WebProNews

Tag: service dog

  • Taliban Brags About Seizing Military Dog

    According to recent reports, a British military dog has been captured by Taliban militants, and they are debating whether to use him against his former handlers.

    After seizing the dog named DaGarwal (Pashto for Colonel), on December 23, 2013, the Taliban proceeded to upload a video bragging about their newest captive, along with other items that they had collected. “This dog was named after a colonel,” said one of the men “It had a torch on it and its neck wore a GPS.” Not only were they able to capture the dog, they also made away with three rifles, one pistol, a GPS and a torch.

    The Taliban believed the dog to be owned by the American military, however American troops disputed the claim saying that the dog was actually working for the British SAS troops . A spokesperson for the NATO coalition in Afghanistan confirmed to ABC News that a service dog did, in fact, go missing in December, and has not been located since. “We can confirm that a military working dog went missing following an ISAF mission in December, 2013. It is ISAF policy to defer identification to the appropriate national authorities,” the spokesperson said.

    While the fate of Colonel is unknown, we do know that he is currently being well taken care of, or at least that is what the Taliban is saying. “Right now we are keeping the dog and trying to look after him,” Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban said. “It is not like the local dogs which will eat anything and sleep anywhere. We have to prepare him proper food and make sure he has somewhere to sleep properly,” he explained. “We haven’t decided what to do with it yet. Maybe we will keep it and use it ourselves because it has been trained.”

    Image via YouTube

  • Blind Man and Dog Booted from Flight Causes Outrage

    The rare event of a flight cancellation via evacuation of the plane occurred Wednesday, after a blind man and his service dog were ejected from a US Airways jet.

    Albert Rizzi was instructed that his service dog Doxy had to stay under the seat in front of him. After Doxy allegedly began roaming the aisle a bit, flight attendants ordered Rizzi to control his dog. According to US Airways, Rizzi then became verbally abusive, and was removed from the flight. Other passengers became so outraged that the captain emerged from the cockpit, and told everyone that the flight was cancelled.

    Rizzi and other passengers claim that Doxy barely moved and wasn’t misbehaving. Twitter user Sophie B recounted the events as they’d unfolded:

    After the flight was canceled, all passengers, along with Rizzi and his dog, were driven by bus from Philadelphia to Long Island. Rizzi and Doxy eventually made it home:

    US Airways released this statement on the matter: “On flight 4384 from Philadelphia to Islip, Long Island a customer with a seeing eye dog was asked to keep his dog near his feet when the dog was walking up and down the aisle. The protocol for service animals is to keep them at foot of the passenger. When a flight attendant asked the passenger to keep the dog where it needed to stay for safety reason the passenger got verbally abusive. A decision was made to return to the gate to take the passenger and the dog off the plane. At that point, other customers were unhappy about the situation. The crew did not feel comfortable operating the plane so a decision was made to cancel the flight and U.S. Airways bussed the passengers to Islip NY.”

    Another passenger, Frank Ohlhorst, stated, “When we, the passengers, realized what was going on, we were like, ‘Why is this happening? He’s not a problem. What is going on?’” Rizzi said he was “humbled” by the reactions of the other passengers, who ended up joining him on the bus ride to Long Island.

    Image via YouTube.