Carlos Aranda was visibly nervous.
Some of it was the assembled news media — camera crews and reporters crammed inside a conference room at the Hampton Inn just off Highway 99 to see what was promised to be a heartfelt reunion.
But mostly, it was the anticipation of seeing Don again.
“He was my first dog,” says Aranda, a Master at Arms in the U.S. Navy who works as a military dog handler out of NAS Lemoore.
When they met, Aranda was a first-time handler and Don was a veteran, having worked various details, including with the United States Secret Service doing security sweeps for the President of the United States.
“He helped me become the handler that I am today,” Aranda says.
“He holds a special place in my heart.”
MWD Bravo 069
Don, or Donnie as Aranda calls him, is a military working dog, designated MWD Bravo 069. The 6-year-old Belgian Malinois was trained to sniff out explosives of all kinds and did anti-terrorism protection with Aranda until the dog was injured last year. Don has since healed from the injury, but was recently medically retired.
Which meant he needed to find a home.
That isn’t always easy for dogs like Don, says Niki Dawson, director of logistics for New York-based nonprofit Paws for War, which offers resources to military members and their pets by rescuing and training dogs and providing companion animals to veterans and first responders.
Every military dog handler “retires” at least one animal during their career, Aranda says.
He knew pretty early on that Donnie was going to be the one he’d bring home for good. He also knew, when the time came, he would need help covering medical bills and the costs of ongoing care. He was referred to Paws for War and when he called, “they picked up on the first ring,” he says.
The organization stepped in to cover the any veterinary bills for Don for rest of his life through its Mission Well Done program.
They also arranged to transport the dog from Norfolk, Virginia, where he had been serving.
Dawson and another member of the group drove two and a half days across country to reunite Don and Aranda.
“We transport a lot of animals,” Dawson says. For some dogs, there can be an amount of uncertainty in those trips. They tend to freak out.
Don did not.
Military working dogs have been trained and spend much of their time waiting to do their jobs, she says.
“These trips are much easier on them than you would think.”
They can be more difficult for Dawson and her crew.
“The work that we do can be very emotional,” she says.
“We break down sometimes.”
And sometimes, as in the case of Don, they just don’t want to give up the dogs. Dawson jokes that she is now officially the dog’s Godmother.
“I fell in love,” she says.
“There’s something very special about him.”
A couch potato
You can hear Don before you see him: the clack of nails and paws on the floor, the tell-tale pant of just-contained excitement that dogs seem to have.
And then he’s in the room, wiggle-walking his way straight to Aranda. If there’s attention paid to anyone else, it’s fleeting.
“What’s up buddy? You’ve got a lot older,” Aranda says.
There is some gray in the muzzle that wasn’t there the last time they saw each other. The pair spend the next few minutes on belly scratches, Don looking up at his old handler, as if to say, “Don’t stop.”
Even when he was working, Don tended toward being a couch potato, Aranda says, minus the couch. “He just loves to relax.”
Now, he’ll have that opportunity. And an actual couch.
Aranda is originally from San Diego and still has family there and says he can’t wait to take Don for a trip to the beach. But first, they’ll hit up the dog park.
“It feels like home,” Aranda says.
“He feels like home.”
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