Yeah, the hard part will be not getting attached to them. How much longer is your deployment? It will at least be something good to do while you're there, and you can pass them off to your relief when they arrive. Left leash, right leash walks?
Most of the Iraqis I met were terrified of dogs too, because the only dogs there are wild and roaming around. Seen 4 of them tearing apart a horse carcass one day. I creamed one with a HMMWV once too, unfortunately, but that's what he gets for wandering between a convoy traveling at 40mph.
The only time we saw "real" dogs was when we worked with AF dog teams. One day I'm getting my gun ready and I come down into the vehicle and there's a dog in my face. The wild dogs roamed in and out of our wire at will, but always gave us plenty of room. I was alarmed for a split second, but then I realized that the dog was clean, and had a collar on, and I remembered we were getting a dog team that day. Our terp was so scared of it that he refused to ride in his usual vehicle and rode somewhere else. It was a really cool, chill dog too.
Glad the NP are all right! The guys we had working with us were pretty high speed. Hope yours are too.
Stay safe!
