War Dogs: Canines of Combat
Dogs are said to be the most loyal to humans, but has that relationship been one-sided? This week we dive into the history of dogs, some of their early jobs before we come to when humans decided to use them in their combat. Dogs in war dates back thousands of years, yet this is barely ever discussed. Join in on the learning of how we humans and canines have been partners in crime since the beginning.
Transcript
Welcome to this new adventure of a podcast where I get to appease my desire
Speaker:to be a teacher without having to deal with the restless students.
Speaker:I'm Levi and this is Remedial Scholar.
Speaker:You might be asking yourself, Who is this?
Speaker:Why should I listen to you?
Speaker:I am by no means an expert, but I am a constant learner.
Speaker:Mo is reading about random things.
Speaker:The kinds of facts you get from that one
Speaker:random friend who seems to have them coming out of his ears at any point.
Speaker:The friend who you have to ask.
Speaker:Why do you even know that when they tell you something that's interesting?
Speaker:That's what I am.
Speaker:And that's what I hope to do
Speaker:to bring you in this podcast.
Speaker:I wanted to create a show dedicated to some of the topics that I feel
Speaker:are either underrepresented or could be broached in a different way.
Speaker:With that being said, this is not an accredited course.
Speaker:That's only me doing the research and I may miss some things
Speaker:and there's a chance that I may process this information differently
Speaker:than somebody reading this exact same thing.
Speaker:So don't let me be the end all.
Speaker:Be all for your knowledge.
Speaker:Do your own investigating in discovery.
Speaker:My hope is that the show inspires you to research
Speaker:further into these topics because I feel like if you here
Speaker:you already have a similar feeling towards historical events and topics as I do.
Speaker:With that, let's get into it.
Speaker:That's ancient history.
Speaker:I feel I was denied
Speaker:credit critically.
Speaker:I need to know and information.
Speaker:Information
Speaker:belongs to them.
Speaker:Stuff stuck in your head immediately.
Speaker:Class.
Speaker:Dogs have been widely considered
Speaker:the best friends of humans for upwards of 30,000 years.
Speaker:But how did that relationship start?
Speaker:Moreover, when did that relationship turn from strangers to utilitarian purposes?
Speaker:Or has it always been quid pro quo?
Speaker:Today we will be looking at the bond between Canis Familiars and Homo sapiens
Speaker:and how we have been using dogs to our strategic advantage
Speaker:at Vantage as far back as they have been using us.
Speaker:So everybody get comfy because this will not be history in 30 seconds.
Speaker:War dogs.
Speaker:Where did we even come up with the concept of having dogs do our fighting?
Speaker:And we're going to be
Speaker:looking at the relationship or
Speaker:how the relationship moved to that will be starting
Speaker:with the evolution of dogs
Speaker:and how they came from wolves snarling at humans in the woods who being the fuzzy
Speaker:little weirdos and scared themselves when they far too loud.
Speaker:After that, we'll discuss how they began to be our companions
Speaker:and how we shifted them from shifted them into a mutually beneficial relationship
Speaker:and put them to work kind of rent they pay around here anyway.
Speaker:After that, we move into their roles in early combat,
Speaker:and then we zoom right on
Speaker:into the different battles and written accounts of their uses in wars
Speaker:and how they were utilized before discussing advances in dog training
Speaker:throughout that timeline.
Speaker:As we go,
Speaker:I will be describing how some dog breeds
Speaker:came to prominence and expanding on those before coming to modern dogs
Speaker:and the training that they go through to be the best dogs that they can be.
Speaker:So feel free to take notes.
Speaker:Don't feel obligated because it's not going to be on the midterm.
Speaker:So this topic came into my brain the way most topics come to people.
Speaker:Video games now.
Speaker:No, no, I don't think that's correct at all.
Speaker:But my ADHD riddled mind also wanders as I consume different types of media.
Speaker:And I was playing this series called Total War
Speaker:The Rome, Rome two specifically in this game,
Speaker:you get all sorts of different regions, specific troops
Speaker:and units to utilize in the aggression filled campaigns
Speaker:to capture the full reaches of the Roman Empire.
Speaker:Or you can play as some of the smaller empires and fight
Speaker:the good fight against the Roman war machine.
Speaker:All of this information is pretty much semi moot,
Speaker:but in this game you can recruit more dog units consisting of handlers.
Speaker:And what I can only assume are the version of the Roman Malaysians,
Speaker:which we will discuss later, using them to break lines, chase fleeing
Speaker:soldiers or just as an extra defense when your city is attacked.
Speaker:These are all very similar
Speaker:to how these dogs would have been used in the ancient war sphere.
Speaker:We will be discussing this at length after a bit as well.
Speaker:Does it blow your mind that you can look at a bulldog and think of its ancestors
Speaker:as battle hardened mastiff types chomping after the occasional Celt?
Speaker:It makes me think of a scene from the book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
Speaker:where dude has daydreams about killing people with spears and arrows
Speaker:due to the fact that he is a direct line descendant of Genghis Khan.
Speaker:So I'm imagining this blank
Speaker:stare of this bulldog dripping
Speaker:with spit, having all these flashbacks of this massive dog
Speaker:chasing down some scrawny hoplite or something like that.
Speaker:I don't know. There's something there.
Speaker:But it is interesting that all these toy breeds have a common ancestor.
Speaker:I think we get lost in the concept of a common ancestor as humans.
Speaker:But with animals.
Speaker:But with animals, specifically dogs, it really isn't that far back.
Speaker:But while we can point to the common ancestor due to archeology
Speaker:and fossil records, that's only half the story.
Speaker:We know dogs evolved, evolved from gray wolves
Speaker:or a common ancestor between the two, and that this process began around
Speaker:130,000 years ago, was not told as how this happened.
Speaker:But there are many pretty educated assumptions on this.
Speaker:The biggest one is that the smell of
Speaker:freshly cooked food in the hunter gatherer camps drew wolves in,
Speaker:while the more aggressive wolves would have been chased off.
Speaker:Understandably so, the more curious and docile ones would have been greeted
Speaker:with less hostility and even some scraps. Yum!
Speaker:This process happening over
Speaker:long periods of time created bonds with these animals and humans
Speaker:that would expand the different roles for the dogs and so on.
Speaker:Until around 30,000 years ago when we began to train
Speaker:and train them domestically into specific breeds.
Speaker:Now I'm getting ahead of myself.
Speaker:How do we know that this is the favored method?
Speaker:Method? Favored method.
Speaker:All of this interaction occurring.
Speaker:Replication, baby.
Speaker:In 1959, Soviet scientists name Dmitri believe
Speaker:began a study into the document to document the domestication process
Speaker:and to see how many generations it would take for this process to be noticeable.
Speaker:Now they use Silver Foxes and now this is not how we got studs
Speaker:like Pierce Brosnan or George Clooney.
Speaker:Dmitri is interesting
Speaker:enough on his own, but this study is really quite wild.
Speaker:It's wild.
Speaker:Anyway, after
Speaker:graduating from the Ivan Agricultural Academy
Speaker:and then fighting in World War Two,
Speaker:Dmitri was given a position at the Institute for Fur Breeding Animals,
Speaker:which is like the most Soviet sounding thing ever.
Speaker:Congratulations, Dmitri, on fighting Nazi.
Speaker:Now, you may pursue animal interest at the Institute
Speaker:for Fur Breeding the Animals in lovely Moscow.
Speaker:And so Dmitri was inspired by Darwin and the study of domesticated animals
Speaker:while in the agricultural academy and wanted to understand
Speaker:what are known as Domestication syndrome traits that he had noticed.
Speaker:He hypothesized
Speaker:that humans needed animals with pro-social behaviors to domesticate.
