BALTIMORE — Chris Hardy remembers the moment he realized that dogs could change lives. But he has to take a deep breath and work to hold back tears to tell the story.
Hardy, a dog trainer for the U.S. Defense Department in Afghanistan in 2006, was making a routine trip to a field hospital to pick up supplies, along with his dog, Dirk. A nurse was holding a badly injured baby; the infant was burned on her face, neck and body. She suddenly reached out to pet Dirk, her face lighting up with a smile.
Hardy was told later that until that moment, the child had stoically endured treatment, never showing emotion.
