Navy Seal dogs are highly trained performing incredible missions by Sea, Air & Land (SEAL). These awesome dogs are trained to detect and identify explosive materials and locate hostiles who are in hiding. They jump from parachutes, fiercely protect the troops, are highly intelligent, extremely fast and unbelievably versatile. Many of the SEAL Canine team are Belgian Malinois. This breed is similar to the German Shepherd but smaller and more compact making them a better fit for parachute jumping and rappelling.
The military also uses other breeds such as Labrador Retrievers who are highly intelligent. These dogs are used as Improvised Explosive Device Detectors Dogs (IED) because of their keen sense of smell. The Marine Corps has approximately 170 bomb-sniffing dogs but plans to aggressively increase that number to 600 dogs by September of 2012. In October of 2010, the Pentagon announced that dogs were still the most accurate sniffers around and that the rate of detection was 30% more accurate than the Pentagon’s fanciest equipment.
The U.S. Army currently has (as of 2010) 2800 active-duty dogs deployed. They no longer consider dogs as “equipment” like they did during the Vietnam conflict where the dogs were tragically left behind. Today, military dogs are outfitted with their own equipment including eye protection, body armour, life vests, gas masks, long range GPS-equipped vests and high-tech canine “flak jackets.” Dogs play a crucial role in the military and they are now treated as the “soldiers” they truly are.
For more information go to www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/04/war_dog?