Speaker:After all, you don't want something that will literally bite the hand that feeds.
Speaker:His methodology was that by taking the calmest
Speaker:prosocial animal of a litter and bringing them with other calm,
Speaker:prosocial animals, you would soon have a domesticated animal.
Speaker:And he was right.
Speaker:Currently, there's a domesticated species of silver foxes
Speaker:residing in an experimental farm
Speaker:in the near the Institute of Cytology and Genetics and Novosibirsk,
Speaker:Novosibirsk, Siberia.
Speaker:That was a tough one.
Speaker:The descendants of the beginning litters of this study, the foxes there
Speaker:now have many traits that we associate to with domesticated species of dogs.
Speaker:Traits like floppy ears, upturned tails, juvenile
Speaker:facial features like shorter, more rounded noses.
Speaker:And the most interesting part, in my opinion, is the lighter fur color.
Speaker:The lack of adrenal output caused by breeding The most docile of these foxes
Speaker:causes the melanin output to drop and thus made their coats lighter.
Speaker:Now, all of these things happened within four generations of foxes
Speaker:because of the study and the work done by
Speaker:Ludmilla Trut, Dmitri's mentee.
Speaker:We have a pretty good idea of how this process began, how this process
Speaker:happened over the course of the years for our furry friends ancestors.
Speaker:That's a tongue twister I didn't expect to have.
Speaker:Unsurprisingly, it wouldn't be much longer after these initial interactions
Speaker:and iterations of early dogs that humans begin to realize their potential.
Speaker:Some suspect that the early adaptations of the wolves we began to domesticate fell
Speaker:under the hunting, and protection is more likely that they were used
Speaker:in hunting as wolves on their own, or obviously very astute hunters.
Speaker:Some even theorize that early humans used wolves to outlive their competitors.
Speaker:In some ways, the Neanderthals, as humans, began
Speaker:to farm, introducing the domestication of other animals such as livestock.
Speaker:These descendants would be used for herding and guarding
Speaker:for herding and guardians of said livestock.
Speaker:These are the ancestors of the shepherd breeds, as we know today.
Speaker:Other dogs were used for working and pulling,
Speaker:like the sled dogs, which are suspected to be around 9500 years old.
Speaker:And now we're coming to the point where dogs are being bred
Speaker:for specific tasks herding, hunting and most of all, general protection.
Speaker:The earliest version of these are a type of mastiff, which of course
Speaker:they are needs some big old hounds to defend livestock from wolves and bears.
Speaker:In other parts of the world, dogs are seen as near royalty.
Speaker:It's no secret that the ancient Egyptians mummified their animals
Speaker:upon the death of their human, even a god at the head of a well.
Speaker:It wasn't a dog, but it's a dog of Jason animal Anubis.
Speaker:And this God would escort dogs to the field of reeds,
Speaker:which was their paradise.
Speaker:Well, our dogs go to heaven kind of scenario.
Speaker:As far as the utilitarian purposes of dogs,
Speaker:their roles have more or less been the same
Speaker:since the founding foundations of our modern human civilization.
Speaker:Some bred the
Speaker:specifics introducing breeds like the Afghan hound or the Saluki.
Speaker:As the world expanded
Speaker:to include more and more civilizations with written records of their dogs.
Speaker:They find Iquitos, greyhounds, mastiffs, Malamute, Chow, chows,
Speaker:each coming along for specific purposes
Speaker:or brought to existence because of the certain qualities they possess.
Speaker:The oldest known civilization brought the oldest known
Speaker:dog accessories, leashes and collars.
Speaker:The Sumerians.
Speaker:That's who I was talking about. That wasn't clear.
Speaker:Also, were some of the first to bring dogs in to live within their city walls,
Speaker:which brought urbanism to the canines.
Speaker:This meant more guard jobs and less herding with within the city.
Speaker:Guard dogs turn into attack dogs and then come into our topic.
Speaker:Earlier dogs Sumerians also gave birth
Speaker:to the written accounts of dogs, including Ishtar and her seven dogs.
Speaker:Now, while we do not have written accounts of dogs in battle
Speaker:until around 600 BCE is assumed that this was not the first time.
Speaker:With that being said, it's time to move on to military dogs and their successors.
Speaker:And the Kingdom of Lydia
Speaker:is the first documented account of the use of dogs for war purposes
Speaker:around 600 B.C., The Samaritans who are different from the Sumerians
Speaker:we discussed a little bit ago, attacked the Libyans and their King Ali Ortiz,
Speaker:and he deployed dogs to help defend their city.
Speaker:The kingdom of Lydia is most known for the
Speaker:their birth of the golden silver coin minting.
Speaker:They are the first that we know of to do this.
Speaker:And we're even so well versed in gold that they had special stones
Speaker:that they would carry around and scratch suspected pieces of gold.
Speaker:And if the coin left a yellow streak, it was pure
Speaker:and whoever you were doing business was worth trusting.
Speaker:But if there's red or brown, it meant that the person
Speaker:was not to be trusted and the coin was a fake.
Speaker:And then the stone would be known as the Lydian Stone.
Speaker:So they're very into gold
Speaker:now. The Samaritans
Speaker:were a pain in the ass for most of Anatolia or Asia minor,
Speaker:as it were, and they were horseback nomads
Speaker:who caused chaos around the lands.
Speaker:And after Ali Ortiz finally beat his attackers,
Speaker:Lydia became a major, prosperous kingdom following this win.
Speaker:Now, is this due to the dogs? Maybe.
Speaker:I mean, it definitely seems like it could be.
Speaker:The Sumerians were nomadic and thus definitely ruffled feathers
Speaker:of several kingdoms of Asia minor and essentially a coalition force
Speaker:had driven the remaining Sumerians out after this point.
Speaker:This was largely due to the victory of Ali Ortiz.
Speaker:His dogs are said to have killed some invaders and routed others.
Speaker:These dogs were used as a fighting force, but some of
Speaker:but some others have been used as a mental warfare tactic.
Speaker:In 525 BCE, the battle of Battle of Policia
Speaker:and between the Egyptian army and the Armenian army
Speaker:led by Come by, seize the second,
Speaker:come by, seize released dogs as well as cats and other sacred animals
Speaker:to which the Egyptian projectile forces would just stop firing
Speaker:since they held these animals so dear, which is a genius move.
Speaker:Oh, you love these things. Better not shoot us.
Speaker:You're going to kill them all.
Speaker:In 490 BCE, the famous battle
Speaker:of Marathon was fought and a dog followed his hoplite master into battle.
Speaker:This dog has been memorialized in many murals about this battle
Speaker:now in the age of Rome, which was the inspiration
Speaker:for me to do this episode in the first place.
Speaker:Dogs had many similar jobs we had mentioned before.
Speaker:They also bred a dog specific just for war, the mythical Molasses
Speaker:or Molaison, was used in conjunction with the Legionnaires.
Speaker:This dog originated in Greece and like many other
Speaker:fine Greek things, Romans stole this to
Speaker:the molasses and is thought to be an ancestor of the massive breeds.
Speaker:So imagine the red Roman shield
Speaker:like the big square shield right?
Speaker:And the soldier carrying it looking massive already
Speaker:with this £200 dog marching with them, just hungry,
Speaker:angry, ready to kill anything that runs away from them.
Speaker:They're being used in more versatile ways, such as chasing, chasing,
Speaker:fleeing soldiers and breaking up formations, disrupting momentum,
Speaker:as well as just overwhelming troops and following up with cavalry.
Speaker:Now, the Romans were not the only ones to be using dogs at this time
Speaker:either, because their primary enemies also use dogs.
Speaker:Julius Caesar sounds familiar.
Speaker:Even wrote about the Celtic warriors that were flanked
Speaker:by their ferocious Irish Wolfhounds.
