I don't quite buy either absolute. Everyone seems to agree that these dogs are getting classified as equipment, but I don't think it's as simple as what you read.
I'm not sure what you're saying... that this isn't a problem?
From your article (which is from 2012):
But if the dogs are retired on an overseas base, the military will not provide for their transportation back home, a practice that Kandoll says is like leaving them behind.
"The day the dog is retired, the dog is considered excess equipment and not entitled to any transport back," she said.
When a dog is retired on an overseas base and is adopted by someone in the United States, the adopter is charged the dog's shipping cost, which can be up to $2,000.
This
USA Today article from September says:
Legislation pushed by Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., that would require military dogs to be retired only upon return to the U.S. has been languishing in Congress for years.
From what I can tell, legislation was put forward to address several problems sometime in 2012 but only parts of it were enacted.
This is the
Facebook page of the United States War Dog Association. Several posts down ("16 hrs" ago, as of this post), someone addresses several of the articles about dogs being left behind, calling it misinformation. In the comments section, there's some back and forth about it. However, people keep asking about Contract Working Dogs, and no answer seems to have been given, yet. And the original Facebook post does say that dogs who are returned to home bases in foreign countries but aren't adopted still possibly aren't being returned to the US, so I'm not sure what that's about or what's happening instead:
The only situation that we are trying to correct is, if there is no one to adopt a military dog at the home base such as let say Germany, South Korea or Japan, then return the MWD to Lackland AFB or another suitable base in the states before retiring the MWD. This way the MWD can be legally put on a Cargo plan and flown to the USA. Let us keep these false story off our site. or check with me first. Thank you.
So it sounds like if dogs are retired while still overseas, there's no requirement to provide for their transportation back to the US?