These fighters are sons of bitches. From the Times of London:
Dropping from 10,000ft, they glide in order to land unnoticed. The dogs often carry cameras and are trained to attack anyone carrying a weapon.
“Dogs don’t perceive height difference, so that doesn’t worry them. They’re more likely to be bothered by the roar of the engines, but once we’re on the way down, that doesn’t matter and they just enjoy the view,” said the dog handler. “It’s something he does a lot. He has a much cooler head than most recruits.”
Commandos from 14 countries, including British special forces and Royal Marines, took part in the Nato exercise. The use of dogs in High Altitude High Opening missions was pioneered by America’s Delta Force, which trained the animals to breathe through oxygen masks during the jump.
The SAS has adapted similar techniques and, according to special forces sources, bought a number of American-trained dogs for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. The dogs used by the British are fitted with a head camera, allowing special forces to see inside insurgent compounds, and Kevlar body armour.
As well as reconnaissance, the animals are trained to attack anyone carrying a weapon, although it is claimed that they will not attack those who are unarmed.
Cool story. I love dogs.
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I wonder if they retrain them after they’ve served their full useful expectancy or if they have to be put down. I know a lot of the dogs used during WW2 in the Pacific were put down because the military thought the aggressiveness couldn’t be trained out of them.
Some of the dog handlers though basically told the military “you’ll put the dog down after you put me down” and so they allowed them to attempt to retrain them. For the most part the dogs were able to be retrained save for a few that still had to be put down.
I ask because it would be awesome to get one of those dogs once they are considered too old to continue in a military line of work.
Retired Military Working Dogs (MWDs) can be adopted! Congress even passed legislation encouraging their adoption.
I haven’t updated my blog in forever, but I have written about adopting MWDs in the past. The best place to go for information is the Department of Defense Military Working Dog School at Lackland Air Force Base. I apologize in advance if this link goes bad, I often royally screw up the html formatting (especially when out of practice)
The main page is here.
A couple of basic points:
1. Dogs are closely evaluated before being adopted out- some just can’t be for safety reasons, but many can.
2. There is a priority list for adoptions. Here is a quote from the website: “All our Military Working Dogs are trained at Lackland Air Force Base and then sent to operational units throughout the DoD. The adoption law gives priority first to civilian law enforcement agencies, then to prior handlers, and finally to the general public.”
3. Civilian Law Enforcement agencies get the first shot because some MWDs can’t handle the rigors of being an active duty MWD, but can work for a civilian law enforcement agency. Handlers being next on the list is a no-brainer. I don’t think words exist to describe the bond between a handler and his or her MWD.
4. Finally, a lot of the dogs who are available for adoption just couldn’t “make it” as an MWD. Even though they are bred for it, sometimes the necessary skills just aren’t able to be trained into the dog.
I hope this information is useful.
I didn’t know it was possible to be punched in the face by the awesomeness of a story. Now I do.
It’s like the dog is telling cats… “You can fall out of a tree? F*&k you look at this!”
I am a little confused by the “Dogs don’t perceive height difference” thing. My parents dog seems to perceive it every time he tries to jump down from their bed. If dogs didn’t perceive height difference wouldn’t they be falling down the stairs all the time.
I thought that was odd too. How could they not perceive height? They would be really inefficient hunters if they had no depth perception.
Also I second Hawk, the story is bad ass and reason number 3,112,714 why I’m a dog person instead of a cat person.
Maybe they meant acute height differences? Like a fearlessness… cats get stuck in trees because they realize it’s too high and they can’t get down. The dogs don’t perceive the fantastic height they’re at and thus readily jump out of the plane when trained to do so.
I don’t think so, Floyd. In the picture, the dog’s tail is firmly tucked between the legs. Whether its the noise, the height, the wind, who knows. But dogs know height differences. Unless they’re blind.
And they are not training the dog to jump out of planes. They’re training the dog to not go crazy being strapped to a guy who is jumping out of a plane. There’s a big difference.
Aren’t dogs amazing? Not only will they be our bestest buddies but they’ll also follow humans into combat and jump from planes with them. For those who haven’t seen it I recommend the documentary “War Dogs of the Pacific” on the Military Channel.
I agree with the other comments that question the quotation on height perception. I suspect mine do…they know what up is and I’ve seen them try to get on something higher to get to food. One of my dogs will bark and try to ‘chase’ the C-130s that fly over our area.
Perhaps the person quoted meant to say that dogs perceive heights differently than humans. We do know dogs don’t see as well as humans so it’s not a stretch to say that they don’t perceive heights like a person.
“‘War Dogs of the Pacific’ on the Military Channel.”
I was gon’na watch it, but I heard Tom Hanks said the American dogs were only motivated by a hatred of Akita and Shi tzu’s.
Heh! Yep, they were just attacking the combatants because they were different.
I think they should do this with dolphins too. A dolphin with a head mounted camera would be cool. Maybe a head mounted laser. That would probably really shake up an insurgent. I’ll bet most of them have never seen a dolphin.
Especially since they live in either deserts or mountains. Both highly unlikely places to encounter a dolphin.
See? It would scare the piss out of them.
Ill-tempered sea bass, Rufus, sea bass.
Can’t somebody throw me a frickin’ bone?!
Sorry, I heard Floyd’s the boss — yeeeeeeeah, riiiiiight.
That is awesome. The thing about my dog is he can lose his favorite rubber toy and I will say Buford find your toy and he will be out in his play ground circling and circling nose down and the moment he catches wind of it he has it. If he wasn’t such an individualist he’d be a heck of a bird dog cause he’s got it.
Forget that height difference thing, I’m ticked off by this sentence far more than it deserves: “As well as reconnaissance, the animals are trained to attack anyone carrying a weapon, although it is claimed that they will not attack those who are unarmed.” (emphasis added)
Because “attacking armed individuals” and “not attacking unarmed individuals” are normally incompatible states, but the trainers have somehow resolved this vexing paradox.