Don’t fly home with leftovers, America! That’s the message out of Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport this week, after a Homeland Security with a nose for contraband thwarted one incoming passenger’s attempt.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection office says that brave hero Hardy – a beagle whose job title is Agriculture Detector — did just that, hitting on a scent in a traveler from Ecuador’s luggage on October 11. Inside? A 2-pound pig’s head (cooked). Although we’re sure Hardy really deserved a bite, it was nonetheless seized and destroyed.

Pork and pork products from other continents are not permitted into the United States — this, in an effort to avoid introducing foot and mouth disease, classical swine fever and other animal diseases into the domestic population.

CBP Area Port Director Carey Davis hailed Hardy’s work as illustrating “the tremendous expertise of our four-legged K-9 partners in protecting the United States.”

And while the pig’s head may not surprise you…

…some of the things that a dog can detect actually might!

Bacteria: Did you know that since the 1970s, dogs have been employed to detect disease in beehives? This helps beekeepers and other interested parties prevent the germs from spreading and infecting healthy hives. Dogs have made the detection process smoother and faster, inspecting as many hives in 45 minutes as it would take scientists to do in two days.

Diabetes. Yes, really! With their incredible, sensitive noses, dogs can be trained to sense when blood sugar is high or low and alert their diabetic owners to take action. They can even run and fetch an insulin kit.

Cow fertility. You would think the bulls could smell it, too, but dogs can actually detect it sooner. And that’s more important, because most cows are impregnated by artificial insemination. What’s more, bull semen is expensive! So some farmers have taken to using specially trained dogs to sense when their cows are in heat, just to make sure.

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.”

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Years ago, police in Ontario rescued 31 sickly dogs from a suspected fighting operation. They were pit bulls, a “breed” long since banned in this Canadian province, but they were also evidence in a court case, so they were remanded to an undisclosed shelter while a court determined what would happen.

As often goes in the realm of the legal, they waited a long time.

The Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) pressed for all of them to be put down, arguing that as they had only known violence, they were a lost cause.

Dog Tales Rescue and Sanctuary, however, asked for the dogs to be released into their care, where they could be rehabilitated and eventually find their way to real families.

Along the way, one of the dogs who had arrived to the shelter pregnant, added 8 new puppies to the controversy.

Finally, in July of 2017, a judge made a ruling. The dogs (except for one deemed too dangerous and two who died while in custody) would be released into rescue and hit the long road to rehabilitation.

One of the roads led all the way to Jacksonville, FL, where 14 of the dogs landed in the care of a rescue called Pit Sisters. A few of them were from the litter born at the shelter.

“They only knew a shelter life,” Jen Deane, founder of Pit Sisters, told Mother Nature Network.

In early assessments, one of those puppies — a dog named Dallas — drew attention.

“The more we worked with him, the more we thought he should be a police dog,” Deane said.

So trainers spent a few days testing him and they eventually connected with someone from the Throwaway Dogs Project, a Philadelphia organization specializing in dogs often seen as beyond help — and turning them into police dogs.

Dallas, of course, was just a pup. He hadn’t done anything wrong, but rather was guilty by association — for his breed.

Throwaway Dogs founder Carol Skaziak, along with a team of behaviorists, headed to Jacksonville, where they spent several days testing Dallas.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

“The first thing I saw in Dallas was a very lovable dog that enjoyed being around humans,” Skaziak told MNN. “Then what I saw was a dog that had extreme play drive.”

It’s a skill Skazniak looks for in candidates for the program.

“Believe it or not, I feel that if we were on top of the Empire State Building, and we threw the ball over the edge, he would go after the ball.”

Not the best quality for a family pet, but for police dogs, it’s essential.

“With every day that passed, I was becoming more and more in love with this dog,” Skaziak recalls. “I thought, ‘This is probably going to work out for us. This is a homerun.’”

But there was one crucial strike against Dallas: He was deathly afraid of cars — so much so that he couldn’t bring himself to get inside one.

On their way back to Pennsylvania, the trainers told Deane if Dallas could get over that fear, they would try to land him a job as a K9.

Not long afterward, Deane — a trainer with a gift for bringing out the best in dogs — sent Throwaway Dogs a video of Dallas jumping in and out of cars with unflinching enthusiasm.

Dallas was officially in the program.

Dallas the pit bull profile
Dallas is on his way to Pennsylvania to start training for his new job. (Photo: Pit Sisters)
Not long after that, Deane got a text message: A police department in Virginia had offered Dallas a job.

And all of a sudden, the dog who nearly never left that secret shelter in Ontario — a dog who was born a victim — will now spend the rest of his life standing up for them.

With a lot of people cheering for him along the way.

“We have a whole town that’s excited,” Skaziak says. “We’re just thrilled. We can’t wait to start training him.”

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Summer, a yellow Lab, is 8. These days, she patrols Washington Union Station with her partner, Sgt. Micah Jones. It’s a five-day-a-week job.

