to 50 dogs each year.

However there are strict limits set in place. An example is that no dog would be going to a US home that have young children. The reason behind the limits is to reduce the chance of impulse adoption by US Soldiers who are just adopting the dog prior to leaving just to get the animal out of the Middle East. This could potentially overload local shelters here in the US, which is already overloaded. So, SPCA International actually allows dogs that have been with the unit or in the care of the unit for at least 2 months and animal is shipped out 2 months ahead of the Soldier.

In Middle East countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, animals like dogs and cats are not treated as pets, they are not socialized with humans and usually live in packs or colonies. Most dog packs are around 35 dogs per pack and survival is the number one concern for the dogs.

Read more about The Unclean Children of God.

In Iraq and the Middle East, the dogs and cats befriended by US Soldiers were adopted into the unit as pups and kittens. If left on their own, survival probably would be minimal and that is after probably neglect, abuse and starvation.

There is one hurdle that SPCA International is working around, the Government Order 1-A or (GO-1A) prohibits the keeping of animals. This order however has not dampened the activities of Baghdad Pups. This is not an attempt to fix the stray population in these countries but a way to help get these morale boosters here to the states so they can continue to be a part of these soldiers’ lives.

Costs are around 4,000 dollars per animal and that is dependent on the animal’s size and the US destination. The animals that will be coming back ahead of the US Military personnel will be fostered at a special dog camp. The dogs may also need house breaking and other adjustment training to living in a home.

The SPCA International will also be helping cover the costs of animals that belong to active military personnel when they are transferred. Also foster homes are being set for personnel who can not care for their animals for an extended period.

Best Friends article

Operation Baghdad Pups – SPCA International

A Soldier’s Gift

Sweet memories for a family whose son can never return.

The family of Peter Neesley had one wish to fulfill after the Army sergeant died in Baghdad on Christmas Day.

They yearned to retrieve two stray dogs that he had taken in, and cared for. He was attached to them, and expressed in e-mails and phone calls how he wanted to bring them home to Michigan.

For weeks, the family has fought to have at least that part of Peter’s life given back to them.

On Friday afternoon, their wish came true.

As Mama, a black Labrador mix, and Boris, her white-and-brown spotted puppy, hopped out of a minivan, the family ran and knelt in the wet streets to greet them.

Peter Neesley’s sister, Carey, cried.

“It’s been such a long, complicated struggle and to see them finally come home is just amazing,” she said.

Neesley said things hadn’t been normal since the family learned that her 28-year-old brother had died in his sleep.

The dogs were picked up in Baghdad this week by Rich Crook, a rapid response manager for the Utah-based Best Friends Animal Society, which helped arrange the animals’ transport after learning about them from media reports. Gryphon Holdings LLC, an American-owned airline with service to Iraq, agreed to fly the dogs from Baghdad to Kuwait City.

While Neesley’s fellow soldiers cared for Mama and Boris, a veterinarian with the Iraqi Society for Animals vaccinated the dogs and arranged for the health certificates allowing them to travel to the United States. Crook and the dogs arrived in Washington D.C. on Thursday and drove to the Grosse Pointe Farms home of Neesley’s mother, capping a four-week transfer that involved elected officials.

Much of the family, including an aunt of Peter’s who flew in from New Jersey, gathered at the home. A banner welcoming Mama and Boris hung outside of the brick house with red, white and blue balloons tied to a banister.

“There were times when we would have a roadblock and then all of a sudden it would open up, so we knew we were on the right track,” Crook said.

Carey’s son, Patrick, looked at Peter as a father figure and was excited about having the dogs home. Later in the afternoon, one of his best friends called to see if he could come over and play with Patrick and the dogs.

“Patrick, when we started this a few weeks ago, said he just wanted to love them and hold them and take care of them and all of that,” said Peter’s aunt, Julie Dean. “It’s going to be tremendous comfort for the family.”

Carey says the family doesn’t have any major plans for the new pets.

“We’re just going to love them, work on housebreaking, and that kind of stuff,” she said. She’s still waiting for it all to sink in.

Sato’s Luck

Alen Nelson, a trucker from Denver, had been incredibly upset over his missing dog, Sato.

This two-year-old Shiba Inu would keep Nelson company on his long drives across the country since Sato was eight-weeks-old.

But on January 2, Sato went missing when he slipped out of his collar when Nelson pulled into a rest stop.

Nelson said that Sato may have been confused by the new truck that they were riding in. Nelson searched among all of the trucks and cars for his friend, but Sato could not be found.

Nelson was afraid of losing his job, so he knew he had to give up searching for Sato and continue on with his delivery to Atlanta.
But animal lovers and volunteers continued to search in the area for Sato while Nelson made his delivery.

Finally, after days of searching for the missing Shiba Inu, volunteers found the dog and lured him with food. They were able to slip a leash over his head and put him into one of the volunteer’s pick up truck.

Nelson was notified that Sato was found, and he headed over to the rest stop to pick up one of the most important packages in his life — his dog.

When the two were reunited, Nelson gave his beloved dog a big hug, and Sato answered back by whimpering for his owner.

One volunteer told Nelson, “This is all we wanted, just to get him back to you.”

