McMahon: Lost dog
Nov 18, 2010, 7:13 PM | Updated: Jun 5, 2012, 3:27 am
Sometimes when you’re involved with the news stories of the day, you can’t help but get choked up over some of them. A decorated veteran living forgotten in the streets, the all-too-frequent incidents of child abuse at the hands of some subhuman. And then there are those that aren’t directly about people.
Pets who loyally protect a family member always get to me. That’s why I got really upset when I found out that Target — the dog who saved dozens of soldier’s lives in Afghanistan by alerting them to a suicide bomber — couldn’t survive an overnight stay in the Pinal County Animal Care and Control shelter in Casa Grande.
A neighbor had found Target lost and wandering and, since there was no identification, took him to the safety of a shelter. Sgt. Terry Young, who brought Target to America from Afghanistan, got word he was there. But, by the time the sergeant got to the pound, this heroic dog had been euthanized by mistake. An even bigger mistake would be for anyone to tell Sgt. Young it was only a dog.
