That small detail has been used to support a wider narrative about escalating threats against immigration enforcement after a fatal Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Minneapolis. It also sits alongside plans to mobilize National Guard units and prepare thousands of federal troops, even as crucial facts about the kennel incident and the underlying shooting remain out of public view.
What Federal Officials Are Saying
According to reporting by Fox News, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) K-9 in Minneapolis was targeted after a kennel employee wrote the phrase “ICE OUT” on the dog’s feed chart.[1]
The dog, identified as Dina, is part of CBP’s working dog program. DHS described the incident in a social media post quoted by Fox News, saying that at the kennel where K-9 Dina was staying, an employee had written “ICE OUT” on her feed chart, and adding in all caps, “THEY’RE EVEN GOING AFTER THE DOGS!”[1]
Fox News reported that DHS framed the incident as part of a broader pattern of “anti-ICE agitators” in Minneapolis going after CBP K-9s. The agency did not, in the material quoted by Fox, provide examples beyond the notation on Dina’s chart.
‘ICE Out’: Minneapolis Kennel Employee Leaves Nasty Note on Border Patrol K-9’s Feed Charthttps://t.co/FyfH2zzFXF pic.twitter.com/BSLvHrb0eU
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) January 22, 2026
CBP describes its canine units as a core part of its enforcement operations, used to detect drugs, explosives and people at borders and ports of entry.[2] Those dogs are treated as federal officers in many state and federal statutes, and harming them can lead to criminal charges. DHS did not allege in the cited post that Dina had been injured or poisoned, only that the note had been written.
What We Actually Know About The Kennel Incident
The public record of this incident is thin. By Fox News’ own account, several key facts are not known:
Item 1: The report does not identify which kennel housed Dina, either by name or location within Minneapolis.[1]
Item 2: It states that the employment status of the person who allegedly wrote “ICE OUT” is unclear.[1]
Item 3: There is no allegation in the article that Dina was physically harmed, underfed or otherwise mistreated.In other words, the only confirmed detail that has been made public so far is an anti-ICE slogan written where a dog’s feeding instructions should go.
Fox News attributes the incident to “anti-ICE agitators” but does not describe how investigators connected the unidentified kennel employee to any organized protest movement. There is no mention of a criminal investigation into the employee, a complaint to local law enforcement, or disciplinary action, only DHS’s characterization and the language from its social media post.
Without those additional details, it is not clear whether federal officials view the writing on the feed chart as workplace misconduct, political expression in a private setting, a security concern, or a potential crime. DHS has not, in the reporting cited so far, provided any public explanation.
The Shooting That Set The Stage
The kennel incident did not occur in a vacuum. It followed an ICE operation in Minneapolis in which 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent.
Fox News reports that Good was fatally shot during an ICE operation after she allegedly blocked the operation and drove toward an agent.[3] Fox links to separate coverage that it says includes 911 transcripts and documents describing a chaotic scene, but those materials have not been reproduced in this particular article, and no independent investigative findings are cited.
The precise circumstances of Good’s death, including her speed, distance from the agent and whether she was aware of the agent’s position, are not detailed in the summary provided. Nor does the Fox report say whether any local or federal agencies have completed formal use-of-force reviews, or whether those findings have been made public.
Amid the fallout from the shooting, protests grew in Minneapolis. Fox News refers to some participants as “agitators” and notes that separate demonstrations included people entering a church, prompting a civil rights investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.[4] The Fox article does not specify whether that investigation is focused on the conduct of protesters, law enforcement or others involved.
From Protest Response To Troop Planning
As protests intensified, the state response escalated. According to Fox News, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety announced that, at the direction of Governor Tim Walz, the state’s National Guard had been mobilized and was staging to support local law enforcement and emergency management agencies.[1]
State officials quoted by Fox said Guardsmen had not yet been deployed to city streets, but were ready to assist with public safety if requested. The Minnesota Department of Public Safety maintains general information about such mobilizations on its public site, but the specific orders and rules governing this activation have not been widely published.[5]
At the federal level, a senior U.S. official told Fox News that the military was preparing 1,500 troops for potential deployment to Minnesota after President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to anti-ICE protests.[1]
The Insurrection Act is a federal law that allows the president to deploy active-duty military forces within the United States in specific circumstances. Fox’s report does not say that the Act was actually invoked, only that troops were being prepared following the threat to use it.
Set against that backdrop, DHS’s claim that activists are now “going after the dogs” sits as one more data point in an official narrative that portrays the protests as increasingly dangerous. Yet, in terms of publicly available detail, the incident involves a single unidentified employee and four words on a clipboard.
Rhetoric, Risk And What Remains Unknown
CBP and DHS emphasize that their working dogs are critical to mission safety. Official materials describe K-9s as trained to detect threats before they reach agents or the public, and harming them can carry stiff penalties.[6] Against that reality, even relatively minor actions around these animals can take on heightened meaning for federal agencies.
Yet several basic questions about the Minneapolis kennel incident remain unanswered in the public record:
Item 1: Have local authorities or federal investigators treated the “ICE OUT” notation as a criminal matter, a security lapse or neither?
Item 2: Has the kennel or the employee faced any formal sanction, and if so, on what grounds?
Item 3: Did DHS conduct any internal review into how the dog was housed and supervised while in private care?
Item 4: Beyond this one example, are there documented attempts to harm or sabotage CBP K-9s connected to the Minneapolis protests?The Fox News report does not address those points, and DHS has not released additional documentation about the incident to the public in the material cited so far. The same is true of the underlying ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good, where full investigative findings have not been published in the sources referenced, even as the case has become a rallying point for both federal officials and protesters.
For now, one phrase on a feed chart carries a lot of weight in the official story of unrest in Minneapolis. Whether future records and investigations show that it signaled a real threat to federal K-9s, or a symbolic act sent from an anonymous employee that was amplified into something larger, is information the public does not yet have.
