Navy says 3 dogs died after contractor neglect - Page 1

By ANNE FLAHERTY
Associated Press Writer
hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NAVY_DEAD_DOGS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Navy says that three dogs died and dozens more were in poor health after being neglected by a private security contractor in Chicago that had been hired to train the dogs to detect explosives.

A team of military handlers discovered the dogs last October at a facility run by Securitas Security Services USA after the Navy terminated a $7.5 million contract.

Navy spokesman Capt. William Fenick said that of the 49 dogs discovered, two were dead and the rest were in poor health. Another dog died soon after being recovered.

Securitas Security Services did not immediately provide comment.

The incident was first reported by The Virginian-Pilot, which says it obtained a picture of one of the rescued dogs, whose rib cage and hip bones were protruding.

The discovery is the latest in a string of contracting woes for the Defense Department. Lawmakers and government watchdog groups say they are concerned that the military is relying too heavily on outside vendors to do many of the jobs that should be handled internally.

In December 2008, the Navy signed a $350 million contract with Lockheed Martin Corp. to help guard its installations. The five-year contract included $7.5 million for 49 highly specialized K-9 units to sniff out explosives. To meet the K-9 requirement, Lockheed in turn hired Securitas Security Services, headquartered in Parsippany, N.J.

But after the dogs failed to demonstrate they could perform as promised, the Navy canceled the contract in July, Fenick said. The team of handlers were sent three months later to pick up the dogs from the Securitas' dog-training facility near Chicago.

Fenick declined to say how much the Navy had already paid Lockheed under the agreement, saying that the contract details are under review.

The state of Illinois is conducting a separate investigation into the allegations.

Fenick said that of the 46 dogs that survived, eight were adopted privately and the rest were deployed at various Navy installations after having completed training.

Would have been nice to have a contract like that....atleast the dogs would end up trained and would have been cared for!! Can't believe that happened!!!

Read this one earlier today.....7.5 mil....someone's head is gonna roll!

Someone's head should roll, but the Navy spends more than that every year for toilet paper.  That's not the kind of thing I'd be taking a risk on...That kind of money should have gotten those dogs the very best of care during their training.  No excuse for starving them, period.  7.5 million dollars for training 49 dogs?  That's a lot of dough to take to train dogs, and then not do the job.

Crys

Tell me about it Crys....If i had that account I would have a few people helping me that I trust to train and those dogs would have the best of care and training. Food for that many dogs would be about $30,000 a year.(figuring on 1 bag a month at $50 a bag TOTW) That doesn't begin to scrape the $7mill!! Unbelievable!!

That's what happens when no one at the Nazy understands it takes time and effort to correctly train military/detection dogs and they make a deal with scheisters who say they can deliver a trained dog in a fraction of the time it takes to actually do it right. Do you have any idea how FAST these dogs are cranked out? No one wonder they get overseas and fall apart.

Its a shame, for our taxes, for our troops, and for the dogs.

Hmmm...................................................
I wonder if canceling the contract in July and not showing up to reclaim the dogs until October had anything to do with this???????????????????

And I am not saying it is an excuse, but, do the math.

SEATTLE METRO TUNNEL SECURITY TO BE HANDLED BY Securitas Security Services USA.

Ok full disclosure, I don't have or train dogs, but read this article earlier in the week and was shocked. Then 2 minutes ago I read an article in the Seattle Times that jumped out at me...because of the name Securitas Security Services USA.

Remeber a few weeks back when the nation got to see a 15 (or 14?) year old girl get her head kicked in, in full view of "security officers?" It made most of the national news circuits...

Anyways, the city of Seattle rallied to replace this ineffective company with people who could safely guard our citizens...so we turn it over to the company that the Navy couldn't trust with dogs?

This company is responsible for the inhuman treatment of dogs being trained to protect servicemen and women, resulting in them losing their contract worth millions.

SO WHY ARE THEY PROTECTING THE CITIZEN OF SEATTLE NOW???? And did we pay enough to get better treatment then their dogs???


here is the link to the Seattle story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35822357/ns/local_news-seattle_wa/

Before you go all crazy about this, and again, I am not defending them, what happened to those dogs is horrible, but, Securitas is probably the largest security contractor in the world. They provide security services for many private institutions and also many, many municipal institutions, as well.
Do a little more research before you go nuts about your metro tunnel security.