A video captured the moment a former IED detection dog and his former Marine handler reunited after spending six years apart.
David Herrera, 29, hadn’t seen Kash N060 since their deployment to Afghanistan.
Upon hearing that Kash was in retirement and was adopted by a handler in Texas, Herrera knew he wanted to reach out so the pair could reunite.
“He came up to me and started rubbing his head against me,” Herrera told InsideEdition.com. “At first, he [looked] a little hesitant, but it made sense.”
“He was trying to smell who was there, and once he knew it was me, he was so excited. I didn’t even know he was blind until afterwards,” Herrera added.
The 9-year-old dog can be seen in the video jumping for joy after recognizing his former handler.
Herrera was assigned to Kash, who was two years old at the time, in May 2010.
The pair trained together in Hartsville, South Carolina, before deploying to Afghanistan.
Herrera told Inside Edition that Kash saved his life on multiple occasions, including once while leading a team of 30 men on a hillside during IED checks.
“He started jumping around,” Herrera said. “I turned around and there was an IED right there. I was able to get him away.”
“For [seven] months, we spent nearly every day together living in a truck clearing bombs out of the road in one of the deadliest cities in the world – Sangin,” Herrera said, The Daily Mail reported. “We even got hit by a few IEDs in the truck, and he made through those tough times.”
Herrera and Kash were separated upon their return from deployment in 2011. Kash was then sent to train with a new handler.
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