Dogs For Defense: Military Dog Training During World War II (Part 3)
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Of particular note was a war dog named Chips. Chips had been trained for sentry duty but was observed breaking away from his trainer during a combat situation in Sicily. According to those who observed the happenings, Chips attacked an enemy machine gun nest and seized one of the soldiers. His heroics were legendary and Chips’ story was eventually made into a feature film. Although Chips is certainly the most famous of the so-called war dogs, many other trained dogs made important contributions to the allied war effort.
Following the war, the Dogs for Defense were returned to their original owners. This required another training session to re-acclimate the war veteran dogs to civilian life. By all accounts the dogs reacted well to returning to their pre-war lifestyles. The return of the first war dogs, however, did not mark an end to using dogs in the military.
Subsequent to World War II dogs served the U.S. military in multiple theaters. Many dogs saw combat duty in the Viet Nam (in fact there were twenty eight dog casualties during the war) and in the Persian Gulf War. To this day the U.S. army continues to train dogs for service. These dogs demonstrate not only the potential for good training techniques to teach complicated skills but also the capacity for dogs to help their owners and country in a variety of ways.
