The Foreign Service Journal, May 2023

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2023 89 traveled well, and the stench was unmis- takable. We loaded the stinky dogs in the car and fled, leaving the cages behind. When we were confident that sirens and flashing lights weren’t following us, we pulled into a gas station and did our best to clean up the dogs. Jack and Moose Four years later, it was time to trans- port two dogs to Saudi Arabia. Doc had died peacefully in Virginia at age 13. Moose, a black Lab, was Jack’s new com- panion. Only guard dogs and seeing-eye dogs could enter Saudi Arabia. No wor- ries. Declaring the two Labs as guard dogs was not a huge stretch. The paperwork was more daunting. First, we needed health certificates from our vet in Fairfax. Then the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Annapolis had to certify that our vet was properly licensed. I took the certificates to a small office at State and took a number. After an hour, the woman behind the counter presented me with a formal document and unabashedly signed it George C. Shultz (then Secretary of State). At the Saudi embassy, an employee stamped the back of the Shultz document with an attestation in Arabic, tied the three docu- ments together with a ribbon, and added an impressive seal. Jack and Moose now could begin their assignments as guard dogs in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia is not ideal for two energetic Labrador retrievers, but the deputy chief of mission’s residence, our home, was always filled with people, and dog walks in Riyadh’s diplomatic quarter included splashing through the many fountains. Moose launched us on an adventure by swallowing a racquet ball. We drove him four hours to Aramco in Dhahran for the surgery and then returned to get him after he recovered. SaddamHussein’s invasion of Kuwait turned Riyadh into the center of the world for several months and, arguably, contrib- uted to my nomination as ambassador to Oman. In what seemed sensible at the time, we boarded the dogs at the Aramco kennel in Dhahran. More than five months later, we were reunited with the dogs at the consul general’s residence in Dhahran. Moose seemed fine, but age and lack of exercise had weakened Jack. Dog ownership in Oman, given British influence, was rela- tively common. Oman did, however, require dogs to have photo IDs. After 30 minutes of bedlam in a pho- tographer’s studio, punctuated by snarls and yelps and curses, we walked out with acceptable photographs. A Glimpse of Dog Heaven When we returned from a U.S. trip, Jack was struggling. I took him for his last car ride to a British vet who diagnosed the problem as mouth cancer. I reluc- tantly agreed to put him down. That same morning, I had a difficult meeting with Haitham bin Tariq, then deputy foreign minister and now sultan, on the cancella- tion of our economic assistance program. I had lost a good friend, and I struggled to manage this delicate meeting. Our residence in Oman had over- looked an Indian Ocean beach. When we took the dogs there, Jack would plod along the surf, happy to get wet but care- ful to avoid swimming. Moose, on the other hand, would race in and out of the waves chasing tennis balls and scatter- ing gulls. Now, sitting on our balcony, we imagined Jack with his tennis ball slowly walking behind Moose along the beach. Then one day, a yellow Lab raced across the sand with the blinding speed of the youthful Jack. Another yellow Lab followed, splashing happily through the waves. Looking at the unspoiled beach and the sun setting over the Indian Ocean, we were looking at dog heaven. n Jack playing frisbee in Cairo. Moose and Jack in Riyadh. COURTESYOFDAVEDUNFORD COURTESYOFDAVEDUNFORD