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Rocky, a 10-month-old Lab, came to the Humane Society as a PAWS Fund patient from the Prince William County Animal Shelter where he had vomited socks and they feared he was possibly impacted. We accepted their request and had him rushed to Minnieville Animal Hospital for x-rays and possible emergency surgery.
It turned out that Rocky just liked to eat things and after 24 hours of observation he was declared healthy enough to leave and was transferred to the Humane Society Adopt Shop to find a loving home.
Rocky is a big, silly boy that is very sweet and loving to everyone he meets. It didn’t take long before we knew he was special and could probably make a significant impact on someone’s life. We decided to contact Chris Baity, Owner and Head Trainer of Semper K-9 to see if they would conduct a service dog evaluation to determine if Rocky had what it takes to become a service dog for a wounded veteran.
Rocky’s evaluation went amazingly well and impressed Chris so much that he decided to immediately take Rocky into their training program. In keeping with our Warrior Buddies Wounded Heroes Program policy of providing Shelter Dogs to Wounded Heroes for free, we transferred Rocky to Semper K-9 at no charge and he began his training.
Semper K-9 has a tradition of naming their dogs after fallen heroes. Rocky’s name was changed to Salty in memory of United States Air Force Maj. William “Salty” Watkins III who was killed in action on April 7, 2013 while flying a combat mission near Tikrit, Iraq.
Salty has completed his service dog training and is now proudly serving as the service dog and companion of a wounded veteran and from what we hear, loving his new life!
