Evans solider reunited with beloved dog just in time for Christmas

Soldier Ryan Salmons, of Evans, reunites with his dog, Missy, just in time for Christmas. Courtesy photo.

By Dan England

Ryan Salmons can’t say he was ever lonely in Syria. The U.S. Army doesn’t really allow it. They were soldiers, with patrols to do and a base to run, and even though they weren’t at war, they were still a company. 

But Salmons may not have even realized what he needed until he met Missy. 

Missy was a dog. Salmons loved dogs, unabashedly, partly because he grew up with them, and partly because dogs are so great. Missy was not perfect. She was, in fact, a mongrel, a mutt who scrapped her way to survival on the streets of Syria until the Army brought her and a brother inside. She was six weeks old when she became an Army brat. They named her “Misfire,” for a bum hip. Salmons met her a few months later, when he was sent to Syria. 

Missy would cower when she saw him, jump whenever he moved a muscle her way and didn’t seem to want to be around anyone. She wasn’t perfect. But she was a dog. Salmons wanted a dog badly. 

“I mean, it’s totally different,” Salmons said of a dog’s company. “I’m pretty sure anyone on deployment would give their right arm to have a dog.” 

Salmons didn’t give his right arm. What he did give her was time, and treats, and what Missy needed most: infinite patience. He began to notice Missy’s fear fade. She would chew bones, push a ball around and, occasionally, send a toy flying 50 feet. Maybe the hip was more of a mental issue, as she romped around like a kangaroo. She was goofy, the way a puppy is supposed to act, and then, she would not only accept Salmon’s pets, she began to ask for them. One day, he noticed her following him everywhere, and at night, when he went into his room, she would follow, jumping on his bed or claiming a blanket in the corner. 

“She was one of the sweetest dogs I’ve ever known,” Salmons said. 

When Salmon got the news that he would be leaving for Kuwait, he jumped on the internet to find a way to bring her with him. He found SPCA International.

Wednesday, after spending months apart, he and Missy were reunited. Thursday Missy romped around his home in Evans, tossing toys in all directions and getting belly rubs from Salmons. 

“She’s the best Christmas present ever,” Salmons said. 

It’s a nice story, something you’d see on Disney+, but it’s not as unusual as you might think: SPCA International has reunited more than 1,200 dogs and, yes, cats, with service members who befriended them while deployed. The organization started in 2008 after a soldier befriended a dog in Iraq. Now it operates to reunite new pets with U.S. soldiers anywhere there’s a military base in more than 30 countries, said Lori Kalef, Director of Programs at SPCA International. 

SPCA International relies on partners and the kindness of military officers in places that are too dangerous to send a team, such as Syria. Salmons admits, a bit sheepishly, that he pushed his officers for permission and help connecting Missy to SPCA.

SPCA International has reunited more than 1,200 dogs and, yes, cats, with service members who befriended them while deployed. Courtesy photo.

“We had to, um, bend the rules a little bit,” Salmons said. “I just took a chance that I might get in trouble.” 

SPCA International does whatever it can, too, once it gets to know the soldier through a lengthy application and knows the soldier is serious about keeping the dog or cat. 

“We never say no,” Kalef said. “If you were to read one of the applications from the service members, you would never ever want to turn them away.”

It’s not just a sweet thing to do. Having a pet can be a huge help to soldiers making the difficult readjustment back to civilian life, Kalef said. 

“It’s so meaningful to their mental health,” she said. 

Missy recognized him right away on Wednesday despite a few months of separation in the SPCA International facility while Salmons finished out his service time. He’s now in the National Guard and hopes to go back to school to become an airplane mechanic. Civilian life will give him more time with Missy. 

“She was so happy to see me,” Salmons said. “But I was pretty stoked too.”