Re: 9/11\'s pet of the day on AOL
<font color=blue>Did Stryker get equipped with the boots to protect his pads when searching</font color=blue>
Stryker never wore the boots because he did not need them, and could work more effectively without them. Some of the dogs would not tolerate the boots, and many even had problems with their handlers "looking" different (dressed in full Tyvek protective suits).
Prior to 9/11, Alice and Stryker had had several deployments in a section of DC called Anacostia, where the parks are mostly ground glass. So she had been working him on exercises to toughen his paws up, and it came in very handy at the Pentagon.
According to Alice, the biggest hazard for everyone there, including the dogs, was the pervasive jet fuel. Everyone went through de-tox after each one hour deployment. You might imagine what a chore it would be to get some dogs into a bath six times a day, for ten days running/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif