Military Working Dog With PTSD

Military Dog - By Staff Writer on Thursday, March 4, 2010 - 13:35

The WSJ takes a look at what happens when a Military dog just cant take the heat.  Gunner a bomb sniffing dog made it to Afghanistan but just could not tolerate the sights and sounds of Afghanistan.

He graduated from bomb-dog school in Virginia. He could hunt and tolerate gunfire. He could sniff out explosives, including the homemade ammonium-nitrate fertilizer bombs that inflict most allied casualties in Afghanistan. But he was skittish even before he arrived in the combat zone in October and was posted to a front-line battalion. He reached a crisis soon afterwards.

He reacted so nervously to the rattle of gunfire and deep boom of artillery commonplace around military outposts that he never even got a chance to test his mettle on a real patrol. His handlers aren't sure what pushed Gunner over the edge. His official record is damning, however: Gunner, it reads, "is not mission capable and is a liability if he is to leave the wire."

His handler Cpl. McCoy tries to cox him out of his shell but the veterinarians think its likely Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Full Article: (WSJ.com)