![]() ![]() The pilot kicked off our six-hour flight by announcing Dyngo’s military status, inspiring applause from the whole cabin. Later, at the airport, with the help of Southwest employees, we swept through the airport security and boarded the plane. On my thighs were scratches where his teeth had hit my legs, breaking the skin through my jeans. Over the course of the morning, Dyngo’s rough play left me with a deep red graze alongside my left breast. There in the middle of the bed was Dyngo, panting over a pile of massacred pillows. When I emerged from the bathroom, it was like stepping into the aftermath of a henhouse massacre. Thinking he was occupied, I went to shower. Inside the hotel room, I gave him one of the toys the handlers had packed for us-a rubber chew toy shaped like a spiky Lincoln log. He obeyed my “Out!” command, but it wasn’t long before he was attacking the next piece of furniture. Just minutes after I sat down with my coffee on the hotel patio’s plump furniture, Dyngo began to pull at the seat cushions, wresting them to the ground, his large head thrashing in all directions. As I drifted off to sleep, I felt his body twitch and smiled: Dyngo is a dog who dreams.īut the next morning, the calm, relaxed dog became amped up and destructive. When I got under the covers, he stretched across the blanket, his weight heavy and comforting against my side. That first night, Dyngo sat on my hotel bed in an expectant Sphinx posture, waiting for me. It included a trip to the notary to sign a covenant-not-to-sue (the legal contract in which I accepted responsibility for this combat-ready dog for all eternity), a veterinarian visit for the sign-off on Dyngo’s air travel and tearful goodbyes with the kennel’s handlers. Just 72 hours earlier, I had traveled across the country to retrieve Dyngo from Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix, so he could live out his remaining years with me in civilian retirement. This dog had saved thousands of lives.Īnd now this dog was in my apartment in Washington, D.C. In 2011, he’d performed bomb-sniffing heroics that earned one of his handlers a Bronze Star. He’d served three tours in Afghanistan where he’d weathered grenade blasts and firefights. Dyngo, a 10-year-old Belgian Malinois, had been trained to propel his 87-pound body weight toward insurgents, locking his jaws around them. But he wasn’t playing-he was freaking out. His eyes were locked on me, desperate for the toy I was holding. ![]() In front of me was a large dog, snapping his jaws so hard that his teeth gave a loud clack with each bark. The lamps in the living room glowed against the black spring night. It was late-an indistinguishable, bleary-eyed hour. ![]()
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