Hero Dog & Handler Awards

Rutland-based military working dogs and their handlers joined regimental comrades celebrating the end of service tours of Afghanistan.

Soldiers and dogs from 104 Military Working Dog Squadron (MWDS), based at St George’s Barracks, in North Luffenham, and personnel from Melton’s Defence Animal Centre (DAC) flew to Germany for the ceremony at Sennelager.

The highly-trained dogs and their handlers served in Afghanistan on frontline patrol, with search dogs sniffing out roadside bombs and searching vehicles for weapons, while others provided protection for bases. Some of those at the celebration received their operational service medals from Lt Gen James Everard, Commander Land Forces.

During the latest and last tour, Operation Herrick 20, the handlers and their dogs carried out a total of 10,000 searches, with 182 finds of weapons or explosives and 3,709 individual tasks completed. During the seven-month tour, the 55 dogs deployed consumed 5.3 tonnes of dog food.

Two dogs from 104 MWDS were posthumously awarded the Dickin Medal - the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross - on duty in Afghanistan. Theo, a springer spaniel, was awarded the Dickin Medal after his handler Lance Corporal Liam Tasker was also killed in Afghanistan in March, 2011. Four-year-old Labrador Sasha was awarded the same rare honour after she was killed with her handler, Lance Corporal Kenneth Rowe, in 2008.

One soldier present at today's event became a military dog handler after coming into contact with the search dogs at a kennels he worked at. Pte Michael Kelly, 21, joined the Royal Army Veterinary Corps as a handler last year after working at Kirby Kennels and Kattery(c) in Kirby Bellars, near Melton. Many of DAC’s search dogs were boarded there while their kennels were rebuilt. Pte Kelly, of Melton, said: “I had worked part time at the kennels for about 18 months when some of the springers and Labradors from the centre were temporarily re-homed there. The soldiers would deliver and collect the dogs, and I became interested in their work. I completed an online application, and after initial training I joined the dog training section at the DAC.”

Pte Kelly, who recently returned from Afghanistan, where he helped prepare the few dogs remaining in theatre for return to the UK, added: “You could say it’s a dream come true. It was something I wanted to do as soon as I saw the work they do. I probably wouldn’t have done it if the dogs hadn’t been boarded there. It’s challenging but very rewarding work, and you don’t know what to expect from one month to the next.”

A total of 345 military working dogs have been deployed to Afghanistan since the conflict began. The eight remaining dogs deployed at Camp Bastion are due back before Christmas.

Article Source - Leicester Mercury

K9 Heroes of the Afghan War

ARMY chiefs have revealed the heroic lives and deaths of five British Army dogs in Iraq and Afghanistan.The military working dogs were killed in action fighting alongside their human comrades. One was cut down by his soldier handler's side during a firefight in Afghanistan while others were killed guarding frontline troops. A Sunday Mail investigation showed that two guard dogs and three arms and explosives search dogs made the ultimate sacrifice in the last three years. The newspaper report also highlights the efforts by Army staff to keep the unsung hero dogs in the fight.

Handlers are trained in canine first aid and four-legged casualties are often evacuated by helicopter from frontline bases for life-saving veterinary treatment.

In one horrific attack on July 24, 2008, Lance Corporal Ken Rowe and his golden Labrador Sasha, of the 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, were killed in a Taliban rocket ambush. Ken had volunteered to stay behind with his dog because he was worried about a lack of cover for his comrades on patrol. Sasha and the 24-year-old, of Newcastle, died side by side as they searched compounds for enemy weapons in the notorious Sangin area.

Army vet Captain Tom Roffe-Silvester was responsible for the health of scores of dogs at his clinic at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan. He said: "Obviously, in an emergency, humans are always given priority but in Afghanistan, military working dogs are given treatment just as good as that given to soldiers. They are trained to an extremely high standard. When the dog finds weapons, drugs or an improvised explosive device, it gives an indication to its handler by sitting or standing up."

"There are hundreds of dogs in the Army and their service is essential.We have to make sure they are acclimatised to the heat in Afghanistan and they get two weeks to get used to the temperatures. We also take care of their paws as the terrain is much more harsh there than what they are used to in the UK or bases in Germany.We even have specially made boots for them to deal with the terrain. The handlers are also trained in first aid and can deal with heat illnesses, allergies, burns, poisonings and fractures.”

