Dog survives Iraq chaos, finds new forever home in Gardens
PALM BEACH GARDENS — Before Socks made a meandering, 7,000mile journey from Baghdad to Palm Beach Gardens, the stray dog endured getting shot and pelted by rocks as he roamed the wartorn streets of the Iraqi capital.
He was scrappy, sure, but he had a soft side, too. Lots of strays wander the city, but the golden retriever/lab mix was the only one who came to Adam Schank when he beckoned, said Schank’s wife, Denise.
Schank began feeding Socks, giving him water and covering rocks with a tarp so that he would have a more comfortable place to sleep.
“Somebody needs to save him,” Schank, a K-9 handler for a Department of State contractor, told Denise.
That “somebody” was Debra Cohn, a longtime animal rescuer.
An entourage of friends and reporters greeted Socks, Cohn, Cohn’s husband Steven, Denise Schank, Navy veteran Matt Kleeman and his service dog Charlie Brown as they emerged from a red Land Rover outside Eastpointe Country Club, where Socks got a special welcome home Thursday. Socks, decked out in an American flag bandanna, wagged his tail as he posed for photos and gave kisses to Charlie Brown.
Fighting tears, Denise Schank read a message from her husband, who is still working in Iraq.
“Words alone cannot describe how I feel about Socks. He was near death when he came to us,” she read from his note. “The story of everything that transpired from the first moment I found him to him finally making it to his forever home with Debra and Steven is something that fairy tales are written about.”
The rescue mission spanned at least four countries, three continents and multiple animal rescue organizations.
And it almost didn’t happen. Socks came and went from the tent where Adam Schank
protected him. On the day Socks was to be rescued, he was nowhere to be found.
“It was do or die,” Debra Cohn said.
Schank was beside himself, worried he missed his opportunity for Socks to be saved, Denise Schank said. He messaged Debra, and she told him that they both needed to pray.
“Out of nowhere, at the 11th hour, who shows up but Socks?” Denise Schank said.
One of Cohn’s friends in the United Kingdom orchestrated “boots on the ground” to shelter and transport Socks. His rescuers needed to get him in the car for a six-hour drive to Erbil in northern Iraq. From Erbil, they transported him to Jordan, where a veterinarian removed the bullet lodged in his leg and treated the wound.
Eventually, Socks flew from Jordan to Texas in the cargo hold of an Emirates air- line plane. Then animal rescue volunteers drove Socks from Texas to South Flor- ida, where he was united with the Cohns on June 20.
Socks, who is about 4 years old, had to learn to walk on grass, walk on a leash and ride in the car without getting sick.
“He didn’t even have a bark when he first came to my house,” Debra Cohn said.
Now he plays with toys, jumps and sprawls out across her bed.
The rescue mission started when Cohn, who generally shuns social media, decided to get on her husband’s LinkedIn account one day. The first post she saw was Schank’s plea for help to bring Socks to the United States.
Cohn phoned her friend, Pat Deshong, president of Jupiter animal rescue Furry Friends. She said she needed help bringing home a stray.
Deshong asked “From where?” She was stunned by the answer.
“I said, ‘Debra, I have enough trouble getting a stray back from Miami.’ I could tell by my conversa- tion with her that she was not going to let this die,” Deshong said.
Deshong recalled an earlier conversation she had with a friend who recounted sitting next to a man on an airplane who rescues former government contractors’ dogs overseas. She found his phone number and put in a call. That got the rescue rolling.
The Schanks couldn’t keep Socks because they have five dogs at their home in Naples. Cohn was happy to help.
“It’s a story of perseverance and where there’s a will, there’s a way,” she said.