Is it bad form to suggest that bringing strays all the way from Iraq to the United States is not the most efficient use of resources? I hope not. Because since Operation Baghdad Pups was launched in 2007, I've sometimes thought about how saving dogs from a war zone, a place where humans are barely surviving, verged on the absurd. In any case, I'd stopped thinking about it––until today, when the New York Times reported that one of the Iragi dogs brought to the U.S. last June by Operation Baghdad Pups was, belatedly, found to have rabies. This, not long after the U.S. triumphantly declared the canine rabies virus eliminated. The pup in question, a sweet-looking Lab-mix called Crusader has been put down, and the Center for Disease Control has now launched an investigation, searching for animals or humans who may have been in contact with Crusader. What a sad mess.
