Homeless Dogs Help Healing Troops

By Fred W. Baker III
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18, 2009 – Lawrence Minnis never met a dog he didn’t like.

Army Capt. Lawrence Minnis sits with his two adopted pit bulls at the Washington Humane Society’s Behavior and Learning Center, Nov. 12, 2009. Minnis met the dogs through the humane society’s Dog Tags program, in which soldiers recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center sign up to help teach animals housed at the shelter learn how to behave. DoD photo by Fred W. Baker III (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

\”I want just about every dog I see,\” the Army captain said with a laugh.

Minnis is especially fond of pit bulls, and he somewhat resembles his favorite breed — broad-shouldered, stocky and muscular. He sat on the floor in the back of a classroom at a Washington Humane Society shelter here recently, stroking his adopted black pit bull, Ebony.

As happy and healthy as the two appear now, they met when they were both on the mend – Minnis from a near-crippling infection and Ebony from nearly starving and freezing to death. The two shared a companionship that helped them heal and ultimately altered the course of their lives.

Minnis met Ebony through the Humane Society’s Dog Tags program in which soldiers recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center sign up to help the shelter dogs learn to behave. It’s a program in which everyone benefits, officials said; the soldiers get out of the hospital and learn to care for and train the dogs, and the dogs learn better behavior, making them more adoptable.