It is almost assured that this young lady will suffer the rest of her life and that a duty bound government will gouge her financially and health wise at every turn in the road.
It would be interesting to be able to project her station in life, five years down the road.
There's a good reason for the law mentioned in the article...
adopting a military war dog was prohibited by law until the dog reached retirement age because of the $18,000 training expense.
Let the woman adopt the dog, yes -- but WAIT until he's saved other lives first, and is ready for retirement.
I help train seeing eye dogs. We keep the dogs from puppyhood until they're about a year and a half old -- then we have to give them up. Forever.
The Seeing Eye institute's rules against future contact with the dog are so strict, in fact, that puppy-raisers are not permitted to even know the name or address of the eventual recipient of the dog. Thank you letters from those recipients are channeled through the institute, and thoroughly censored to make sure we never find out where the dog is!
So we know ahead of time that even though we get very attached to the dog, we must be prepared to give it up for the good of others.
I'm sure military dog handlers are advised that they must adopt this attitude too -- no matter what. I admire this young woman for her service, but this is out of line.
Sorry, Wristpin, I mentioned your name in post 77 and forgot to ping you.