"Our vet clinic at Camp Bastion is staffed by a nurse and a veterinary technician at all times. When the handler is given a period of rest and recuperation, the dog is given a health assessment and rest. In Afghanistan, dogs save dozens of lives every day of the week. As well as sniffing out bombs and weapons, they can be trained to find drugs - the main source of cash for the Taliban."

A sniffer dog called Benji spearheaded a strike by Scots troops against Taliban warlords last year - by finding 250kg of opium and a deadly cache of weapons. The three-year-old Labrador sniffed out the haul, potentially worth millions, during a raid by 3 Scots, the Black Watch, in Sangin. His handler, Private Edward Buckland, 25 - pictured below with Benji - said: "Finding the explosives and drugs is like a game to Benji. When he finds them, he gets his reward - his toy ball. It is work but he also enjoys it and he has fun."

Arms and explosive search dog Benji was killed in support of a convoy in Iraq on April 29 last year.

Labrador Max was killed searching for weapons in Basra, Iraq, on February 19 last year.

German Shepherd Oz was working as a guard dog in Musa Qala, Afghanistan, when he was killed on September 28, 2008.

Golden Labrador Sasha died with Lance Corporal Ken Rowe in Afghanistan in July 2008.

German Shepherd Hero, a protection dog with 1st Battalion, Royal Horse Artillery, was killed on patrol in Iraq on August 7, 2007.

Article Source - Sunday Mail

School Safety - Meet the school in the USA that use guard dogs, not guns.

LOS ANGELES: While some say school safety hinges on guns, cameras or alarms in classrooms, Mark Gomer and Kristi Schiller think specially trained dogs should take point in preventing violence in schools.

Gomer's for-profit company has sent a gun- and drug-detecting dog to patrol the halls of an Ohio high school, while Schiller is launching a nonprofit in Houston to give schools the trained canines for free. Their programs are still in their infancy, so questions remain about dogs that can distract, scare or send kids into sneezing fits. But they think they can cultivate their ideas to help schools across the country stay safe.

Gomer's first full-time safety dog is a year-old Dutch shepherd named Atticus, who reported to duty this school year at Oak Hills High School in Green Township in southwest Ohio.The dog trained at the school before the summer break, said Gomer, co-owner of American Success Dog Training in Bridgetown, Ohio. As part of the company's School Protection Dog program, Atticus learned on the job about marching bands and school bells and the thunk of books hitting a locker.

Gomer, who has trained about 8,000 dogs over 20 years and has three children in the school district, suggested the dog after 20 students and six teachers were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Atticus has won over students, parents, teachers and district Superintendent Todd Yohey, who initially worried what people would think of him spending $10,000 on a dog. Gomer has talked to a lot of parents and faculty, and they are saying it was money well-spent, he said. Atticus spends his days on a leash with two security guards and goes home with Principal John Stoddard at night.

As the programs get up and running, questions remain about possible health problems and distractions the dogs can cause.But Gomer said that fear and allergies are nothing new. He said police departments have been bringing dogs into schools for years, and some children with disabilities use them, too."If a child is allergic or extremely fearful, the (safety) dog will steer clear," he said.

A school safety expert said those are concerns parents and schools will have to work out. Ken Trump, president of the Cleveland-based National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm, discussed the issue in general because he was not familiar with either program. He said the dogs would have to be extremely social to deal with students' initial excitement. "Kids are going to be all over those dogs," Trump said. "There are concerns to work around, but with the right dogs and right handlers and the right policies and procedures, they should be very beneficial."

He said the dogs encountering a gunman would be a benefit, but the relationships the kids build with the dogs and handlers and the sense of well-being they create will probably be more lasting and life-changing. The dogs might be a distraction in the beginning, but they will become part of what students expect to see when they go to school, Trump said.

"There is so much these dogs can do, and they're always coming up with new ideas," said Ted Dahlin, a Harris County, Texas, constable's deputy who serves on the K9s4COPs board of directors. "If I were going to pick a school to make trouble, it would be one I knew didn't have a dog."

