Hayden Haddock had joined the military right after high school because he came from a small town named Berk. Like many other teens his age they would say it was a dead end town with not much to do. Even if they had friends the most exciting thing to do they was walk around and maybe go to the small little park in the middle of town with a basketball court. But Hayden never really had any friends because where others were athletic and at the highest getting C's in school he was one of the few that would get all A's and he just did not get the point of playing sports. So when he graduated he signed up right away to join the army.
After he graduated basic training he got sent out to another camp to wait till he would be sent out to war. At first he was getting ready to be sent out to Iraq. Learning what is was like out there and what there job would be when they got there. But his training quickly changed when they were doing there daily run around the camp and they where going by the K-9 unit area. There was one dog who would never listen to his handler when Hayden and the other on his team would go by. That certain day the dog and his handler were working on going by and on some obstacles with the open gate. Once Hayden and the others were coming by on there run the K-9 booked it out of the training area through the open gate and ran up to Hayden.
"Toothless come" his handler called after the fully black German Shepherd ran
But he just sat by Hayden after they stoped running to get the dog back to the handler. Toothless just looked at Hayden with his tongue hanging out.
"Get going" Hayden said trying to get the dog to go so they could move on
But Toothless just stayed there and kept looking at him. After almost a minute of the dog just sitting there. Hayden nudged the dog and started to walk to were the owner was. So Toothless got up and followed him. Hayden took the dog back over and was about to walk way when Toothless just followed him again.
"Haddock!" Some called
Hayden had turn around a bit to see General Gobber the K-9 training instructor. Gobber had moved over to managing the K-9 teams after he had going hurt on a mission that cost him his left arm and right leg in a bomb explosion. So Hayden quickly saluted him.
"Yes General Gary sir" he said
"Come here quick" Gary said
"Yes sir" Hayden then started to head over and Toothless followed right next to him
"The rest of you can continue on your training" Gary said to the rest of the team Hayden was on
So once they continue on their run Gary turn to Hayden and saw that Toothless was sitting right next to him.
"I see that dog is following you." Gary said
"Sorry sir ain't he the one that never listens?" Hayden asked
"Yes he is but he seems to have a liking for you so take him around and over the obstacles. I want to see how he does."
"Yes sir" Hayden then grabbed the leash that was hooked onto Toothless's collar
Hayden took Toothless around the obstacles and then made him go over some and then headed back over to Gary.
"Well seeing as Toothless had picked you and he does not listen to any other person you are going to be moving over to the K-9 Unit to work with the bomb and drug sniffing dogs." Gary said
"Sorry sir you want me working with K-9s now?"
"Yep you see Haddock Toothless here was going to be shipped out to find a new home away from the whole military area since he would listen to no one. But since he seems to like and listen to you your his owner now. So let's get started." Gary said
So Hayden and Toothless started working together in training and in almost 4 months they were sent off to Iraq for deployment.
When there he and Toothless went on countless missions finding drugs, weapons and bombs. They had quickly worked their way up to being the best K-9 unit team there.
It had been around 3 years since Hayden had first joined the military and he had not gone home once since. He had made many friends over the years too. So today was like any other normal day. He and another K-9 team with 5 other men would be going on a explosive marking mission. To search and find areas that had them.
He and Toothless got all geared up and we're heading to the helicopter they would be taking them and dropping them off to another base near the area they would be marking. But the mission was slowly going down hill. First there was only enough room one the helicopter for one K-9 unit. So being the best K-9 team in Iraq Hayden and Toothless were the ones to go. So they got onto the helicopter and sat down to get ready for takeoff.
Once everyone was in and seated they were off. The flight over was not to bad only about 45 minutes. When off the helicopter they then loaded into two armored Humvee military vehicles. In the first Humvee there were 3 guys that lead them to the area they would be marking and in the second one were the last 2 guys on the mission plus Hayden and Toothless.
The next downfall of the day was that it was way hotter then they planed it to be. It was 120 degrees so they needed to take multiple breaks for water and for Toothless to cool down so he did not over heat.
They had marked way more spots then they thought would be there and they were still marking them. There had to be over 100 already marked. So when he and Toothless were going around searching for more area that they did not mark yet and still had to. They were cut short by an explosion. The explosion must have been an deep underground IED that toothless was not able to detect. Cause when the bomb blew up and exploded Hayden and Toothless were sent back about 10 feet. Hayden was knocked unconscious right away after the bomb exploded. So once Toothless recovered a bit from the fall he got up and limped over to Hayden. When he was overtop of him he looked at his handler and slowly lower himself down to lay on top of Hayden's chest.
The other five guys were aiming there guns around to try and see what had set it off because they could see some wires sticking out the ground. But two of the guys had quickly put there guns over their shoulders so they could hang them at their sides as they ran over to where Hayden and Toothless were at. While the other three were still aiming there guns but this time they were specifically targeting them at a little group of rundown abandon stone buildings just a little over a quarter of a mile away where the bomb must have been triggered from.
When the two guys first got to Hayden and Toothless they could finally see what damage had been down. Toothless was better off then Hayden though because he only got his left hind leg scraped up in the explosion. While Hayden had almost took the full blast. He had his whole left leg from the knee down blown up and it was pretty much gone. He had also hit the ground pretty hard and probably broken some ribs and other bones. Most likely the fall had given him a concussion too.
So the one guy quickly took off his belt and rapped it around Hayden's leg to hopefully stop most of the bleeding. They then quickly got up and told Toothless to get off of Hayden but he did not listen so they ended up just gently pushing him off instead and pick Hayden up. Once they had carefully picked him up they took him over the the Humvee and placed him down inside. They then helped toothless up to get inside also to be next to Hayden.
When both of them were in the two guys went to the other three to tell them they had to move out. So they all got in the two vehicles and headed out to the nearest base. On their way the called in to tell them to get the med station ready to go cause they got an injured.
Once they finally got back to the base they quickly unloaded Hayden onto a stretcher to be taken for medical attention. Toothless was also taken despite all his protests to another area to be looked at. But when the medical staff there saw Hayden's damage they knew that he would need to be taken to a hospital so they called in for a helicopter to come and take him off.
It only took 5 minutes for it to arrive and 2 minutes for them to load Hayden up after they made sure he was at least patched up enough to stop his bleeding till he got into a real hospital. Toothless was not able to go with because they were to busy trying to get Hayden to a hospital in a hurry and he would only get into the way.