Speaker:By 391 A.D., there was this breed of dogs that was already known in Rome.
Speaker:It was a big deal
Speaker:because the Roman consul, Quintus Aurelius, received seven of them as a gift
Speaker:and everyone in Rome was amazed by these things.
Speaker:And later on these dogs were even used for the entertainment in the Circus Maximus.
Speaker:As time passed, the Celts were pushed back into Brittany in the British Isles,
Speaker:and they fought with their gentle giants with them.
Speaker:These hounds were so valuable that only emperors, kings, no nobility,
Speaker:poets could own them, and they would be given as cherished gifts.
Speaker:They even had chains and collars made of precious metal and stones to
Speaker:decorate them.
Speaker:Now definitely should be noted
Speaker:that the majority of the dogs in these military campaigns were century
Speaker:like they watched over camps, alerted guards of approaching potential threats.
Speaker:They were not leading every battle.
Speaker:They certainly weren't the fodder for warriors of the ancient world.
Speaker:Dogs like horses had to be trained and thus had to have a trainer
Speaker:paid to train them, which could get expensive.
Speaker:And for free.
Speaker:And frivolous spending was for banquets not on battle.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:However, Roman usage of various dog breeds
Speaker:did give birth to the military dog market.
Speaker:They had bred the Malaysian from dogs they found in Greece to be better war
Speaker:dogs.
Speaker:Other people were doing the same thing.
Speaker:And since Rome had essentially created an international road system
Speaker:in Europe, traveling dog markets were now available.
Speaker:Even more varieties were birthed and crafted and Roman houses now
Speaker:had beware of dog signs on on the floor in their mosaic floors in Latin.
Speaker:And no kidding.
Speaker:Like literally beware of dog.
Speaker:A lot of these dogs being bred of fortunately would meet their end in
Speaker:many of the gladiatorial combat sessions littered throughout the Roman Empire.
Speaker:This would be echoed in the medieval period
Speaker:when bathing emerged as a popular pastime.
Speaker:I guess they thought having dogs try and kill humans was beneath them.
Speaker:So they had hungry, angry dogs fight bears and bulls or anything
Speaker:that seemed interesting enough the larger animals would often be chained.
Speaker:So not really a fight as much as it was a massacre.
Speaker:No wonder is called the Dark Ages.
Speaker:This also allegedly tenderize the meat of these animals.
Speaker:So I guess it's just a really, really violent meal prep.
Speaker:Unfortunately, this 12th century
Speaker:sport would pave the way for even more ferocious dogs.
Speaker:And I have no doubt that some aggressive breeders took
Speaker:that.
Speaker:Some aggressive breeders
Speaker:tried to create the perfect fighting dog for these matches.
Speaker:These types of things are not even close to as bad as it will get for dogs.
Speaker:In this story, though, in 1492, if you can finish that rhyme,
Speaker:you probably know the next bit of this is going to get dark. Yes.
Speaker:In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue
Speaker:and he brought civilized Europe to the Americas.
Speaker:And subsequently his large attack dogs as well.
Speaker:He mostly brought them to test unfamiliar food.
Speaker:He also brought them
Speaker:he also brought them to terrorize the natives that he now knew lived there.
Speaker:And much like I mentioned before, these dogs would be chasing,
Speaker:fleeing natives, often mauling them to death, which,
Speaker:you know, entertained his men greatly, which good for them.
Speaker:In the 16th century, the Spanish conquistadors brought
Speaker:their Spanish mastiffs to the Americas
Speaker:to continue what Columbus had started.
Speaker:16th Century also brought human tracking dogs to fruition.
Speaker:Now in the seventh century, jumping back a little bit,
Speaker:a French monk name Cuba, I'm assuming since these French bred dogs
Speaker:that would eventually turn into what we know as hounds or scent hounds.
Speaker:Cuba was deemed a saint later on and he is the patron
Speaker:saint of hunters, mathematicians, opticians and metal workers.
Speaker:Really Renaissance man.
Speaker:His is
Speaker:honored by hunters as being the first ethical hunter.
Speaker:And once allegedly, it was hunting a stag
Speaker:that had a floating cross between his and his antlers.
Speaker:Like, you know, you often do.
Speaker:And God supposedly talked to him at this moment.
Speaker:And other versions of the story include the stag directing.
Speaker:Huber on how to hunt a killing.
Speaker:Only the eldest stags and holding animals in their higher regard
Speaker:as they are God's creatures are really pertinent.
Speaker:But I just kind of found it fascinating.
Speaker:After this interaction, his interest in animals skyrocketed
Speaker:and he began to began breeding hounds
Speaker:specifically the ones with adapted senses of smell.
Speaker:These hounds have been used for tracking hunting game like boar and deer.
Speaker:But in the 16th century they began to they began to use them to track runaway
Speaker:prisoners fleeing warriors and also slaves who sought freedom.
Speaker:So in those last
Speaker:200 years, dogs have been used in some of the most nefarious uses today.
Speaker:And that is sad and unfortunate.
Speaker:And I think it's also a testament to
Speaker:what a dog would do for its own trainer.
Speaker:They don't really see the atrocities or the violence.
Speaker:They see the objective, they see the reward and they see the punishment.
Speaker:So those
Speaker:uses would continue, especially the slave chasing.
Speaker:Although many negative tests have been given to the dogs,
Speaker:the next major development with dogs came in the form of guide dogs,
Speaker:which I didn't even realize was such an old idea.
Speaker:In the 1750s in a Parisian hospital for the blind
Speaker:instructors, instructions began to be made for guide dogs to help those in need.
Speaker:An Austrian man named Joseph Risinger had trained two separate dogs
Speaker:so well that people thought he was literally faking his blindness.
Speaker:Another man from Austria founded the Institute for the Training
Speaker:of the Blind in Vienna, which is not a blind person combat school.
Speaker:Although I wish it was.
Speaker:That is when the first manuals began to be produced
Speaker:to help people train their dogs for blind necessities.
Speaker:The recommendation
Speaker:was for poodles and shepherds as the best for this training.
Speaker:Later in the 18th century, dog sledding became a thing, trekking
Speaker:across the frozen tundra of northern Canada and Alaska in the indigenous
Speaker:Inuit of northern Canada had used this like a form of this dog driven sledding.
Speaker:But the Russians like, really made it a modern tool.
Speaker:They're the ones who created the formation and had lead dogs
Speaker:which were given specific commands that would help them drive the pack.
Speaker:There also a version of sledding that the French Canadian
Speaker:military used during the Seven Years War.
Speaker:It was so effective with large loads and in freezing
Speaker:weather and cheaper than horses, which made it perfect for them.
Speaker:These dogs would be used to transport many different things,
Speaker:but mostly male and supplies across the tundra.
Speaker:And the similarities for dogs transporting in the horn,
Speaker:like the harshness of winter, are kind of like
Speaker:compare as to the usefulness of the camel in the desert, right?
Speaker:Camels super adapted to the
Speaker:desert can walk for a long time and humans use them.
Speaker:Their dog's been used in the winter and the tundra for sledding.
Speaker:The dog sledding was also helped to prevent
Speaker:a massive epidemic in 1925, a very famous one.
Speaker:But we're getting ahead of ourselves a little bit again.
Speaker:So let me back up.
Speaker:Back to the Mormon.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:In 1835, British Parliament
Speaker:finally outlawed the wild practice of baiting.
Speaker:Hurray!
Speaker:But this actually turned into a worse thing for the dogs,
Speaker:specifically because of the dwindling population of bears
Speaker:and bulls forced their hand with its savage strain of dogfighting.
Speaker:Just took its place.
Speaker:Michael Vick wait outside.
