Hello David we had one over seas with two kills when his handler was attacked my dog had several bites but no kills. Alot of our dogs had bites but only the one had two kills.

Kevin,
what conflict was this in? And if it was Persian Gulf, can you give me the exact name of the unit and it's location? I'd like to review the after action report for my upcoming book.
Thanks.

Hey WE were not there where we were at was not classified we guarded krypto areas in the 70's that listened in on transmisions of other countrys.

When I first started in training police dogs the big controversy in the dogs was that some handlers had been sentry dog handlers, used to anti-social nasty critters trained through survival instincts to be aggresive or else. They had a tough time with the handful of folks...the minority at the time....that were training upon European guidelines for social police dogs. The old handlers just couldn't believe that a dog could be social and hunt down bad guys.
Of the first three guys i trained in my department two were past Sentry dog handlers, one from Korea and one had handled some of the last sentry dogs in the PI. The later had a real bad image of the MWD program as it evolved out of the sentry dog program. His opinion was that the only good dogs he had handled in the MWD program were those that had successfully been changed from the sentry dog program.
I know little about this era except what they communicated to me, but at times I wonder if a sentry dog type program might not have a niche during conflicts although I'm not sure such training methodolgy as they dicribed to me would be tolerated, it also might not be necessary given the right dogs.

Is it possible that the person claiming his dog had "30 kills" may have been referring to his dog alerting on 30 enemy who were subsequently killed as a result of his detection efforts? That might make sense to me. Sounds like something a pencil pusher would put in an Enlisted Performance Report or medal package to spice it up.

That does sound like a good EPR bullet, but I don't believe the K-9's get those. This is what I was told in the conversation, that the dog had around 30 kills himself. This number did not include the ones the dog alerted on and the handler had to take care of the rest. I found it hard to believe, but I wasn't going to challenge him on it. He was there and I was not. I don't know enough about the history of MWDs (especially Sentry dogs) to challenge him and tell him that he is full of crap. I was amazed by what I heard. I did not know that the dogs actually did this (if it actually happened). I stand neutral on the subject. I don't know what to believe. I have heard people tell me that the dogs DID do such a thing and others that said NO, they didn't. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Will, are you writing a book on MWDs? I would be interested in reading it, if so.

Hello Yes most of our dogs were only used by one handler and they were kept worked up to be nasty, mine was a real a-hole and some of the rest were bada--'''s with handlers but the training was old style do it or die some of the dogs would protect their handler when it came to it but they were more a patrol type dog and they fit back into that program when they got shipped back to lackland. Most of the older dogs went back also but took us a little longer to retrain to patrol work and most would not allow handler switch by handing off to another handler, they needed alone time and a new handler introduction.

The Sentry Dog program certainly had a niche, no doubt about it. Guarding perimeters, weapons storage areas (sentry dogs normally worked only the evening and mid shifts) where personel movement was very limited and highly restricted. As I had said earlier, two things the dog did very well was scout (military term for air scenting) and bite. They also served well in a combat arena, but only from a perimeter and defensive role. The sentry dog's demeanor was not conducive to patroling. With the advent of electronics, fence disturbance systems, microwave etc, the sentry dog's role really diminished. The military recieved it's first patrol dog training from Metro DC. They sent several instructors to the dog school and trained the military instructors. Most of us were impressed with what they taught and the added capabilities of the dogs that were trained. The hardest part, in the very beginning, was the determination of the military to "retrain" all the sentry dogs into patrol dogs. That was not an easy task. Some of us instructors used some very primitive forms of shock collars, but some of those psycho dogs, were just plain dangerous. Once the program really got underway, the military trained some very good dogs. The system they use now is not even a shadow of what the original program was when started in 1968. Progress is not always what it's cracked up to be.

DFrost

What is the name of that movie that deals with MWDs that served in war? Is it "War Dogs"? I heard it was a great movie. Any opinions?

Curtis,
The book that I'm working on is about "Real World Protection" by dogs and it includes only verifiable events in which a dog protected an owner from an attack.
I'm including some Police Canine episodes, but the main focus is civilian dogs protecting their owners. The event requires a newspaper article and/or a Police report as documentation. I'm hoping to show people the real world dynamics of dogs acting in a protective manner.

Sorry, I won't be including any information about Military canines ( but I still stand by my statement that the "30 kills" claim by that former Military handler is 100% total BS. )

And for the forum members that have been sending me the links to different newspaper articles documenting dog protection events, I thank you!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />