New hospital for military dogs opened - Military News | News From Afghanistan, Iraq And Around The World - Military Times

New hospital for military dogs opened

SAN ANTONIO — A new $15 million veterinary hospital, complete with operating rooms and intensive care, officially opened here Tuesday, offering an advanced facility to treat military dogs that find bombs and aid patrols on the warfront.

Dogs working for all branches of the military and the Transportation Safety Administration are trained at Lackland Air Force Base to find explosive devices, drugs and land mines. Some 2,500 are currently working with military units.

Like soldiers and Marines on the battlefront, military dogs suffer 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 for care to Germany. 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. “If they can make it back here, they can usually go back to the fight” after treatment.

Before the new hospital, veterinarians were treating and rehabilitating dogs in a cramped 40-year-old building that opened in 1968, when the military was training dogs for work in Vietnam.

The hospital was already overstuffed by Sept. 11, 2001, but since then, demand for military working dogs has jumped dramatically. They’re so short on the German shepherds, Labrador retrievers and Belgian malinoises that typically make working dogs, Lackland officials have begun breeding puppies at the base.

Lackland has nearly double the number of dogs in training, about 750, as it did before the Sept. 11 attacks, Vogelsang said.

To treat the trainees and injured working dogs, the new hospital includes operating rooms, digital radiography, CT scanning equipment, an intensive care unit and rehab rooms with an underwater treadmill and exercise balls. A row of kennels are marked “Recovery 1,” “Recovery 2” and so on, while 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 get the project launched.

Training a military working dog takes about four months. With demand outstripping the number of dogs available, the hospital and veterinary workers are trying to keep them healthy and working as long as possible, Vogelsang said.

Working dogs usually enter training at 1½- to 3-years-old, and most can work until they’re about 10, he said. Then, the military tries to adopt them out, “station them at Fort Living Room,” he said.