“When I get up and get ready, put my uniform on, I put the harness on, she knows she’s ready to go,” Jones told ABC affiliate WJLA. But Summer hasn’t always been his partner.

In her previous life, Summer was deployed in Afghanistan with the Marines.

“She’s been in firefights. She’s found IEDs and VBEDs and it’s just an honor to work—that an animal like that saved thousands and thousands of lives,” her partner says.

And now, Summer is up for the American Humane Hero Dog Awards in the military category.

“It would mean a lot to give her the recognition that she rightfully deserves,” Jones said.

Voting for the award is public and today is the last day. To view Summer’s story and vote for her — and peruse the other dogs nominated in the Awards’ various categories, click here.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Nanook (also known as “Nookie”) is a hero.

The 7-year-old husky helped rescue an injured hiker last week in the Eagle River Valley of Alaska.

“He’s Alaska’s version of Lassie,” Lt. Eric Olsen, with the Alaska State Troopers, told the Anchorage Daily News.

Amelia Milling, 21, was hiking and fell hundreds of feet when one of her poles broke. Nanook showed up soon after. Milling read his tag, which proclaimed Nanook to be a Crow Creek guide dog. His owner’s name and number was on the tag. Dogs like Nanook frequent the area and escort hikers. Nanook guided her back to the trail, staying with her as she made her way back to camp.

Milling fell again while attempting to cross the Eagle River and Nanook helped pull her from the water. She attempted to lie down and recover, but Nanook would not stop licking her. When Milling finally activated her emergency locator beacon, Nanook relented, lying down. A rescue chopper showed, and she and Nanook rode it to Anchorage, where she was treated for bumps and bruises and released.

Milling, who hails from Tennessee, is deaf. She attends Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. Her mother, speaking from her home in Chattanooga, told reporters for the Democrat and Chronicle that her daughter has been an avid hiker for five years and doesn’t let her deafness stop her from anything.

She had planned a three-day hike and was fine until she encountered more snow than expected.

“I’m a Southerner, so I wasn’t thinking about snow,” Milling said via an interpreter.

Nanook was returned to his owner.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Check out this amazing news segment about a Pennsylvania organization that’s helping re-integrate shelter pups back into society by training them to be police dogs. Want to learn more? Visit the Throw Away Dogs Project website!

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Ghost was rescued at three months of age, a homeless pup in Florida. Deaf, with white fur and brown eyes, it wasn’t long before he was deemed “unadoptable.” Ghost has a combination of traits that can be lethal for rescue dogs — his high energy levels, occasional indifference to people and special needs made him a challenging case.

He was scheduled for euthanization, but the folks at Swamp Haven rescue in St. Augustine, FL, thought Ghost deserved a second chance. Reaching out to rescues around the nation, they hit a bulls-eye all the way out in the Pacific Northwest: Washington’s Olympic Peninsula Humane Society in Port Angeles was willing to take Ghost in.

They knew precisely the person who could help.

Barb Davenport, who began training dogs when she was just 10 years old, has become a beacon for area rescues with troubled pups. After learning much about showing dogs as a young lady, she enlisted in the Army, intent on becoming a K-9 handler, which she has been since 1979.

Davenport finds great satisfaction in taking dogs who can’t find forever homes and making them valuable in the community. To date, she has trained more than 450 rescue dogs, turning each into a working narcotics K-9. All of the Washington State Department of Corrections’ K-9s were originally from shelters.

She knew Ghost had potential.

“He was very focused and determined to locate his ball when thrown or hidden,” Davenport told KIRO news. She felt he could be a good K-9.

These days, Ghost — now two-and-a-half — lives with his new handler, Joe Henderson. He’s training to become a narcotics detection dog with the DOC. Henderson is his forever-dad. And Ghost will earn the distinction of becoming the first-ever deaf K-9 in Washington state history.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Not only was it a fun day at Disney for Julian Gavino, his service dog, Atlas, enjoyed it just as much — and met one of his favorite characters!

Gavino and his dog are regulars at the theme park but this trip was special in that Atlas met the life-sized version of his favorite plushy.

Gavino, 22, has a connective tissue disorder called Ehlers Danlos Syndrome Type 3. Atlas, whom he acquired via New Horizons Service Dogs in Orange City, FL, is his constant companion, but service dogs don’t work all the time and the golden retriever enjoys all the toys he has at home. Pluto is his favorite.

When Gavino and Atlas got the chance to meet Pluto at Epcot, Pluto was more than happy to oblige, squatting down to play a bit with his furry look-alike. Atlas got increasingly excited (we think he might have found the character to be the coolest, biggest interactive toy he’d ever seen!) and Gavino’s friends captured the meeting on video

“Atlas was more than excited to meet his best pal look alike,” Gavino commented on his video, which since he posted it has gone viral.