Military Working Dogs: Impact on War and Handlers
Sydney Kirchenheiter Mr. Brant U. S. History 27 April 2018 Military Working Dogs: Impact on War and Handlers Over hundreds of years warfare tactics have continued to evolve and improve. From spears, to guns, to bombs, to nuclear weapons. These weapons are the deciding factor of outcomes of wars. Win or lose. Life or death. Military working dogs (MWDs), first used by the United States in World War I, are an example of this evolved and improved warfare. Sometimes these dogs are considered more useful than their handlers or other soldiers because of their heightened senses, tracking ability, loyalty, and ability to go where a soldier cannot. MWDs have served as companions and heroes to soldiers during war and post war, and may have even ultimately impacted the outcomes of wars, such as WWI, WWII, and the Vietnam War. MWDs have taken on a number of roles and duties since they were first introduced in WWI. Single Purpose Dogs have one purpose, to sniff out explosives or narcotics. These typically consist of the sporting breeds like, retrievers, vizslas, short/wired hair pointers, Jack Russell terriers, and small poodles.1 Dual-purpose dogs—which are typically German Shepherds, Belgian Malinois, or Dutch Shepherds—perform patrol/detection work and basic scouting. Multi purpose canines, on the other hand, have multiple abilities: sniff out bombs, do patrol work, scouting, and even go on parachute/rappel operations.2 Other dogs typically specialize in one 1 Goodavage, Soldier Dogs, 56. 2 ibid., p. 55 area. For example, there are separate explosive detector dogs, narcotic detector dogs, tactical explosives detector dogs, patrol narcotics detector dogs, IED detector dogs, and patrol explosives detector dogs.3 There are also specialized search dogs, which are typically the same breeds as the dual-purpose dogs.
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