The Journal News

Beautiful Joe and Sirius

My name is Beautiful Joe, and I am a brown dog of medium size. I am not called Beautiful Joe because I am a beauty. Mr. Morris, the clergyman, in whose family I have lived for the last twelve years, says that he thinks I must be called Beautiful Joe for the same reason that his grandfather, down South, called a very ugly colored slave-lad Cupid, and his mother Venus.

I do not know what he means by that, but when he says it, people always look at me and smile.

In 1892, Halifax novelist Margaret Marshall Saunders travelled to the small lakeside town of Meaford, Ontario to visit her brother and his fiancée, Louise Moore.

The Moores had adopted a mistreated dog. Louise’s father had found him malnourished and bleeding, with his ears and tail chopped off, and although he looked pathetic, the Moores named him Beautiful Joe.

On her return to Halifax, Saunders heard of a contest sponsored by the American Humane Education Society. It challenged entrants to write a novel based on the 1877 bestseller Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell, in which a horse recounts tales of cruelty and kindness to inspire humane treatment of horses.

Saunders wrote Joe’s story. In her manuscript, she renamed the adoptive family Morris and, following contest rules, set the tale in the United States – in the fictional town of Fairport, Me. She won.

The wonderfully successful book, entitled “Black Beauty,” came like a living voice out of the animal kingdom. But it spake for the horse, and made other books necessary; it led the way. After the ready welcome that it received, and the good it has accomplished and is doing, it follows naturally that some one should be inspired to write a book to interpret the life of a dog to the humane feeling of the world. Such a story we have in “Beautiful Joe.”

The story speaks not for the dog alone, but for the whole animal kingdom. Through it we enter the animal world, and are made to see as animals see, and to feel as animals feel.

~~ From the introduction to the Phoenix Edition

Beautiful Joe: An Autobiography appeared in 1894. By 1900, its sales stood just shy of 1 million. By 1939, it had sold 7 million copies in more than 10 languages. Around 1914, Saunders settled to Toronto and went on to write more than two dozen books. She died in 1947, at 85.

The book was out of print but, over the years, the dog’s grave had been located and a cairn built. A municipal Beautiful Joe Park had also been founded on the property once owned by the Moores.

In 1994 – the novel’s centenary – the Beautiful Joe Heritage Society was formed, and it got the book republished. The society held dog-oriented parades and put up statues in the park. One was a sculpture of Beautiful Joe, another a police K-9 memorial.

In 2002, the society also built a memorial to Sirius, the one police dog killed in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. His partner, New York Port Authority officer David Lim, attended the unveiling with his superior officer.

Attached to the statue is an iron cross, forged from a fallen World Trade Center beam.

In the fall of 2007, vandals took a chisel to the memorial, in an attempt to remove the cross. They failed.

And, like Beautiful Joe, the statue has since been lovingly restored.

.

K-9 Sirius, Badge #17 was a yellow Labrador Retriever, born in January 1997. He became an Explosive Detection Dog upon graduation from the Port Newark K-9 Center on July 15, 2000.

Sirius and his handler, Police Officer David Lim, Badge #1219, were assigned to the World Trade Center. Their duties there included searching vehicles entering the WTC Complex,
clearing unattended bags and sweeping areas for V.I.P. safety.

Toronto Star

Beautiful Joe Heritage Society

Read Beautiful Joe online

Meaford Museum

The Unclean Children of God

There is not an animal that lives on the Earth, nor a being that flies on its wings, but forms part of communities like you. Nothing have We omitted from the book, and they all shall be gathered to their Lord in the end. ~~ Al-Qur’an 6:38

A conservative Iranian cleric has denounced the “moral depravity” of owning a dog, and called for the arrest of all dogs and their owners.

Dogs are considered unclean in Islamic law and the spread of dog ownership in Westernised secular circles in Iran is frowned upon by the religious establishment.

“I demand the judiciary arrest all dogs with long, medium or short legs – together with their long-legged owners,” Hojatolislam Hassani is quoted as saying in the reformist Etemad newspaper. “In our country there is freedom of speech, but not freedom for corruption,” he said.

Religious traditions hold that if a dog – or woman – passes in front of you as you prepare to pray, it pollutes your purity and negates your prayer. Dogs are permissible as watchdogs or for other utilitarian purposes but not simply for companionship.

Tehran journalist Mafiseh Kouhnavand told the BBC that the subject of dog ownership had been brought up many times before.

Hardline judiciary agents and police occasionally clamp down on the practice, fining owners and confiscating their pets from streets and parks. In June, police banned the sale of dogs and penalised anyone walking a dog in public. The practice is seen by conservatives as a corrupting influence of decadent Western culture. But despite the clampdowns, dog ownership has been on the rise, especially among rich Iranians in the north of Tehran.

Hojatolislam Hassani appears to be widening the scope of his anti-canine campaign. Last year, he publicly thanked police for their policy of exclusively confiscating short-legged dogs in Urumiyeh.

Source: BBC

Image: The fifth century BC seal shows a Persian noblewoman playing a harp for her Maltese dog. The Phoenicians brought this dog from the island of Malta to Asia Minor where it became very popular with wealthy Persians.

Dogs in Islam