Nov 19,2010  Wilmington NC

After mistakenly euthanizing a dog that saved soldiers lives in Afghanistan and survived through explosions in the war savaged country, a county employee in Arizona has been fired.  The Pinal County animal control employee euthanized the female Shepard Monday, and was later placed immediately on administrative leave.

Target, the heroic Shepard mix was brought to the Phoenix area in August by Sergeant Terry Young, after he has finished his tour of duty in Afghanistan. Target potentially saved several lives when a suicide bomber was scared off by her inside Dand Patan, a military base near the Pakistan border.

According to an Associated Press report, Young said the dog was treated like royalty from then on at the military base. She had escaped from the family’s yard last Friday which didn’t have an electronic dog fence, and she didn’t have a tag or microchip so the dog ended up at the county pound.

Young found Target’s picture on an internet website Casa Grande county dog catchers use to assist owners in finding their lost dogs. When Young showed up at the dog pound to claim his dog on Monday, he learned she was dead.

Officials at the Pinal County animal control facility say the employee mistakenly took the dog out of its pen Monday morning and euthanized it. The employee’s name is being kept confidential because of numerous telephone death threats.

In a newspaper report in The Arizona Republic Young said “I just can’t believe that something like this would happen to such a good dog,” The report also said the soldier and his family will get Target’s cremated remains