The Real Dogs Of War

Military dogs today get extensive training. Here, Tech. Sgt. Adam Miller carries Tina after she is "shot." Jared Dort

Letting Slip The Real Dogs Of War -- Wall Street Journal

Man's best friend in combat, from Sgt. Stubby to sniffing bombs in the sands of Afghanistan.

At 7 a.m. one August morning, near the town of Safar, Afghanistan, Fenji was out in front of 10 marines, leashed to a D-ring attached to the body armor of her handler, Cpl. Max Donahue.

Fenji, a German shepherd, was on the hunt for improvised explosive devices, the top killer in Afghanistan. IEDs can elude the most sophisticated technology, but they are harder to hide from the expert nose of a soldier dog. Within an hour, Fenji found four roadside bombs. Cpl. Donahue lavished her with quiet praise every time and gave her a quick chew on a rubber toy. "That's my girl!"

Trained military dogs have played a vital role in Afghanistan. They can sniff out dozens of explosives, and even as troops draw down there, many in the military-dog world expect the canine teams to deploy steadily to the end of U.S. involvement.

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My Comment: The info that caught my eye was the following ....

Today, the Department of Defense has some 2,700 military dogs in service world-wide and about 600 in war zones. Another 200 are contract dogs, trained and handled by private firms.

Military dog teams in Afghanistan were credited with finding more than 12,500 pounds of explosives in 2010. It is hard to quantify how many soldiers have been saved by canine detection skills, but estimates range from 150 to 1,800 lives per dog. They serve at considerable risk. Seventeen handlers have been killed in action since 2001, and 44 of the dogs have died in war zones since 2005, the first year for which figures are available.

Those are impressive numbers.