Six weeks ago, Army Spc. Alec Alcoser, 22, and his working dog, Alex, were on patrol just outside Bagram Airfield, the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan when a young man approached.

According to the San Antonio Express-News, two Afghan and three Czech soldiers stepped between Alcoser and the young Afghan to conduct a search. Alcoser called Alex back, bending down to get a cigarette. Then, a flash. Alex yelped. A firefight erupted. The dog and the soldier stayed together.

“I would yell at him and his ears would twitch, but he wouldn’t look at me,” Alcoser said in the Army Times. He calls San Antonio home. “I think he was in a state of shock. He didn’t growl, he didn’t bark, he didn’t cry. He stayed right there.”

Last week, the pair were reunited at the South Texas Veterans Health Care System’s Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center. Alcoser was emotional. Alex licked his face. The last time they had seen one another they were in Washington, D.C., where both received the Purple Heart.

This time, though, if all goes as planned, the pair will be together for good.

Alcoser was 6.5 months into a nine-month deployment when the suicide bomber attack occurred. On days off, they shared a bed. On duty days, they shared rituals.

“On a day with a mission, we’d wake up, I would give him a doggie treat and I would have some ice cream before we went out, and when we got back, we usually slept,” Alcoser recalled.

“That was a normal day for me and Alex out there,” he said, adding that a taste for sweets was born of his association with troops in special operations forces. “It was kind of their thing to eat a sweet because you never know if that’s going to be your last when you go out.”

The Aug. 5 left Alcoser with shrapnel wounds, broken bones and a mild traumatic brain injury, but doctors say he escaped without any loss in cognitive ability. Alex lost his back left leg. Both are learning how to get around again.

The shrapnel wounds cover about 30 percent of Alcoser’s body, most in his lower extremities. Its emergence is a slow and painful process. Both his arms and legs were broken, among other bones. He uses a cane or a walker. Alex limps sometimes, too.

There are goals to reduce the vet’s dependence on pain meds and in time get him well enough to start work at the Center for the Intrepid at JBSA-Fort Sam Houston.

“They’re estimating about four to six months, and so I’m already a month and almost half in, and I’m already walking, so I think I’m going to beat that time,” he said. “Either way, the doctors say I have a pretty good chance of making a full recovery, and that’s all that matters. I’ve got to get back to my dog. That’s the important part.”

Multiple surgeries over the past several weeks make medical memories hazy. There is lots of rehab in his future. Alex, who is 8 and a half, was trained to detect explosives and corner suspects who try to run and hide, doesn’t realize he’s retired.

He tried to search a car after arriving at Audie Murphy VA Hospital.

“When they’re old and retired, they still don’t know they’re not supposed to work,” said Regina Johnson, a retired Army dog handler who works in the Defense Department’s DoD Military Working Dog Breeding Program at Lackland.

Alcoser is not daunted by the frustrations of learning to walk again. He has wife, Misty, and an infant son. His mother, who lives in Houston, drives to the hospital to visit every weekend. In time, he’d like to return to his post at Fort Drum, New York. He’d like to be a Sergeant one day.

He thinks on fallen brothers often. The Afghans and Czechs took the worst of what the suicide bomber brought. Though the former survived, the Czechs were killed instantly.

“There’s no point in being mad or sad or anything like that. I’ve got to live through the people who died for me, so they give me a lot of strength,” he said. “And Alex ain’t complaining, so I don’t think I should, either. His injuries are a little worse than mine,” Alcoser said.

“A lot of people call him a dog, but I think he’s a little more than that. He’s a soldier.”

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Back in 2012, Joe Steenbeke trained to be a Technical Explosive Detection Dog (TEDD) Handler and went to K-9 training in Denver, IN.

That’s where he met Tess.

Months of intense training followed until they were approved as combat-ready.

“You truly never know which car you’re going up to search could have a bomb on it, which could have a bad guy in it that’s going to try and shoot you and your dog,” Joe told WNDU. “You truly just have to go off of your training and your practice and things that you worked on and you have to 110 percent trust that bond that you have with your dog.”

Joe and his wife, Steph, have been trying for years to get Tess back, but she is still deployed. His wife knows how healing it would be for her husband, who suffers from PTSD, to be reunited with his partner.

“I knew I needed to do everything I could to make it happen,” Steph said. “To know that missing piece gets to come home would just mean everything to us and it would all just be worth it.”

They are hoping that soon, when Tess retires, they will be permitted to adopt her. And they’re hoping their story can help spread awareness, so that other retired handlers will be allowed to adopt their soldier dogs, as well.

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Sting had a long face this week that got him attention on social media.
But, his owner points out, the 10-year-old greyhound always has a long face — he can’t help it!

Sting was on a visit to the Ramsey County Library in White Bear Lake, MN, a twice-weekly stop for the retired racer that’s part of the library’s Paws to Read program, which encourages literacy by inviting young children to come in and read to dogs.

It’s been a regular gig for a couple of years.

But this week, for whatever reason, no one showed up, and Sting’s owner, John Muellner, posted about it on Facebook.

“Unfortunately nobody signed up to read to Sting at the White Bear Lake library tonight,” he wrote, alongside a few pics of the greyhound looking sullen. “If you know of a 4 to 8yr old who would like to read to a dog. Please contact the White Bear Lake library by phone or their website about the Paws to Read program Sting will be there Feb 21st 6:30 – 7:30.”

Since then, the library’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing. And it’s all because of Sting’s lovely “sad” face.

“People are asking if we could hold the phone to Sting’s ear so they could read to him,” Ann Wahlstrom, children’s librarian at the Ramsey County Library, told TODAY. “The whole staff of a Petco in California called to say they love Sting. It’s just amazing, the outpouring.”

The dog is booked through April, as are the other therapy dogs who participate in the reading program.

Wahlstrom is delighted.

“It’s meant to be a fun environment,” Wahlstrom said. “To give kids a fun, nonthreatening place where they can practice their reading skills to a dog…. We love promoting the joy of reading,” she said. “The joy of reading to dogs.”

Sting’s participation lasts about an hour. Three children sign up; each reads to him for 20 minutes.

Muellner, 56, says Sting’s “easygoing” nature is ideal for a therapy dog. In fact, Sting works at a local children’s hospital, as well.

“Nothing scares him; nothing bothers him,” he said. “Not even squirrels.”

That said, Muellner assured TODAY that Sting wasn’t really upset that no one showed at the library. The “sad” face that made him go viral is just that: his face.

“It’s his signature look,” he said. “It’s just his look.”