Pop Goes the Beagle

 

The military is constantly on the lookout for new and exciting ways to kill people.  Various countries of the world have thought up just about everything that can be imagined for ending a human’s existence.  There are the standard guns, rockets, bazookas, and missiles as well as more obscure things like kamikazes and suicide bombers which, understandably, can be difficult to find volunteers for.

But leave it to the Soviets to try to convert man’s best friend into man’s worst enemy.

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The military is constantly on the lookout for new and exciting ways to kill people.  Various countries of the world have thought up just about everything that can be imagined for ending a human’s existence.  There are the standard guns, rockets, bazookas, and missiles as well as more obscure things like kamikazes and suicide bombers which, understandably, can be difficult to find volunteers for.

But leave it to the Soviets to try to convert man’s best friend into man’s worst enemy.

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Tanks made their debut in World War I.  Once the kinks had been smoothed a bit, the armored vehicles began to spread fear among the enemy ranks.  I mean, bullets bounced off the things and they refused to sit still long enough for artillery to sight in on them.

Dang it.

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The world’s armies set out to find ways to counter those formidable weapons.

As most of you know, the Soviets were our allies in the First World War.  It was them that came up with the idea to train dogs to carry bombs to German tanks and drop them.  The pup would then run back to the good guys, leaving the explosive device, which would then go off, destroying the enemy armor.  The tail wagging hero would get a Scooby Snack for his work.

So far; it doesn’t sound like a bad idea.  I could see Lassie being smart enough to deliver the goods, trotting up to the tank and dropping something a lot more lethal than what most dogs drop in the yard.  The killer collie would then go running back to Timmy for a “Good girl!” and a pat on the head.

Before the program could get a good start the war ended.

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Our world has proven time and time again that bad people start trouble that good people have to clean up.  Such was the case when the Nazis combined forces and tried to take over the free world.  Before long, World War II was well underway and tanks went back to work.

So the Soviets resurrected the idea of a Rin Tin Tin tank terminator squad.

A school was set up in Moscow and eventually 12 other locations.  Teachers were hired from the ranks of the obvious dog trainers, but also hunters, circus trainers, and animal scientists.

Dogs were recruited.  Lassie fans will be pleased to find that instead of collies they chose mostly Alsatians.  The Germans called the canine killers “Hundminen” which means “dog mines”…and laughed at the idea.

They were right.

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You see, the Soviets needed animals smart enough that they could be trained to run under a huge, clanking piece of machinery then pull a cord to release the bomb and run back to their allied handler.  That proved too complicated a task for the poor pups.  Then the Soviets tried to teach them to simply carry the bomb with a trigger attached that would detonate the explosive when it contacted the tank.

The pups saw a little flaw in that plan.  You see, any animal smart enough to do all that was too smart to actually do it.

The trainers tried starving the dogs and putting meat under training-tanks for them to eat.  The dogs would learn to do it as long as it was just practice but as soon as that lumbering beast started grinding toward them or soldiers started shooting at them, the pups decided they would rather go on a crash diet.  They would run back and cower beside their handler…carrying the live bomb with them of course.

There were other problems with the plan too, such as an oversight by trainers that had them using Soviet tanks to teach the pooches and overlooking the fact that Nazi tanks ran on a different kind of fuel.  The dogs that did learn to do the trick would often run to allied tanks because of the familiar smell.

Oops.

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Although the Soviets claimed that about 300 tanks were destroyed by the educated Alsatians, military historians question that total.  It couldn’t have been too successful because the Russians gradually stopped utilizing that particular method after 1942, although they kept training anti-tank dogs until 1996.

Don’t laugh too hard; other countries tried similar programs, like Japan and, yes, the United States.  As late as 2007 insurgents attempted to use dogs during the Iraq war.  There is only one documented case of a doggie-bomb being detonated by them.  Muslims protested that dogs should only be killed for food.

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As a dog lover I’m glad the programs have fallen into disuse.  The military seems to have since ignored the potential for dogs to be Snoopy snipers, or mange missiles, or even to form the mutt Marines or Air Bud Airforce, but I’m not sure.  I think I may have stepped on a Lassie landmine today in my back yard.

 

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