When four-year-old Gina, a 21st Security Forces Squadron military working dog, returned from her five-month tour in the Middle East, she wasn’t the same.
She was antisocial. Every sound, even the radio, bothered her. She was jumpy. And, she showed no interest in her work, which was to detect drugs and bombs.
Before she deployed to the war, Gina had been a military working dog for two years. She had trained at the Department of Defense Military Working Dog School at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas and then was assigned to Peterson Air Force Base. Other than the gun fire training with her handler, Gina had never been exposed to the loud booms of improvised explosive devices.
more…