Clipmarks | Mobile

The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle
clipped by: sahara

clipped from www.pawnation.com

When Maj. Brian Dennis of the United States Marine Corps met a wild stray dog with shorn ears while serving in Iraq, he had no idea of the bond they would form, leading to seismic changes in both their lives. "The general theme of the story of Nubs is that if you're kind to someone, they'll never forget you -- whether it be person or animal,

In October 2007, Dennis and his team of 11 men were in Iraq patrolling the Syrian border. One day, as his team arrived at a border fort, they encountered a pack of stray dogs

"We all got out of the Humvee and I started working when this dog came running up," recalls Dennis. "I said, 'Hey buddy' and bent down to pet him." Dennis noticed the dog's ears had been cut. "I said, 'You got little nubs for ears.'" The name stuck. The dog whose ears had been shorn off as a puppy by an Iraqi soldier (to make the dog "look tougher," Dennis says) became known as Nubs.

At night, Nubs accompanied the men on night patrols

clipper's remarks: The next day, Dennis said goodbye to Nubs, but he didn't forget about the dog. He began mentioning Nubs in emails he wrote to friends and family back home. "I found a dog in the desert," Dennis wrote in an email in October 2007. "I call him Nubs. We clicked right away. He flips on his back and makes me rub his stomach."

"Every couple of weeks, we'd go back to the border fort and I'd see Nubs every time," says Dennis. "Each time, he followed us around a little more." And every time the men rumbled away in their Humvees, Nubs would run after them.
On one trip to the border fort in December 2007, Dennis found Nubs was badly wounded in his left side where he'd been stabbed with a screwdriver. "The wound was infected and full of pus," Dennis recalls. "We pulled out our battle kits and poured antiseptic on his wound and force fed him some antibiotics wrapped in peanut butter."
That night, Nubs was in so much pain that he refused food and water and slept standing up.

Login to POP this clip

1 Comment

by sahara on 11-4-2009 7:22 AM

Dennis and his team left again the next day, but Dennis thought about Nubs the entire time, hoping the dog was still alive.
Two weeks later, when Dennis and his team returned, he found Nubs alive and well. "I had patched him up and that seemed to be a turning point in how he viewed me," says Dennis. This time, when Dennis and his team left the fort, Nubs followed. Though the dog lost sight of the Humvees, he never gave up. For two days, Nubs endured freezing temperatures and packs of wild dogs and wolves, eventually finding his way to Dennis at a camp an incredible 70 miles south near the Jordanian border. There he was, all beaten and chewed up," says Dennis. "I knew immediately that Nubs had crossed through several dog territories and fought and ran, and fought and ran," says Dennis. The dog jumped on Dennis, licking his face.

Most of the 80 men at the camp welcomed Nubs, even building him a doghouse. But a couple of soldiers complained, leading Dennis' superiors to order him to get rid of the dog. With his hand forced, Dennis decided that the only thing to do was bring Nubs to America. He began coordinating Nubs' rescue effort. Friends and family in the States helped, raising the $5,000 it would cost to transport Nubs overseas.

Finally, it was all arranged. Nubs was handed over to volunteers in Jordan, who looked after the dog and sent him onto to Chicago, then San Diego, where Dennis' friends waited to pick him up.
A month later, Dennis finished his deployment in Iraq and returned home to San Diego, where he immediately boarded a bus to Camp Pendleton to be reunited with Nubs. "I was worried he wouldn't remember me," says Dennis. But he needn't have worried. "Nubs went crazy," recalls Dennis. "He was jumping up on me, licking my head."

Dennis' experience with Nubs led to a children's picture book, called "Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle"