{"id":11200,"date":"2021-05-31T16:54:14","date_gmt":"2021-05-31T16:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/?p=11200"},"modified":"2021-05-31T17:23:52","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T17:23:52","slug":"first-class-retirements-for-working-dogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/spring-summer-2021\/spring-summer-2021-features\/first-class-retirements-for-working-dogs\/","title":{"rendered":"First Class Retirements for Working Dogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

R<\/span>etirement for you might mean choosing between playing golf and tennis, travel, following a passion, or, perhaps, a second career. However, for working dogs whose careers may have been a military war or police dogs, retirement is not a simple choice.<\/p>\n

“Working dogs are an integral part of the efforts American law enforcement, military, and supporting contractors undertake at home and abroad,” Kirsten Mauer, president of Mission K9 Rescue,<\/a> said. “Sadly, however, many of these dogs end up left at kennels to suffer alone after their usefulness as high-performing working dogs has run its course. Saving as many working dogs as possible helps these heroes have comfortable, peaceful, and loving homes in which to spend the remainder of their lives.”<\/p>\n

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Dogs who have given service to the United States. Photo: Mission K9 Rescue<\/p><\/div>\n

What does happen to these dogs that have given their all in service to people?<\/p>\n

Mission K9 Rescue is one animal welfare group dedicated solely to rescuing, reuniting, rehoming, repairing, and rehabilitating American working dogs.<\/p>\n

Since 2013, the group has provided a wide array of services to working dogs to offer them a comfortable and happy retirement. Mission K9 focuses on retrieving dogs both from overseas and national shelter situations where they are suffering without proper care or medical attention.<\/p>\n

Here is one of their success stories \u2026<\/p>\n

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Navy tugging, playing ball and happy to go for a ride. Photo: Mission K9 Rescue<\/p><\/div>\n

The Story of K9 “Navy”<\/h3>\n

By Bob Bryant<\/p><\/p>\n

K9 “Navy” is not a “typical” family pet. He is a retired police K9, trained in patrol and narcotics detection. Born in the Czech Republic and trained in English, German, and French, he served a small city in Canada until a non-life-threatening injury caused an early end to his service.<\/p>\n

In normal circumstances, Navy would have remained with his handler. However, it was not possible in this case. Due to the nature of his training, he could not be adopted by just anyone. K9 program directors struggled to find a way to provide the retirement life Navy both earned and deserved.<\/p>\n

Searching, they found Mission K9 Rescue, a US-based nonprofit organization that rescues retired working dogs worldwide, and reached out for assistance with placing K9 Navy in the best home possible. MissionK9 immediately accepted their request for help and made arrangements to pick up Navy and transport him to his retirement home.<\/p>\n

K9 Navy was a special case. Most former working dogs can be managed by many. However, Navy was powerful and required an equally strong human to handle him. Mission K9 found Navy the perfect home through their network and living his best life now in sunny Southern California. He even has a cat for a “best” friend, but that’s another story about how they became fast friends.<\/p>\n

Navy’s day-to-day retirement activities include outings to visit local parks twice per day, often for two hours at a time. He has learned how to find tennis balls, softballs, and hard balls by scent alone. In the past year, Navy has found over 235 balls of various sorts. Each one is his favorite at the time. If he finds another ball after finding the first, he will “trade” it for the new one, which is often anything but new.<\/p>\n

He loves to play tug. It might be his favorite activity next to searching for balls. He is so strong that he could easily pull you down if he wanted to. Tug leads to “tired,” and “tired” comes with a demand for a treat. After a nap, he’s ready to do it all over again.<\/p>\n

At home, K9 Navy is surrounded by people that love him and consider him a part of the family. He has taken their love seat as his own, and they have decided not to argue with him over his choice!<\/p>\n

Dogs like K9 Navy, adopted to the public by Mission K9 Rescue, are assured of the best lives and medical care. The organization is very selective regarding adopters and wants to be sure those wishing to help hero dogs have the time and resources to give them the stimulation and care they deserve and require.<\/p>\n

It might surprise you to learn that for working dogs worldwide, whether owned by Contractors, the Military, or Law Enforcement, there is no retirement package, no golden ticket, and not even a flight home in most cases.<\/p>\n

Mission K9 is changing all of that because these dogs are worth it. They have sacrificed their lives in service to humankind. Their devotion and duty are unquestionable, and we owe them gratitude along with the best retirement possible.<\/p>\n

Over 1000 dogs just like K9 Navy have been saved by this organization since 2013. Over 650 of those working dogs have been reunited with their former handlers. Reunions are a beautiful thing to witness when that spark of remembrance comes into a dog’s eyes, and they bolt to meet and shower their handler with affection.<\/p>\n

You may want to adopt a retired working dog, or you may want to help deserving dogs stuck abroad through no fault of their own return home to the USA and into loving a retirement life. For more information, visit\u00a0Mission K9 Rescue.<\/a><\/p>\n

Bob Bryant is Chief Technology Officer with Mission K9 Rescue<\/a><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Honoring canines who have served<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11352,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spring-summer-2021-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11200"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11356,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11200\/revisions\/11356"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}