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Gun Dogs And War

Dogs are ‘recruited’ into the military in many ways. Some have been abandoned or left for dead by their owners with others found tied to lampposts or thrown out of cars and rescued from neglect.

Many dogs are handed into Dog Rescue Centre’s because their owners can no longer manage to keep them for a variety of reasons. It is these Centre’s that are ‘fertile’ recruiting centres for potential canine recruits into the Armed Forces.

The Military Dog is an important ‘tool’ in the armoury of the British Armed Forces. Dogs are referred to as ‘Force Multipliers’ because they can do the work of many soldiers and with a nose that is estimated to be 700 times more sensitive than the human nose they can sniff out problems at a distance and give prior warning of possible dangerous situations.

Dogs currently in use in the military are employed in the following disciplines:

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• Protection Dog. German and Belgian Shepherd Dogs are predominantly used as Protection Dogs. They are employed to provide an overt enhanced security presence in areas where there is a defined perimeter. They will always be accompanied by a handler. If released into the attack a Protection dog is more than capable of apprehending an intruder.

It takes approximately 3 months to train a Protection Dog.

• Arms and Explosives Search Dog (AES). Because of their ‘finely tuned’ sense of smell gun dog breeds such as Spaniels and Labradors are trained as AES Dogs. In Iraq and Afghanistan AES Dogs are employed on route clearance patrols thus helping to ensure the safe passage of military personnel, convoys and traffic. AES Dogs have also found arms caches and many of the now notorious Improvised Explosive Devices (IED’s) used by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It takes approximately 3 months to train an AES Dog.

• Vehicle Search Dog (VS). Like the AES Dog gun dog breeds are trained as VS Dogs. They are employed at Points of Entry (PoE) to barrack areas and Vehicle Check Points (VCP). The VS Dog is also used in the Eagle role – where a ‘snap’ VCP is inserted by helicopter onto roads or areas where it is thought arms and ammunition are being transported by opposing forces.

It takes approximately 3 months to train a VS Dog.

• Tracker Dog. During the Malayan emergency, and the subsequent Indonesia/Malaysia Confrontation, Tracker Dogs were used in greater numbers than nowadays. There are currently only a small number of Tracker Dogs on the military inventory and are to be found in Brunei assisting in Jungle Warfare Training.

As with AES and VS Dogs only gun dog breeds are used as trackers and it also takes about three months for them to be trained.

• RAF Police Dogs. Police Dogs are only employed in the Royal Air Force. They are trained in the same disciplines as the Protection, AES and VS Dogs employed by the Army.

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