Marks Project

Many of you have asked how Mark is doing and my answer has always been..."bored." Well, I guess he has been finding ways to fill his time and here are some pics of the project he just completed. It is an obedience course for the dogs out there in Iraq and he named it, deservingly, "DUC B016 Playground." For those of you that don't know who Duc is, he was Mark's dog that he took over to Iraq his first tour. They went through tons together and I know I speak for everyone in our family when I say that Duc provided comfort to us back home because we knew he was taking great care of Mark. He was an amazing dog and Mark and I adopted him when he was able to be retired so that he could live out the remainder of his days in the mountains with us. Mark will forever be indebted to Duc as he saved his life on numerous occasions during his '04 tour. This was just a little way for him to pay tribute to such an amazing dog. He swears that Duc came back to him in the form of Joep because he reminds him so much of him. I'm so glad that Mark is able to deploy with these amazing companions. Anyway, here are some pics that he sent me. It is our goal to someday have an obedience course just like this for our business. I wish they could box up all the obstacles and send them home :).

Here is the sign Mark had made...I love it!
Here is an overview of part of the course. The two vehicles in the middle are for doing vehicle extractions when they are doing bite work with the dogs. (having the dogs pull the bad guy out of them LOL ) In the front of the picture is the low crawl area for the dogs and then it leads into hurdles.
This is the next platform obstacle and the next pic is of Mark and Joep on top of it...
This is the catwalk and the bridge in the back...
Here is an up close picture of the bridge...
tunnels and a teeter-totter...
As you can see, Mark isn't the only one that is bored. He was able to get many others to help him in the process. And just for old times sake, here is Mr. Duc himself...a true "War Dog"