Contracting Out Goes to the Dogs

The Defense Department, it seems, contracts out everything you can think of and then some, including military working dogs.

The Readiness subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee thinks it's time to bring Fido and his friends in-house, according to language in the markup of its portion of the 2012 Defense Authorization Bill.

Unlike other items that Defense has to buy, the Readiness panel pointed out that if Defense takes advantage of in-house breeding, new dogs will result without forking over money for contracted dogs.

There's good money in military dogs, according to the Dog Law Reporter Blog (really), which details an epic battle over a $44 million contract in multiple GAO protests.