One of our General Orders is not to feed or make pets of local animals, including dogs and cats. Some of them are feral, and most are vectors, so we just don’t want them around.
I’ve seen cats around the FOBs, but they are always very wary. I suppose they are tolerated, in order to keep rats and mice down. At least, I don’t see an active trapping effort.
I’ve seen a couple of stray dogs here and there. Lately, one has been hanging around our headquarters. Our unit veterinarian came in the other day, all worked up, because she had seen soldiers feeding the dog a cookie from the chow hall. She was afraid it would poison the dog.
Actually, she was worried about the soldiers. The Middle East and Iraq have incidents of rabies. Some soldiers in Afghanistan, about 20 of them, were recently bitten by a rabid dog. Treating so many consumed quite a bit of our rabies vaccination stockpile.
Not long ago, when she found out that some other dog on our FOB was being kept as a pet, she leapt into action. I’m not sure whether it bit someone or not, but once she got wind of it, she commandeered the mutt (KBR has a dogcatcher), whacked it, cut off its head (standard rabies protocol) and send the head to Germany for testing. No word whether the head has turned up in anyone’s bed.
So, she now has her sights set on the headquarters pooch. After listening to her, I walked outside and looked at the dog for a little while, from the distance of about 50 feet. The dog saw me looking at it, got up, put its head down and walked toward me, wagging its tail. Unfortunately, a friendly, nice looking dog, though pretty dirty and matted. I walked away from the dog, even though what I wanted to do was pet it. I hope it wanders off, because otherwise its days are numbered, I'm afraid.
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