The Taliban capture a British dog of war
Just before Christmas last year the Taliban in Afghanistan apparently captured a British War Dag and true to form have posted a capture video of it.
Now that is going too far. I wonder if they are torturing the dog and trying to get information out of it. It would not surprise me if they were. The dog appears to be a Belgian Malinois, one of the favorite breeds for working dogs because they are smart, diligent, and not easily distracted from their tasks. There is apparently some confusion as to whether it is a British or American dog.
As the article mentions, the Taliban have been extremely critical of the use of what they call “infidel” dogs in theater. They cling to the somewhat esoteric claim that Islam holds dogs to be unclean.
I hope the dog is recovered soon. I had no working dogs on my FOB during deployment to Iraq but we did have some FOB dogs that were useful because they hated Iraqis and would go off every time one came near the FOB. This was especially useful at night when they would try to get close to the walls and pitch hand grenades.
18 March 2014 at 13:11
MWD’s are trained to be disciplined under fire, they go thru extensive training before they deploy. MWDs are trained from the time they are pups or adolescent. They are especially chosen by trainers to see which dog has the right temperment and physical traits. You can compare these dogs to the Pro athletes like Michael Phelps, LeBron James, these dogs are the top 1% that is why there are not many of them. The wash out rate for humans who want to qualify for is very high, The rate among dogs who are selected for MWDs training is higher. They trained differently from police dogs or rescue dogs. MWDs are trained equally like a soldier, when they hear a firefight they do not flinch, they look for the fight when commanded by their handlers. They do not run off under fire like you suggest. Finally, after a firefight, we take accountability of all personnel including our MWD because the dog is a soldier and part of our team, he is treated like a team member and is given a rank. Why the hell didn’t they take accountability when he went missing, we never leave a comrade behind. The Brits just don’t treat their MWDs like we do.
23 March 2014 at 18:29
Where do I suggest this dog ran off?