Article Source - The Christian Science Monitor 2014

The Belgian Malinois - GB Security Solutions Dog of Choice

It is driven to hunt and capture prey. It looks like a leaner, more agile German Shepherd. It has a 270-degree field of vision and the force of its bite equals 1,400 pounds per square inch. It can run 30 miles per hour. It can withstand the heat of the desert and an August day in Washington, D.C. It can smell drugs, bombs and unmarked graves. It’s deadly enough to help take out Osama bin Laden, but gentle enough to push a toddler in a toy car.

Meet the Belgian Malinois, the weapon the White House didn’t use last Friday when Omar J. Gonzales scaled the fence and ran 70 yards to reach the mansion’s unlocked door, where he was finally taken down by an officer inside. The man appeared to be unarmed — though a search later turned up a knife in his pocket and ammunition in his car — which may explain why he wasn’t taken out by sharpshooters on the roof, who are trained not to shoot unarmed intruders.

But why didn’t White House guards release a specially trained Malinois? The Secret Service exclusively uses the elite breed on its canine force. After an intruder jumps the fence and triggers the alarm, canine teams are trained to be released within four seconds “to act as a missile, launching in the air to knock the subject down, and then biting an arm or leg if need be to subdue the person until the handler arrives,” The Washington Post reported. Chasing people down is one thing these dogs, which are also used by the U.S. military, do best. “The best way the dogs are used is that they can chase down anyone,” a military dog handler said of a dog deployed with the Marines in Iraq in 2005. “A Marine might not be able to catch someone, but the dogs will.”

In June, dogs, including the Malinois and other breeds, started patrolling outside the White House gates — the first time canine agents were deployed by the Secret Service among the general public. The Secret Service has had a canine team since 1976, when it was created to stop suicide bombers. The dogs train for 20 weeks before they start working and then do eight hours a week of retraining for the rest of their professional lives.

These dogs are no strangers to the front lines.

The U.S. Navy SEALs used a Belgian Malinois named Cairo in Operation Neptune Spear to capture and kill bin Laden. The dog helped secure the perimeter of bin Laden’s compound, sniffing for bombs. Like the rest of the elite force, Cairo was outfitted with a Kevlar vest with harnesses for rappelling and parachuting, a drainage system for waterborne assaults and night-vision goggles.

In January 2013, a Malinois in the Secret Service died during a security sweep after it fell to its death from the roof of a six-story parking deck near a New Orleans hotel where Vice President Joe Biden was staying. And last year, a Malinois belonging to the U.S.-led International Assistance Security Forces went missing after a December 2013 operation in Afghanistan. The Pentagon confirmed its disappearance after a video of heavily armed Taliban fighters holding the dog on a chain surfaced in February.

“I don’t remember seeing a dog used as a hostage,” Rita Katz — founder of SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks insurgent propaganda — told The Washington Post. She said dogs had been featured in propaganda in Iraq when insurgents floated the idea of using them as unsuspecting suicide bombers.

The Malinois may be the first canine soldier taken hostage, but it’s not the first dog to fall into enemy hands. A British ship’s mascot, a purebred English pointer named Judy, became the only dog officially recognized as a prisoner of war in World War II after she was captured by the Japanese when her boat was torpedoed. For three years, she shared maggoty boiled rice with British soldiers in Japanese prison camps, some of whom later credited her with saving their lives

Article Source - Washington Post September 23 2014

Security In Public Places

As the terror threat in the UK heightens and we all have to start being extra vigilant, some thoughts here regarding our security when we are out and about at large public gathering places like shopping centres and sports stadiums.

I read with interest about the sniffer dog in Stirling, Scotland that had sniffed out thousands of pounds worth of illegal cigarettes whilst working at the local shopping centre. Maybe its time that local councils realised that we don’t just need protecting against the cigarette trade.

It wouldn’t take much to employ a dog handling team to detect other dangers such as explosives in these areas. The sniffer dogs are not intrusive and just get on with their job without disruption to the public, unless they find something then they are saving lives, and nipping a terrorist threat in the bud. It would soon become apparent to the terrorists that “easy targets” like shopping centres aren’t so easy any more.

At the moment most are just giving a little lip service and a few pamphlets handed out but no credible security measures in place. In order to stop these threats and make the British public feel a lot more secure in our own country, I feel we need to be more proactive.