A 10-year-old retired military working dog has finally been reunited with his beloved handler after more than two years apart.
In 2018, U.S. Army Sergeant Michael Fletcher, a K-9 handler, was paired with Dasty (rhymes with “nasty”), a Dutch Shepherd, while stationed at Fort Huachuca in Cochise County, Arizona – but it wasn’t love at first sight for the pair.
There was a period of adjustment and bonding and it took about three months before Dasty began to trust and listen to Fletcher, who had previously been paired with two other dogs.
Initially, the pair worked mostly at the base and supported the local police department, which didn’t have its own explosives-detection dog, but the Army had other plans. The duo were sent to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri to complete the Patrol Explosives Detection Dog Enhanced Course, known as PEDD-E – a sophisticated 60-day course only taught three times a year.
Photos courtesy American Humane.
In 2019, Fletcher and Dasty deployed to Logar Province in Afghanistan, spending most of their time at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Dahlke. At Dahlke, service members slept in tents without heating or air conditioning and went weeks without running water. During this time, Fletcher says that Dasty served as the unofficial mascot of the base helping to raise morale and even attending briefings where other soldiers could interact with him.
Fletcher and Dasty slept together in the same tent – each with their own twin-sized mattress – and were together around the clock. For Fletcher, taking care of Dasty was his top priority. He brought Dasty food from the DFAC on special occasions and purchased a pile of blankets from a local bazaar to keep him warm at night when the temperature in the mountains would drop below freezing.
During one especially hot mission, Fletcher recalls offering Dasty his last bit of water, then drank the dregs himself – slobber and all.
“That’s how much he meant to me out there. I knew that he needed it more than me, because he was keeping everybody behind us safe,” Fletcher says.
It was well-earned. Dasty saved countless lives during the 10-month deployment, locating multiple IEDs, and remaining steady and focused during combat, even when bullets were flying.
Upon returning from deployment, Fletcher and Dasty were reassigned to Fort Myer in Northern Virginia. While there, the pair participated in multiple Secret Service missions for Presidents Trump and Biden, but it all came to an end when Fletcher left the Army to pursue another career path in 2022.
Dasty remained at Fort Myer, where he was paired with a new handler, who happened to be one of the soldiers who served under Fletcher. Dasty’s new handler would send updates of the four-legged hero and even facilitated a couple of FaceTime chats with Fletcher.
When Fletcher learned that Dasty was retiring due to old age, he reached out to a D.C. nonprofit, American Humane, to help bring Dasty to his new home in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
On October 11, 2024, the group picked up Dasty from Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia and headed for the airport, where they boarded an American Airlines flight and Dasty had his own seat in the cabin. In addition to covering all of Dasty’s transportation costs, American Humane has pledged to provide free veterinary care for the rest of his life.
The next day – after more than two years apart from his best friend – Dasty arrived in Green Bay, where Fletcher, his wife, and their two children were waiting to welcome their newest family member home.