Schriever Air Force Base here in Colorado Springs has a new article both online and in the printed edition of their base newspaper this week about – who else? – their namesake dog, Schriever:

(Click on the image for a nice giant high-resolution version.)

“Assistance-dog training school honors Schriever with namesake“

You can also download the PDF version of the paper here – article is on page 6: 

http://csmng.com/wp-files/schriever-sentinel-weekly-pdfs/sentinel_2010-02-18.pdf

I still think this was a great idea, and the local angle for those of us in a big military city like Colorado Springs is an added bonus.

KSDS, a great small ADI-accredited assistance dog organization in Kansas founded 20 years ago, has a tradition of naming its puppy litters for specific themes.  Most recent one was a military theme – they named all the dogs for military bases – what a fantastic idea!

That’s Miramar pictured above – here are all nine names:

• Barstow  —  Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, CA
• Beale  —  Beale Air Force Base, CA
• Hood  —  Fort Hood, TX
• Meade  —  Fort Meade, MD
• Miramar  —  Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, CA
• Oceana  —  Naval Air Station Oceana, VA
• Riley  —  Fort Riley, KS
• Schriever  —  Schriever Air Force Base, CO
• Whidbey  —  Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, WA

You can see pictures of all the dogs in the litter here (BTW, the bandanas look way too close to an actual US flag for me, a common problem with lots of well-meaning stuff and a pet peeve of mine, but that doesn’t really detract from an otherwise tremendous idea.):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=143581&id=59272557571

NAS Whidbey Island has already written about their namesake dog Whidbey in Thursday’s base newspaper:

“Future service dog named ‘Whidbey’“

Big points to KSDS for having this wonderful idea.