Maria Goodavage - Soldier Dogs

Some of the failed dogs become “training aids”—dogs who help students at Lackland’s dog-handler school learn the basics of dog handling. Dogs who aren’t aggressive enough to do both patrol and explosives work can become explosives dogs only and can still deploy. Others can go to local law-enforcement agencies or can be adopted out to the public.

Ten percent isn’t a bad attrition rate compared with what it was just five to six years ago, when more than one-fourth of the dogs bought by the United States would end up washing out. Improved training techniques—with more carrot, less stick—may have a lot to do with the success of these dogs, say those who have been involved with the dog program for the last decade. It makes sense. Would you rather work for someone who gets really nasty when you don’t do something perfectly, or for someone who notices the good stuff and isn’t usually too harsh about the less-than-stellar performances?

Better knowledge of what goes into making a strong military working dog accounts for some of the increase in dog draftees who go on to become soldier dogs. Hilliard and his team spend most of their time at the vendors running tests on the dogs, evaluating everything from general health to the desire to chase a ball, to see if dogs—even those bought on a lean budget—have what it takes.

The nature and nurture of military dogs is complicated because of their breeding and where they come from, to be sure, but it is necessarily diverse because there is such a range of jobs they do. To understand which breeds of dogs get selected for which jobs in the military, it helps to know a little about the range of roles these dogs have. You might think “Seen one military working dog, seen ’em all”—but these dogs are as varied as the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines they work beside.

Just about everything in the military has an acronym, from the sublime (COPPER for Chemoterrorism Operations Policy for Public Emergency) to the ridiculous (POO for Point of Origin; when a dog handler told me about how he had to go back to the POO in order to start his mission, it painted an odd picture). Military working dog jobs are no exception. It is simpler to divide the dogs into some broad categories and then tap into the acronyms.

Single-purpose dogsare used for one purpose only: sniffing out explosives or narcotics (or in the case of combat tracking dogs, humans). They tend to be “sporting” breeds, like Labrador retrievers, golden and Chesapeake Bay retrievers, Viszlas, and various short- and wire-haired pointers. Jack Russell terriers and even small poodles sometimes make appearances.

Single-purpose dogs don’t need to be aggressive. They can be all nose, no bite. Some single-purpose dogs might get naturally protective, but as most handlers of dogs like Labs will attest, they’re more likely to lick you to death. A couple of the jobs (CTDs and MDDs) tend to employ dogs more typically associated with dual-purpose work, like German shepherds, Belgian Malinois, and Dutch shepherds.

These dogs are trained to locate either drugs or explosives—never both. You don’t want to have to stand there guessing if Balco M492 is alerting to a stash of heroin or a pressure-plate IED. “When your dog makes an alert, you need to know whether to run away and call the explosives people or whether to go arrest someone,” says Doc Hilliard.

Types of single-purpose dogs and the jobs they do include:

EDD (explosive detector dog)—This is your standard-fare single-purpose dog, used in all branches of the military. The handlers of these dogs are military police who spend months going through dog-handler school at Lackland Air Force Base.

NDD (narcotics detector dog)—Just like the EDD, except this dog detects drugs instead of explosives.

SSD (specialized search dog)—This dog goes a step beyond EDD work. SSD dogs are a special class of dogs trained to work off leash at long distances from a handler in order to find explosives. They work by hand signals and in the marines can also receive commands via radio receivers they wear on their backs. (The air force and the navy don’t have SSDs.) These dogs can also be breeds that are usually reserved as dual-purpose dogs, like German shepherds.

CTD (combat tracker dog)—Explosives dogs and SSDs can detect where IEDs and weapons caches are located, but it’s up to the highly trained CTDs to track down the person who stashed the explosives. This is a marine program only. Although the job is in our single-purpose dog list, combat tracker dogs are more typically dual-purpose dog breeds these days. “Labs were too goofy for the work,” a longtime CTD trainer told me. CTDs generally work on a long retractable leash.

MDD (mine detection dog)—These dogs do slow and steady off-leash searches for buried mines and artillery. This is an army program only. Labs, shepherds, and Malinois are the preferred breeds for this job.

TEDD (tactical explosive detector dog)—Lackland doesn’t procure dogs for the army’s TEDD program. Contractors do, and they generally buy them from U.S. vendors. The program is a temporary one created in response to a request from former general David Petraeus for an influx of special sniffer dogs to help with IED detection. Select infantrymen from deploying units are given short-term training on how to work with these dogs, who are trained by contractors.

IDD (IED detector dog)—As with TEDDs, this is a temporary program created to fulfill the urgent need for bomb dogs. It’s run by the Marine Corps and accounts for the majority of sporting breed dogs in the Department of Defense Military Working Dog Program. The dogs are bought from breeders and vendors around the U.S. by contractors, who train them and the infantrymen who will be their handlers. (The training of IDD handlers and TEDD handlers is far shorter than that of other MWD handlers—many say too short to ensure the safest and most effective dog teams.)

Dual-purpose dogsdo both patrol work (protection, aggression when needed) and detection work, along with some basic scouting. Scouting is the ability to track human scent through the air. Dual-purpose dogs are the most common type of dog Hilliard’s team procures for the DOD.

Most dual-purpose dogs are German shepherds, Belgian Malinois, or Dutch shepherds. The shepherds usually hail from Eastern Europe, and the Malinois from the Netherlands and other Western European countries.

The dogs the DOD uses are not usually pedigreed or registered. What the DOD wants is functionality, not pure-breed lines. This can make dogs heartier and less prone to problems. The mixing of breeds is particularly prevalent in the Belgian Malinois.

Want a bigger Malinois? (Malinois have gotten notably larger in recent years.) The breeder won’t hesitate to mingle the Malinois with a Great Dane. Want a stronger dog with more reliable nerves than the more reactive and thin-nerved Malinois? Breed the Malinois to a German shepherd. Doc Hilliard says he’s also seen very distinctive mixes of Malinois with boxer, boxer–pit bull, and boxer–Bouvier, as well.

At times this intermingling can make for dogs who are exactly on the cusp of one dog breed or the other, and it can be hard to tease apart the dog’s background. The difference between calling a dog a Malinois or a German shepherd, for instance, can come down to the type of head the dog has, or the dog’s body angles. A more sloped hind end might be the final arbiter in calling the dog a shepherd.