Speaker:Instead of crowds watching dogs tearing the chained
Speaker:up, animal, spectators now began to bet on dogs
Speaker:fighting against one another, which is not a good move to the death.
Speaker:More often than not.
Speaker:Obviously, dogs have fought before this,
Speaker:and I could only imagine what like a Roman lost in fighting
Speaker:an Irish wolfhound would be like in like the Colosseum or something.
Speaker:But this was the first time it was the entertainment for many
Speaker:dogfighting spread all over, becoming a major becoming major
Speaker:in the United States, as well as European and Asian and Latin American countries.
Speaker:And even though it is legal in most places,
Speaker:it is legal in parts of Japan as well as Russia,
Speaker:which doesn't really surprise me that much.
Speaker:The growth of the the growth of dogfighting gave way
Speaker:to some newer breeds as well.
Speaker:Since people were trying to win money however they could.
Speaker:The American bull terrier descended of the old the old English terrier
Speaker:or an old English bulldog were bred for their fighting ability.
Speaker:They would be eventually used in
Speaker:the Civil War, but they were loved by the dogfighting community and kind of
Speaker:still are.
Speaker:These dogs are demonized
Speaker:like more than any other dog, I think, in modern times anyway.
Speaker:And it's weird because you can look back at history
Speaker:and see which dogs were the ones people were scared of the most.
Speaker:And it's always changed.
Speaker:So in like this weird backwards breeding, there's
Speaker:many of these dogs that were bred from the most aggressive of the litter
Speaker:so that they can be better fighters and whatnot.
Speaker:And so you have an excess number of dogs with these traits.
Speaker:And in the aggressiveness bred into them over the years.
Speaker:Now, personally, I've yet to meet an aggressive one,
Speaker:but I've heard plenty of stories because people can't see a picture of a,
Speaker:you know, a pit bull without telling their horror story about
Speaker:their whole family and stuff.
Speaker:But in
Speaker:2000, a study was conducted that found that the pit bull dogs
Speaker:accounted for 67% of dog bite incidents in the United States
Speaker:during 1979 and 1998, yet didn't even account
Speaker:for close to 60% of the population of dogs in the United States.
Speaker:The study also included Rottweilers, which
Speaker:which are another dog breed that people began to get because of its
Speaker:dominating presence and the status they felt that brought them now.
Speaker:And what seems to have been a response to the events
Speaker:I just described, the ASPCA or the American Society
Speaker:for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, was founded in 1866.
Speaker:Henry Burge founded it to advocate for animal abuse legislation originally
Speaker:aimed at protecting livestock like horses from being abused on the farms.
Speaker:But expanded it to all animals.
Speaker:11 years later,
Speaker:in 1877, the first Westminster Kennel,
Speaker:the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, a mouthful, was held
Speaker:at Madison Square Garden, and I have yet to ever watch it
Speaker:now seem best in show, so that should count for something.
Speaker:I feel like
Speaker:now more and more clubs were formed after this,
Speaker:including the American Kennel Club in 1884,
Speaker:followed by the United Kennel Club in 1898,
Speaker:the UK being for profit and the AKC being nonprofit
Speaker:Back to Dogs at work in 1888, London
Speaker:Shaken with the gruesome murders of the White Chapel
Speaker:District, hounds were being used to hunt for Jack the Ripper.
Speaker:These dogs were just common human trafficking, not human trafficking.
Speaker:And oh my God, human trafficking hounds.
Speaker:And they had no other training
Speaker:to be any more help to their police counterparts in 1899. But
Speaker:human trafficking dogs still get me.
Speaker:I'm sorry.
Speaker:I'm just imagining
Speaker:those dogs just driving this van of people.
Speaker:Anyway, sidetracked.
Speaker:Or back in 1899, police in Belgium began training,
Speaker:training dogs specifically for police work,
Speaker:even though dogs had been working with guards and sentries for centuries.
Speaker:At this point, these dogs were specifically trained in a more
Speaker:in a much more organized fashion.
Speaker:This training spread throughout Europe, catching the minds of German
Speaker:and Austria-Hungary officials, breeding became a focus for their training,
Speaker:and the search was on for a dog that could fit their
Speaker:very specific criteria a man named Max von Stephan.
Speaker:It's assuming it's got that launched, you know,
Speaker:because it's German anyway, believe that dogs should be bred for working.
Speaker:And he encountered a dog who was the product of several generations of
Speaker:of breeding
Speaker:that fit what he believed to be the perfect working dog.
Speaker:He purchased his dog immediately after meeting him.
Speaker:And this dog was the first of the now German Shepherd dog line.
Speaker:This would also pave the way for pave the way to other dogs
Speaker:synonymous with working in war, like the Belgian Malinois.
Speaker:We also have the integration of coach dogs dating back to the 17th century
Speaker:with dogs like the Dalmatians, which hail from Croatia, which I did not know.
Speaker:But it makes sense because they kind of run.
Speaker:The Dalmatians are often associated with firefighters,
Speaker:so I was curious about that and had to look it up.
Speaker:The spotted dogs were picked due to their size to accompany
Speaker:horses on rides while they pulled the coaches.
Speaker:And like most things in the 17th century,
Speaker:they were soon a status symbol as well because of their, you know, coats
Speaker:their spots, make them superstar after.
Speaker:But they were also work as protection as well.
Speaker:This is one of the reasons why fire departments use them.
Speaker:But they also match the pride that the firefighters took in their coaches
Speaker:and were companion of were one of the top companion dogs
Speaker:which made training them relatively simple.
Speaker:In the 1870s, the fire
Speaker:Department of New York started using them as carriage dogs.
Speaker:And, you know, like I said earlier, with the with the pride
Speaker:matching the status dog between fire department, like,
Speaker:you can still look at fire trucks now and they're always immaculate.
Speaker:They're always like it seems like they're always car show ready.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Anyway,
Speaker:but the relationship ended with the motorized car pulling the fire equipment,
Speaker:but they kind of are still this weird pseudo mascot.
Speaker:Although I have heard that most fire stations like cats now
Speaker:because you can leave them unattended for a while and that's kind of
Speaker:kind of do their thing, you know,
Speaker:early 20th century followed the late 19th century
Speaker:fascination with dog clubs by introducing crowd favorite dogs.
Speaker:The Chihuahua had become a perfect, emblematic version of the toy breed,
Speaker:and weirdly enough, one of the oldest canine breeds in the Americas
Speaker:Chihuahuas were popular in South American civilizations
Speaker:and can be seen in decorations and artifacts of the Aztec.
Speaker:The Tyche G was the bigger version of the Chihuahua,
Speaker:and when the Aztecs toppled the Toltec, they adopted their pride into a dog
Speaker:that kitschy and made a more refined and smaller animal.
Speaker:And then when the conquistadors conquered the Aztecs, Montezuma
Speaker:was said to treasure his tiki.
Speaker:These dogs survived in remote villages,
Speaker:and then in the 18th and 19th century, Americans were fascinated with the dog,
Speaker:and they became very popular in the high social circles, the very fancy people.
Speaker:And I did not know that that the Chihuahua was the favorite dog of two
Speaker:lost empires.
Speaker:Morbid fun fact, the Spanish conquistadors eight in a legend, 100,000
Speaker:of these dogs when they were starving on their expedition.
Speaker:This helped lead the ticket to extinction
Speaker:and the descendants ended up being found in the state of Chihuahua.
Speaker:Hence the name.
Speaker:And I mean,
Speaker:if you needed another reason to hate conquistadors, I guess that's it.
Speaker:Unless you really hate 2 hours.
Speaker:But I still wouldn't pick the conquistadors
Speaker:just because they kind of sucked.
