San Diego, May 28: Life after the military is looking brighter than ever for America’s four-legged veterans since one of their own helped in the US mission which led to the death of Osama Bin Laden.
War dog organisations say the number of people asking about adopting retired military canines has risen dramatically since the mission involving ‘Cairo’, the Navy Seals dog tasked with tracking anyone who tried to escape from Bin Laden’s compound and alerting the special operations forces to anyone approaching.
While about 300 retired US military dogs are put up for adoption each year, military officials say they’ve received more than 400 adoption applications in the three weeks since the May 2 raid. In past generations, most military dogs were euthanised once their tours of duty were done.
“They made a really big deal about Cairo being a super dog but all dogs in the military are super dogs,” said Ron Aiello, president of the US War Dogs Association. “These dogs are fully trained, are worth probably $40,000 (Dh146,930) to $50,000 each at least, and it’s a dog that has been saving American lives. It’s kind of a hero in a way.”
Aiello, a dog handler for the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, started his organisation with other former dog handlers to teach Americans about the long and often sad history of the dogs that have been deployed with troops.
The attack on Pearl Harbour sparked the US military’s interest in war dogs, which Germany and France used in the First World War. Prior to the Vietnam War, the canines were trained to be fierce attack dogs that greatly distrusted humans. But the military soon found that limited them too much and started training German shepherds and other breeds to be patrol dogs.
Highly trained
Today, military dogs are used to find explosives, insurgents and drugs, and to help search for missing people. Some are so highly trained they can work off their leads and follow commands whispered by handlers through a specialised communication system attached to the dog.
They are credited with saving thousands of lives. Last year, Aiello said, a dog on patrol in Iraq detected a bomb on the other side of a door in a building. The dog sat down alerting US troops who spotted the device. If the dog had not acted, troops would have opened the door and the building might have exploded, killing all inside.
–300: retired military dogs put for adoption each year
–400: adoption applications in three weeks since May 2
–$40k: each fully trained dog is probably worth
-Agencies