my grandparents have two german shepherds. a two year old (skyye), and a seven year old (danny boy.) both dogs are Iowa search and rescue dogs, danny being certified, while skyye has a couple years of training left. danny is the biggest dog in the club, and most likely the biggest german shepard in Iowa. they get called out at least once every two weeks to help assist in tracking criminals, missing people, or victims.
the sheriff in their counties only has to threaten a criminal that is hiding to "get danny". danny has quite a reputation in the papers and does at least one parade a month. my grandpa says that danny doesn't like water and won't go near it given the choice. but every once in a while they will be called out to locate a drowning victim.
when they were in a boat recently looking for a drowning victim making their courses over the lake, danny, at one point nearly jumped out of the boat. when they searched that area in the water, they did find the person that had drowned two days earlier. danny also has an uncanny sense of humanity. as an example after they were done searching for this person and were back on shore danny approached a man standing on the beach and sat down next to him putting his head under the man's hand. coincidentally the man happened to be the father of the boy that had drowned. this isn't the first time that danny has "offered his condolences."
danny and my grandpa are quite a pair!
most recently they went searching for a missing girl from a farmstead. they started by the door and danny followed her scent to the road and stopped. they made him keep searching around the farm and surrounding fields with never a hit like the first one. a few days later my grandpa was with us celebrating the 4th of july. when he was explaining the story to us he looked up and said, "you know, i think she was abducted." when he returned home from the fourth the police found the little girl's body in a mess of blood ditch far away from her home.
why do little people entice people to do what they do? what punishment could equal what theses sick people do to these kids? it seems like recently there have been a multitude of similar cases to this one. what is going on in our society that this is a problem? i understand that the country is smaller because of the media, but it just seems like this is getting crazy.
whenever our family is together and the dogs are there, my grandpa has us hide and the dogs will search for us. he says that it improves the morale and attitude of the dogs to find live people.
now that you know this you will be surprised to learn that one of P.E.T.A.'s goals is that no animal is a pet. they want all animals to be wild even going so far as to hurt other people to release or protect animals. i understand that animals shouldn't be used to test things on, but in a way it is to preserve the humans...damn dirty humans. but do animals have feelings? YES...that is why i prefaced this with my grandpa's dogs. don't test or maliciously hurt animals.
to sum up...i don't like people that hurt others, especially little children. nor do i like people that hurt other people for animals. i do like dogs though...moreso, i love the ones that help us.
3 comments:
Reed,
I loved your stories about Danny--sad occasions, obviously, but Danny is doing amazing things. If I ever meet him I'll be happy to hide.
P.E.T.A. is an organization of the "ultra- whacked".
Good story. It kind of reminds me of the way my family has always treated our pets. Especially my parents' schnauzers. Both are bright, but our first (who has been dead a couple years now) was hands-down the single smartest animal I've ever known. I don't know if I agree with 'anonymous', though, about PETA being an organisation of the "ultra-whacked". I'm sure there are plenty of well-meaning, even-tempered people that belong to PETA who don't necessarily feel represented by the fringe element of the group. They just want animals to be treated, well, ethically. It's just like anything else in this country, though; those with the newscameras go running for the craziest and loudest people they can find (when it comes to political ideology) and that becomes "the news". I disagree with PETA's ideology that no animal is a pet. Man has been keeping animals as pets as long as we've been around. They're an important part of who we are and, I believe there are studies that have been done, can in certain cases help improve a person's mental health. That said I don't ever believe that an animal's life is more important than a human's and I find it interesting that those that are for the "ethical treatment of animals" don't also believe in the "ethical treatment of humans" when people are killed in the process of animals being released.
I agree with you, Reed. I guess I'm partially playing the devil's advocate here but it's a good story and puts a humane face on something that otherwise drives the fringes of groups like PETA crazy.
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