Speaker:But other dogs became very popular
Speaker:for just companionship and not just working in the United States.
Speaker:German shepherds and Labradors competed against one another
Speaker:to become the most popular dog breeds in the country.
Speaker:Now back to the main topic.
Speaker:Dogs would be once again called to help their fearless friends
Speaker:being used in World War One for all sorts of different types of missions,
Speaker:mostly used for message delivery across the battlefield.
Speaker:They were also used for pulling cards that held machine guns
Speaker:as well as supplies,
Speaker:in some cases more than 2000 dogs were in service on the Western Front,
Speaker:bouncing across, damaged no man's land and evading artillery to
Speaker:to deliver might to to to deliver vital messages.
Speaker:Some dogs were even used to catch rats in the trench to prevent them
Speaker:from spreading illnesses.
Speaker:Even pilots use them as companions.
Speaker:The Red Baron even had a dog named Maurits who flew with them on occasion.
Speaker:And I kind of like wonder if that's where the Snoopy and the Red Baron
Speaker:thing comes from.
Speaker:I'm not for sure, but it's kind of interesting.
Speaker:Now, one of the most famous of the dogs on the Allied side was Sergeant Stubby.
Speaker:Sergeant Stubby served with
Speaker:the 102nd Infantry in France for a year and a half.
Speaker:In his service. He was hurt with mustard gas.
Speaker:And then when he would return to his comrades, he knew to alert them
Speaker:of the gas when it was arriving because he had this, you know,
Speaker:conditioning about it and saved a bunch of lives in that process.
Speaker:He also located injured troops in no man's land.
Speaker:The acute sense of hearing
Speaker:also allowed him to alert his unit with artillery on the way.
Speaker:Since it produced this very particular like whining sound,
Speaker:he he even captured a German spy.
Speaker:You know, this dog is awesome.
Speaker:He was eventually smuggled home and lived for eight more years
Speaker:following the conclusion of the war.
Speaker:His body is now on display at the Smithsonian.
Speaker:If you're curious or in the neighborhood
Speaker:now, in between
Speaker:World Wars, we have the 1925 mushing of dogs
Speaker:from Indiana to Nome, which I briefly mentioned earlier.
Speaker:It's a 674 mile journey across snow covered lands.
Speaker:20 mushers were used, 150 sled dogs in service,
Speaker:and every one of them are heroes for preventing diphtheria.
Speaker:Outbreak in Nome.
Speaker:The journey took six days, and the dog, Balto, was the most famous of the dogs
Speaker:since he was the first one to cross the finish line.
Speaker:Or I guess not finish line, but just get there.
Speaker:Now. This has led to some contention.
Speaker:The musher who trained Balto did not think he was lead dog material.
Speaker:Leonard Seppala did a bulk of the journey with his dog Togo.
Speaker:Togo as the lead for most of it.
Speaker:Seppala and Togo covered 365 miles alone,
Speaker:which had even experienced temperatures of -40 degrees.
Speaker:Seppala, too, is on a mission, could not see.
Speaker:But then Togo led him on Togo is underground hero of the event
Speaker:for doing a bulk of the lead and Balta was the first one to cross the line.
Speaker:But I think they both obviously deserve a lot of credit and all involved
Speaker:everybody involved, the dogs included, are heroes.
Speaker:Now some see the statue of Balto in New York City as shameful
Speaker:since they didn't give one to Togo.
Speaker:But I kind of think statues like this are more for the whole entire event
Speaker:and not just, you know, the face crafted, but not everybody looks at it that way.
Speaker:Now, with the breaking of World War Two, it would be impossible
Speaker:to move on without discussing the use of dogs by the Nazi machine.
Speaker:German shepherds, unfortunately, do their obedient nature.
Speaker:Dogs were utilized by these maniacs
Speaker:because they were good at being the dogs that they were bred for.
Speaker:Also, simultaneously, they had become more popular in the United States
Speaker:and were used by crime bosses and bootleggers, which made the public,
Speaker:which made the public real weary of them for a long time.
Speaker:Which kind of goes back to the thing I was talking about by different
Speaker:dog breeds becoming different like,
Speaker:I don't know, targets by the public.
Speaker:These dogs were used as guard dogs for concentration camps,
Speaker:but also Hitler took to them like really well.
Speaker:One notable dog was named Blondie.
Speaker:This was a favorite of not just Hitler,
Speaker:but like everybody around him, he had Blondie with him in his bunker.
Speaker:And even during his last days, he used the dogs loyalty against her.
Speaker:He had a doctor test, cyanide pills on the dog to which she died.
Speaker:And weirdly enough, after Eva Braun suicide
Speaker:workers of the bunker were more sad about Blondie's death, which I guess
Speaker:kind of surprises me.
Speaker:But then again, doesn't really, because it's a dog. Did
Speaker:the allies use dogs
Speaker:in many different ways, just as they had in World War One?
Speaker:Since trench warfare was not the norm anymore, they adapted Soviet
Speaker:troops, trained dogs to run under German tanks while strapped with explosives.
Speaker:The only problem is that they trained them with Soviet tanks
Speaker:and that the dogs were just as likely to run under Russian tanks
Speaker:or towards their Russian counterparts in the heat and confusion of battle.
Speaker:And this would ultimately lead to Soviet deaths.
Speaker:The U.S.
Speaker:used dogs donated by owners to aid the Pacific Theater.
Speaker:Dogs were used to help take the islands back from the Japanese,
Speaker:and the Doberman pinscher became the official dog of the United States
Speaker:Marine Corps, even though they didn't exclusively use this dog breed.
Speaker:But it still became their mascot.
Speaker:545 dogs returned with their handlers after their fighting in the Pacific theater.
Speaker:And World War Two has its own chart.
Speaker:Sergeant Stubby as well.
Speaker:Chips, a German shepherd Collie Malamute mix is considered
Speaker:one of the most decorated animals of any war, having served in the third
Speaker:Infantry Division, traveling to Africa, Italy, France and Germany
Speaker:in 1943.
Speaker:Chips as his handler, Private John Raoul, were pinned down by Italian machine guns.
Speaker:Chips broke from his handler, Rust the pillbox, and attacked the enemy gunners.
Speaker:The four man team ran away to flee the attacker and then surrendered.
Speaker:Chips had one man by the throat and was ordered to release
Speaker:him, his handler, fearing that he was going to kill the guy.
Speaker:He received a few wounds, but then later helped capture ten more Italian fighters.
Speaker:He's given the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star and the Purple Heart,
Speaker:even though those were all like semi revoked after they weren't taken away.
Speaker:But they basically were like, You can't do that anymore.
Speaker:They made an official prohibition of commendation of animals.
Speaker:He was unofficially awarded a theater ribbon with an arrowhead
Speaker:for assault, landing and battle stars for each of his eight campaigns.
Speaker:He went on to receive the PDSA ticket medal and the Animals in War
Speaker:and Peace Medal of Bravery posthumously,
Speaker:which is a very long medal name.
Speaker:Civilians were even asked to help the war effort, not just with war
Speaker:bonds or factory jobs, but there's even a program called Dogs for Defense,
Speaker:asking pet owners across the United States to donate their pups for military duty.
Speaker:This was a donation, but I imagine just imagine how crazy
Speaker:it would be to be a mom who donated her dog to the war
Speaker:and then her sons all get drafted and then one of them's Matt Damon.
Speaker:No, but they did donate their dogs and they had requirements for what
Speaker:they were looking for.
Speaker:As far as traits go, they asked that dogs were either sex between one
Speaker:and five years old, physically fit, and had what they call watchdog traits
Speaker:dog duties in World War two.
Speaker:Get it?
Speaker:Dog duties would have held a wide variety of jobs
Speaker:and were not all four legged of Rambo like chips.
