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Dog rescued from Afghanistan visits local school
More than 100 people flocked to the book fair at Armstrong Elementary School in Reston last Wednesday to see a special four-legged visitor.
Cinnamon, the world-famous canine who was rescued from her vagabond life in an Afghanistan military camp, was on hand with her owner, retired Naval reservist Mark Feffer, to greet visitors and to help sell the book recently written about her.
According to Feffer, Cinnamon wandered onto the American military base in Kandahar, where he was stationed, in December 2005. "She immediately found her way into the hearts of the service men and women there,” he said. “She unofficially became the camp dog.”
When Feffer was preparing to rotate out of camp, he realized that many of his fellow servicemen were also scheduled to leave. He worried about Cinnamon and wondered who would look after her. After deciding to try to ship her home to Annapolis, Md., Feffer managed to get a military dog handler to agree to ship her as far as Chicago.
That's when Cinnamon's ordeal began. “44 Days Out Of Kandahar,” the book written by Feffer's sister, Christine Sullivan, outlines the month- and-a-half that Cinnamon was missing in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, after the dog handler lost Cinnamon at the airport in the former Soviet Union territory.
With help from Yulia Ten, founder of the Animal Welfare Society of Kyrgyzstan, Cinnamon was eventually located at a local farm and reunited with a distraught Feffer. “She was so skinny when we got her back,” he said. “And we had to pay the farmer for three chickens that she had killed to survive.”
The Sloughi/Saluki mixed-breed did not seem too fazed by the throngs of children clamoring to pet her at Armstrong. The globe-trotting Cinnamon has already garnered the attention of media outlets around the world, including CNN, USA Today and FOX News.
Members of Armstrong Elementary’s broadcast team, sixth-grader Madi Chernick, and fifth-graders Maggie Williams and Briana Curran, were on hand to greet the famous pooch. They had previously interviewed Feffer for their live broadcast morning news show.
The girls, along with Armstrong's guidance counselor, Jill Konrad, are credited with making the school aware of Cinnamon's story and celebrating her visit.
“I was working late on Valentine's Day and saw on television that another military dog had come in through Dulles Airport,” Konrad said. “Cinnamon and the book were both mentioned in the story, but when I tried to find the book, it wasn't available at any major bookstore.”
Konrad investigated and eventually contacted Feffer.
“He lives in Annapolis so we thought he was close enough to arrange a visit,” said David Mathis, media liaison for Armstrong Elementary.
“The rest is history,” added Principal Shane Wolfe.
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