Article snippet: Conan, the courageous dog, was a Very Good Boy. On second thought, a Very Good Girl. Actually, a boy. Then a girl after all. Or maybe not. For a full 24 hours, federal officials have gone back and forth on the sex of the Special Operations K-9 injured in the raid that took down Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The seemingly simple question was still being debated on Tuesday, a day after President Donald Trump showed off the celebrated Belgian Malinois during a hastily arranged news conference in the White House Rose Garden. ‘‘Just in: #Conan, the hero dog from the al-Baghdadi raid, is in fact a GIRL, a U.S. defense official tells ABC News,’’ reporter Elizabeth McLaughlin tweeted. Minutes later, the Pentagon weighed in, writing in a statement to The Washington Post that ‘‘per U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), Conan is a male dog.’’ White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, meanwhile, refused to divulge the sex of the dog. In a briefing room on Tuesday, she told reporters, ‘‘I won’t do that because then you’ll say that I was talking about somebody’s sex or gender, so I’m not doing that.’’ White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham provided a different answer. In an email to The Post, she said Conan is ‘‘a boy.’’ She did not respond to a question about why the matter had sparked such confusion among authorities. Whatever the reason, the flip-flopping caused a bit of a fracas for Washington, with headlines about the mystery of the dog’s sex appea... Link to the full article to read more