Speaker:Now Chips was also donation, which is pretty awesome considering
Speaker:you could have just been chasing squirrels and pooping in a piece.
Speaker:All the effort should be attributed to the people who trained him
Speaker:before he shipped out
Speaker:because this nonmilitary dog showed up on the European front right to kick ass.
Speaker:And that's that's what he did.
Speaker:Now, there are 18,000 donated dogs that made up the bulk of the war.
Speaker:However, 8000 would be denied due to failed exams, which were things
Speaker:like excitability, near gunfire, disease, poor smell, a poor sense of smell.
Speaker:They just smelled bad.
Speaker:So you can't you can't go to war with that. Sorry, buddy.
Speaker:And then also unsuitable temperament.
Speaker:There are also around 2000 trained military dogs.
Speaker:The jobs of these dogs primarily
Speaker:what we would think of guarding supplies in spaces, carrying messages,
Speaker:also like rescuing downed pilots, which is pretty cool.
Speaker:And then there was a return to historical form
Speaker:in the Korean War for dogs before we reached Korea.
Speaker:Let's talk a little bit about the military and their focus on training these dogs.
Speaker:In 1942, during World War two, dogs for defense inspired look,
Speaker:Lieutenant Colonel Clifford C Smith,
Speaker:which is no relation that Krylov Clifford the big Red Dog.
Speaker:But how funny would that be?
Speaker:Lieutenant Colonel Clifford
Speaker:spoke with his constituents,
Speaker:and an experimental program was born under the Quartermaster Corps
Speaker:of the Inspection Division within the plant Protection Branch
Speaker:of the government, which is the most bureaucratic world title I've ever heard.
Speaker:This program would be the
Speaker:genesis of the dog training in the military.
Speaker:The Quartermaster Corps didn't just train dogs.
Speaker:They trained the handlers.
Speaker:A manual from 1943 gave this instructions
Speaker:on training, typically lasted 8 to 12 weeks.
Speaker:First, the dogs got used to military life and a sort of basic training atmosphere.
Speaker:After that, they moved on to more specialized training, depending on what
Speaker:their role would be sentry dog scout, dog patrol, dog,
Speaker:messenger, dog or mind dogs.
Speaker:The Quartermaster Corps set up a war dog platoons
Speaker:in the March of 1944 to help out here and the Pacific.
Speaker:There are 15 platoons at all, with seven serving in Europe
Speaker:and eight in the Pacific.
Speaker:Apparently the Japanese didn't dare ambush any patrols.
Speaker:Live with the war dogs in the Pacific, which talk about a good reputation.
Speaker:The Quartermaster Corps even
Speaker:tried to train dogs to find wounded soldiers on the battlefield.
Speaker:Now, they tested this out in May of 1944,
Speaker:but it didn't really work out because dogs couldn't tell the difference
Speaker:between injured soldiers and those that were just from
Speaker:something which is going to come back around later
Speaker:that I have a story to tie into.
Speaker:After World War Two, responsibility for training
Speaker:military dogs was taken over by the Military Police Corps,
Speaker:and they started with an initial 30 to breed range of dogs
Speaker:that they would train but got worked down into seven.
Speaker:By 1944, that seven included a German shepherds Doberman pinchers, Belgian
Speaker:sheepdogs, Siberian huskies, farm collies,
Speaker:Eskimo, Eskimo dogs and Malamute.
Speaker:Yeah, and those seven make sense to me.
Speaker:And you're not going to get a lot done with English, Bulldog or Corgi.
Speaker:Now, Corgis are very
Speaker:intelligent and started out as a barnyard dog,
Speaker:herding cattle, catching rodents.
Speaker:The breed goes back to the 10th century.
Speaker:Even their uses changed when fenced in pastures became
Speaker:fenced in pastures demanded longer legged herding dogs,
Speaker:but they remained popular as just like friends and show dogs.
Speaker:But I like to pick on them because I have friends who have them,
Speaker:plus videos of them running really, really, really fast.
Speaker:Cracked me up.
Speaker:Anyway, back to it.
Speaker:The Korean War saw the canine military dogs, similar to what we think of today.
Speaker:But the real jump, what happened more in Vietnam.
Speaker:The dogs in Korea still had value,
Speaker:but with the war only lasting three years, there's only so much that they could do.
Speaker:There were official scout dog platoons.
Speaker:However, only one would see the action in Korea.
Speaker:But the 26 Scout dog platoon would be integral
Speaker:in the protection of the soldiers deployed there around 1500 dog socks.
Speaker:And in Korea, which is a steep drop off compared to World War Two,
Speaker:but the scale of the conflict was different as well.
Speaker:Despite this, there are some heroic actions worth noting.
Speaker:Most of the dogs were used on patrols, the nighttime patrols.
Speaker:These dogs were instrumental in identifying enemy troops
Speaker:that were hidden by silently signaling to the handlers
Speaker:One such case was Arlo, a six year old German shepherd
Speaker:who was assigned to a to a platoon and did what he was trained to do.
Speaker:Arlo alerted a scent to his handler, Sergeant Jack North,
Speaker:who then alerted the rest of the group, and they all dropped and held.
Speaker:Still,
Speaker:Arlo alerted again, but this
Speaker:time to the left for movement, the sound of voices and marching ahead.
Speaker:The help of Arlo, allowing them to navigate around this
Speaker:enemy troop without incident.
Speaker:Another excellent pup scout dog York was a remarkable canine
Speaker:who demonstrated
Speaker:exceptional success with the 26th Infantry Scout Dog Platoon in Korea.
Speaker:Throughout his service, York carried out a 148 combat missions
Speaker:with his final mission taking place the day prior to the signing
Speaker:of the armistice, which brought an end to the war.
Speaker:Other events such as dogs, ambushing snipers, breaking enemy lines
Speaker:and tracking the enemy scent, the AKC
Speaker:which I mentioned earlier, even described as on their website that the North
Speaker:Koreans and Chinese yelled over loudspeakers saying,
Speaker:Yankee tank, take your dog and go home.
Speaker:I actually looked to find reports of this, but it might just be a rumor,
Speaker:but it's a pretty funny rumor and it kind of takes the Korean
Speaker:and Chinese armies to like the Scooby Doo level villain of sadness.
Speaker:I could have taken the peninsula if it wasn't for you
Speaker:Pesky Yankees in your damned dogs.
Speaker:I can't say.
Speaker:I can't help but think that a part of this animosity
Speaker:was due to the nature of the local Koreans and the dogs.
Speaker:The poverty stricken country often relied on dogs for their meat, for their meat.
Speaker:So encountering dogs that were at the very least fearsome guard
Speaker:dogs had to play a little bit on their mentality.
Speaker:It was not all sunshine and rainbows for the canine Warriors.
Speaker:Dog named Champ would unfortunately step on a landmine while on patrol as you know,
Speaker:dogs were not yet trained to alert for mines or traps in the Korean War.
Speaker:Champ died instantly and his handler was severely injured.
Speaker:There's also another dog that was able to prevent
Speaker:a disaster despite not being trained to find these explosives.
Speaker:Happy was on a nighttime patrol
Speaker:and stopped in its tracks and refused to move forward.
Speaker:The platoon leader was frustrated and decided to push on, moving past
Speaker:happily, moving past happy and immediately stepping on a landmine
Speaker:which killed him and unfortunately happy as well.
Speaker:The 26 provided support to every division
Speaker:and even supported you when you units.
Speaker:The members of the 26 were awarded three Silver Stars, six Bronze Stars for Valor,
Speaker:35 Bronze Stars for meritorious Service and far too many Purple Hearts.
Speaker:The dogs did not receive the awards due to that directive
Speaker:after tips which I had mentioned earlier.
