Saving the Dogs of War

March 31, 2005 -- -- Living in a military town, Lynn Bochcia sees firsthand the sacrifices U.S. servicemen and women make for their country. She says she felt compelled to do something to help, but taking up arms wasn't really an option. So she opened her home and her heart to Semper.

Semper, a mixed-breed dog of mainly shepherd ancestry, was losing her home because her owner was being deployed overseas. Bochcia agreed to foster the dog, although she wasn't sure how the two Shetland sheepdogs and two cats she had at home would feel about it.

"They clicked right away," she said. "Every once in awhile we have to have a little standoff. I have to remind her that I'm the alpha and she's the beta, but it doesn't last very long."

Because there's no official program in place to care for pets of the military, some believe that literally thousands of animals have been abandoned or euthanized simply because their owners had no one to care for them when they were deployed.

Now volunteers, grass-roots groups and larger, more organized nonprofits -- motivated by a love for the animals they save and a sense of duty to those in uniform -- are taking matters into their own hands.

Bochcia lives in South Carolina's Beaufort County, home of both the Beaufort Naval Hospital and the famed Parris Island Marine training facility. She realized how she could get involved when she heard about the NetPets Web site on one of her favorite Sunday morning radio shows.

NetPets provides tons of free information about pets, vets, animal rights and just about anything pet-related that Steve Albin, who runs the site from his home in Myrtle Beach, S.C., can squeeze in.

Albin decided to branch out shortly after Sept. 11, 2001. Like so many Americans, he had spent that day glued to his television set. For Albin -- who grew up in New York City -- the images of the attacks on the World Trade Center were both shocking and saddening. As the U.S. military began building up to take action against al Qaeda in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, he began to think about what war would mean for pet owners in the service.