Just before New Year’s Day, Army Reserve Captain Gabriella Cook sent an urgent e-mail from Iraq requesting food shipments.

Not for herself or her unit - for 13 Iraqi police dogs.

"The dogs are starving and urgently need dry dog food," Cook wrote in a Dec. 28 e-mail that said the Iraqi Interior Ministry's only bomb-sniffing police dogs were eating garbage.

The response to the canine food shortage has been overwhelming: offers of help poured in from New Hampshire, Florida, Texas, Ohio, and New York.

The Las Vegas Valley Humane Society is now trying to find a way to ship pallets of dry dog food to Iraq to feed the 12 undernourished German shepherds and one black Labrador retriever at the Iraqi Police Academy.

The appeal to help feed the Iraqi dogs also has a human benefit. Having healthy Iraqi bomb-sniffing dogs translates into safer U.S. and Iraqi troops.

"If one dog smells one bomb and saves a platoon's life, it's worth it," the veterinarian who looks after Cook's pets, told The Associated Press.

This veterinarian also said his telephone started ringing with offers of help after he was first quoted by the Las Vegas Review-Journal about Cook's request to "please send all the dog food you can."

Captain Cook, a Las Vegas police officer, is commander of the Las Vegas-based 313th Military Police Detachment in Iraq. The unit arrived in Baghdad in mid-December to train Iraqi police, including Iraqi officers with bomb-sniffing dogs.

If you would like more information about this canine food drive, you can contact the Las Vegas Valley Humane Society.

Dogs truly are a man's, and often, even a soldier's, best friend.