Speaker:But the evolution of combat happening.
Speaker:Dogs were trained to sense things like bombs and traps by the time
Speaker:Vietnam occurred and they would be ready with a different climate and terrain
Speaker:came new challenges for the military dogs during the Vietnam conflict.
Speaker:This one is marred by so much controversy.
Speaker:So I'll be focusing strictly on the dogs again here because
Speaker:Vietnam is just a mess.
Speaker:Learning from their mistakes.
Speaker:In Korea, the US military began to train their dogs
Speaker:on detecting explosives and traps, estimated a number of saved lives.
Speaker:But these advances in training are reported to be near 10,000 service
Speaker:members, closely matching the number of dog handlers involved in the conflict
Speaker:around 5000 canines served in Vietnam, possibly more
Speaker:as the Army didn't really retain complete records before 1968.
Speaker:At the close to 60,000 deaths in Vietnam.
Speaker:For the unit for the United States military, less than 300 of
Speaker:those were handlers.
Speaker:Around 232 dogs were killed in action.
Speaker:Of the 294 handlers who were killed in Vietnam,
Speaker:one of them, Staff Sergeant Robert W Hart's dog from the 44th is IPI.
Speaker:SD received the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously for extraordinary
Speaker:heroism and bravery in defending against an attack
Speaker:and defending against a cyber attack on the down Dao Tang Base Camp.
Speaker:And in Vietnam, obviously the Marines and the Army began
Speaker:the inter-service training of canines to train scout dogs marked the first time
Speaker:since the since World War Two that Marines would use scout dogs.
Speaker:Now, this is kind of cool.
Speaker:They trained at a camp named Camp Kaiser,
Speaker:which is named after the first Marine Scout dog killed in Vietnam.
Speaker:And this is kind of tying in to one of the things that I've noticed
Speaker:in the research of military canine handlers and just the units in general,
Speaker:like they're always a very tight knit group.
Speaker:Like, I know the military is obviously supposed to be like that in general.
Speaker:And that was kind of evident during my time.
Speaker:But like, I have a friend who works as a handler and they just always seem
Speaker:to be very ingrained in the Brotherhood lifestyle handlers connections. Like
Speaker:even even since he's out, like they all just seem very, very close.
Speaker:Still,
Speaker:dogs in Vietnam caused so much annoyance to the enemy troops.
Speaker:Their bounties amounting to $20,000 were placed for their capture.
Speaker:The most famous of the canines in Vietnam was Nemo.
Speaker:Emma Roberts.
Speaker:Romberg and his trusty German Shepherd Nimo served together
Speaker:during the Vietnam War.
Speaker:While maneuvers, Nimmo detected an approach of Vietcong guerrillas
Speaker:and alerted through AMBERG, allowing them both to prepare for the impending attack.
Speaker:Despite being wounded in the ensuing confrontation, Nemo's quick
Speaker:thinking and bravery kept the enemy at bay long enough for throne bird
Speaker:to call reinforcements when the rescues went.
Speaker:When the rescuers arrived, they found thrown Berg unconscious.
Speaker:But with Nemo standing guard over him, refusing to let anyone approach.
Speaker:Eventually, with the help of a veterinarian,
Speaker:Nemo calmed down so the thrown bird could receive medical attention.
Speaker:It's a good boy
Speaker:for his crew, for his courage, Stromberg was awarded
Speaker:both the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star with Valor.
Speaker:After retiring, Nemo was one of the first dogs
Speaker:permitted to return to the United States after serving in Vietnam.
Speaker:That list is now.
Speaker:This leads to one of the more depressing
Speaker:aspects of the United States military in handling their canines.
Speaker:Dog lovers.
Speaker:You've been warned.
Speaker:A sad truth that the dogs who served in Vietnam
Speaker:got a pretty rough deal in the end, no pun intended.
Speaker:Even in Korea, there's like a similar fate that happened in Korea.
Speaker:Soldiers were given
Speaker:roughly 3 hours notice that the dogs would not be coming home with them.
Speaker:No. I wonder if maybe there were more aware of this by the time Vietnam arrived.
Speaker:You'd think after all they did for the soldiers there,
Speaker:they'd get some kind of reward, or at least, you know, a nice retirement.
Speaker:But nope, nope.
Speaker:The military just saw them as equipment
Speaker:and got rid of them in the cheapest way possible.
Speaker:They believe it as most of the dogs in units
Speaker:were being deactivated in the early seventies.
Speaker:The dogs were given either to the South Vietnamese army
Speaker:who didn't even really want them or just put down.
Speaker:It's kind of just a disgrace and the way that it was handled
Speaker:to treat such brave and loyal animals this way.
Speaker:Barely 200 dogs are sort Vietnam made it back to the United States.
Speaker:That's, you know, roughly 5000 that were there estimated.
Speaker:Now, this kind of leads into the final topic,
Speaker:our final chapter this topic, the modern inclusion
Speaker:of the dogs in the military
Speaker:in 2000, which is a lovely length of time to get this issue fixed.
Speaker:Robbie's law was implemented to allow the military working dogs
Speaker:to be adopted by public agencies or former handlers.
Speaker:My friend that I mentioned
Speaker:before actually received a dog this way, which I think is awesome.
Speaker:But the sad truth is that prior to the signing of this law,
Speaker:most if not all canines in the military groups
Speaker:could be seen as equipment and disposed of following service.
Speaker:The fact that the
Speaker:reported expenses to train one of these dogs is so high
Speaker:while to me that they just got rid of them after their service
Speaker:for a general working dog, it could be 20 to $40000.
Speaker:Specially trained dogs can cost up to $150,000.
Speaker:When it's all said and done.
Speaker:Robby's law did not change the designation, but in 2015 they did.
Speaker:Finally make it make the change.
Speaker:And I think it's kind of symptomatic of the respect finally being given
Speaker:to both the dogs and the handlers as well by the general public
Speaker:with random skirmishes, including Desert Storm,
Speaker:in between the conflict in the Middle East following
Speaker:911 and Vietnam, a lot of the focus was taken to ensure
Speaker:dogs would be able to be the most effective that they could be.
Speaker:Dogs had been trained in both detection in the search
Speaker:for different things, for security such as narcotics
Speaker:and other things of that nature, but more explosives in a more wide scope.
Speaker:This was particularly useful in Afghanistan and Iraq,
Speaker:with roadside bombs and different types of traps
Speaker:that could otherwise harm people on either side of the conflict.
Speaker:Military working dogs had been attached to Ranger and SEAL units
Speaker:going on air missions.
Speaker:Most famous of recent years was the use of a dog named CONAN
Speaker:that ended up on a raid that resulted in the death of a member
Speaker:of the terrorist organization ISIS.
Speaker:Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Speaker:Baghdadi, another dog, was with the SEALs
Speaker:during Operation Neptune Spear, The raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed.
Speaker:That dog's name is Cairo.
Speaker:Both of these dogs are Belgian mammals,
Speaker:and those are the dogs that look like the scrawny or cracked out
Speaker:version, the German shepherd, because they kind of are
Speaker:Remember when I was discussing the Belgian sheepdogs
Speaker:being introduced in the newly formed army canine Corps during World War Two,
Speaker:they have a few variants, one of them being the Manuel.
Speaker:And Manuel is a French adjective, describing something
Speaker:coming from the Magellan or Milanese
Speaker:in French, which is a city in Belgium.
Speaker:So these dogs are the most Belgian,
Speaker:a dog can be, apparently.
Speaker:Anyway,
Speaker:with that we have reached the end of the military working
Speaker:dog history and have arrived at the present.
Speaker:But I want to talk about the nonmilitary dogs for a moment.
Speaker:The civilian cousins of the military, working dogs
Speaker:making strides in the way that they care for veterans and civilians alike.
Speaker:As I mentioned before, service
Speaker:dog training goes all the way back to the 18th century,
Speaker:and by the 1920s, a focus on guide dogs
Speaker:being able to navigate cities with their owner was pretty normal.
Speaker:Training centers began to pop up all around the globe.
Speaker:Dogs began to be looked at as more than just guides.
Speaker:We now have dogs that can assist in
Speaker:with epilepsy, PTSD, anxiety and other challenges as well.
Speaker:I'm sure we've all seen those videos of the dogs like rolling their owners
Speaker:or moving their head
Speaker:moving under their head while they practice a seizure to prevent bodily harm.
Speaker:It's all very, very impressive and crazy to think that over 100 years ago
Speaker:they were just considered tools of war or just status symbols.
Speaker:Now, one of the biggest nonmilitary things
Speaker:I think of with trained dogs is search and rescue.
Speaker:Of course, you see dogs being used when there's like a missing person
Speaker:on the news or some type of natural disaster like Katrina.
Speaker:But I always think of the stories of search dogs being used in aftermath of 911
Speaker:when some dogs needed to find fake targets just to prevent the dog from being too
Speaker:stressed out from not finding any bodies, which is sad as shit.
Speaker:All right, so let's wrap it up here.
Speaker:Review some of the things we learn today.
Speaker:While that a random thought
Speaker:while playing this video game has led to an hour long podcast,
Speaker:I hope everyone listening walks away with learning something.
Speaker:And that is the goal for every episode of this new show.
Speaker:Some of the things that I found interesting today were the experiment
Speaker:replicated the dogs domestication from wolves done by the Soviets
Speaker:with the gray foxes or the Silver Foxes that I talked about earlier.
Speaker:The fact that the ancestors of Chihuahuas were highly regarded
Speaker:in some indigenous cultures in Central and South America
Speaker:until being eaten to extinction by the Spanish.
Speaker:So another reason to hate those expeditions
Speaker:the awards given to the United States military dogs
Speaker:stopped after tipped received several high honors in World War Two.
Speaker:And I did not mention this in the main storyline,
Speaker:but the tradition of police and military dogs
Speaker:being a rank higher than their handler to establish respect and also prevent,
Speaker:mistreat mistreatment of the animals is kind of cool,
Speaker:but it should also be mentioned that the dogs learned
Speaker:much better with positive reinforcement and a reward system.
Speaker:So mistreatment is a rare occurrence at the professional level.
Speaker:I think the main takeaway is that that
Speaker:most people, even dog people like me,
Speaker:get so jaded to dogs being everywhere
Speaker:and everything that you don't really stop to think about how they got there
Speaker:and how many different decisions led to the dogs you have.
Speaker:This leads me to my last thought about this particular episode,
Speaker:but I did not obviously bring up every single
Speaker:dog breed because there's no way that I could do that.
Speaker:There's so many specific little dog breeds and not enough time.
Speaker:So I tried to keep it focused on dog
Speaker:surrounding the military and some service dogs as well.
Speaker:So hopefully that kept it interesting and not overloaded with information.
Speaker:Now some final thoughts or just more of a rant will be heard in the last segment.
Speaker:I like to call remedial rants.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:The first remedial rant of this podcast.
Speaker:I want to talk about a couple of things that I think largely get swept up
Speaker:when talking about dogs of war, working dogs or just dogs in general.
Speaker:The first thing is the alpha that so many of these tough guys
Speaker:love to latch on to as a thing that they feel describes them.
Speaker:The origin is actually kind of amusing since it has been recanted
Speaker:by the man who coined the term for animal behavior.
Speaker:L Dev L David Mac did a study on what behavior
Speaker:and is the reason we have the term alpha as he characterized this phenomenon.
Speaker:But when he tried to but when he tried to replicate it,
Speaker:he found that what he was really just seeing
Speaker:was the parents of the pack and that it was not a defining trait.
Speaker:So it really was just the mother and father of these younger
Speaker:but not quite baby wolves that he saw before, which is pretty funny considering
Speaker:most of these so-called alpha burros don't want children or raise a family.
Speaker:The other
Speaker:part of this rant centers around the sensitive topic, but I think highlights
Speaker:the misunderstanding of how working dogs can be, you know, that
Speaker:be utilized by the general public.
Speaker:Around the time of the Uvalde school shooting,
Speaker:I was working with this gentleman who was in his sixties maybe,
Speaker:and we had finished Stop the Bleeding training that was directed that we take
Speaker:since there was an uptick in workplace shootings, which is obviously super fun
Speaker:that that's happening.
Speaker:Not scary at all.
Speaker:But the instructors were two sheriffs of the local county.
Speaker:At the end, there was this Q&A where someone asked about school shootings
Speaker:and the conversation went to this older gentleman that I mentioned before,
Speaker:asking why training dogs to smell bad guys wasn't the answer.
Speaker:He said he wanted a dog in every classroom in the country to smell bad guys coming.
Speaker:And I thought this was silly already.
Speaker:But, you know, then I asked a buddy of mine, the one who I mentioned,
Speaker:who trains dogs, and he told me all of the reasoning why
Speaker:this wouldn't work, most notably because, dogs cannot smell bad guys.
Speaker:They can't smell intent, but also because of how expensive it would be.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So there's 130 some thousand K through 12 schools in America
Speaker:and the average of rooms in a school based on the average number of students,
Speaker:that is at a public school, which is 500 ish,
Speaker:meaning you need about 20 to classrooms per school, maybe more.
Speaker:We'll do that as a baseline.
Speaker:That's $1.5 million and train dogs at one school.
Speaker:And since the average
Speaker:cost, you know, the average cost of a fully trained
Speaker:canine is about $50,000 for this kind of thing.
Speaker:If you know basic math, you then multiply
Speaker:1.5 million by 130,000 and you'll begin to see another problem
Speaker:in the idea of a dog in every classroom, $195 billion problem,
Speaker:not to mention paying the handlers the food for the dog.
Speaker:And then you have to worry about the kids
Speaker:reacting to the dog, causing the dog to be stressed when
Speaker:because you've seen the working dogs with the vets that say do not pet.
Speaker:And now you're going to put those
Speaker:in the classroom full of kids who will want to attach it immediately.
Speaker:You know, and I don't have any solutions for the school shooting epidemic
Speaker:our country seems to have.
Speaker:But that idea that the dude presented just
Speaker:and then he got mad at me for
Speaker:telling that it was dumb is just that is dumb.
Speaker:So anyway, that's it for remedial rant section.
Speaker:And that's it for this week.
Speaker:Next week I'm going to be discussing the pirates.
Speaker:How in the world did Pittsburgh ever win a pennant?
Speaker:No, not those pirates.
Speaker:The Swashbucklers.
Speaker:They are, matey.
Speaker:The SpongeBob painting.
Speaker:You know, pirates are going to be doing a history of the earliest
Speaker:account of pirates as well as the over glamorized Caribbean pirates,
Speaker:and also some different things that I found super interesting.
Speaker:But until then, you know,
Speaker:if you have a topic, a historical topic that you'd like me to,
Speaker:uh, you'd like to hear me talk about,
Speaker:email me at remedial Scholar at gmail.com.
Speaker:Well, added to the list also, you know,
Speaker:leave a review wherever you can, which helps others find the show.
Speaker:Also, listen to my
Speaker:other podcast, West of Nowhere.
Speaker:That's going to be I'm going to have a link tree in the description
Speaker:and you'll be able to follow that and take it All of the things and.
Speaker:Yeah. Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you all for supporting me.
Speaker:Thank you all for listening.
Speaker:Taking the time out of your day and you have a good week.
