By Rebecca Frankel

Best Defense Chief Canine Correspondent

On January 12, a bronze plaque was unveiled in front of the kennels at Fort Belvoir bearing the facility's new name: "Sgt. Zainah "Caye" Creamer Military Working Dog Kennels." It was a year ago to the day that Sgt. Creamer succumbed to wounds she sustained in Afghanistan after her unit was attacked by an insurgent's IED. She was the first "female working dog handler to be killed in action during the Iraq or Afghanistan wars."

Sgt. Creamer and her detection dog Jofa had deployed to Afghanistan in October 2010. Their job was to search for weapons, working ahead of their unit to sweep for explosives. Jofa, who was across the road from his handler when the explosion occurred and survived the attack unscathed.

The Belvoir Eagle covered the memorial service held in at Fort Belvoir in Virginia and reports that during the ceremony her fellow handlers remembered Sgt. Creamer with fondness and respect as a "leader" who had the "ability to light up a room no matter what the situation."    

It was a spirited disposition that, at 28 years of age, she seems to have maintained with ease. Her headquarters battalion commander, Lt. Col. Dwayne Bowyer, remembers that Sgt. Creamer was:  

...Determined, focused and happy the day she departed with her unit. ‘Silently, we all knew that we were sending them into harm's way but we never imagined that Sgt. Creamer would make the ultimate sacrifice doing what she loved.'"

Reportedly after Sgt. Creamer's death, Jofa's loss was visible. But, a year later he is still working and, according to Lt. Col. Bowyer, the dog is doing "great" with his new handler.

In other war-dog news: The United States Postal Service has finally issued a set of working-dog stamps. Among the four canines featured are a guide dog, a therapy dog, and a search and rescue dog, and what reports are calling a "tracker dog." The yellow lab featured on the bottom left of the four-square sheet is clearly a MWD. I would hazard a guess and say a bomb detection dog, made obvious by the fatigue-clad handler's leg visible against the desert-y background. I'll save the nitpicking and compliment the original paintings, which are the work of John M. Thomas and they're lovely. It's enough to make you want to put pen to paper for some good old-fashioned letter writing.

By Rebecca Frankel

Best Defense Chief Canine Correspondent

When I came across this photo I was struck by how it so fully captures a necessary growing pain that all handlers experience at one point or another during their careers -- having to part ways with a dog they've grown close to, a dog they love.

"In a picture taken on November 23, 2011, two Chinese paramilitary policemen from the canine unit wipe their tears after they bid farewell to their dogs, as they retire from the unit in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang province."

I wasn't at all surprised to see these two men openly wiping tears from their eyes. I've had handlers tell me that the day they were separated from their dog -- whether because of diverging deployment orders or for receiving a promotion that graduated them for their work as handlers -- was one of the worst they can remember. They're not bashful about this emotion either; it just comes with the territory.

I was, however, fairly surprised to see a late-December headline reporting that China currently employs upwards of 10,000 military working dogs in its armed forces. China uses breeds like Labs and Shepherds as well as the Kunming dog for patrol and detection work. According to Wang Han, the quoted official from the Beijing dog breeding and training centre, China's dogs "serve in more than 5,000 army divisions," doing all the things you might expect: "missions like peacekeeping, post-disaster search and rescue and border patrolling."

While overall, not a terribly enlightening story, the high number of China's MWDs is worth noting and keeping an eye trained on the growth of their programs. Otherwise it's just another military catching on to the intrinsic value of these dogs and proof that the handler-dog bond is universal.

In other war dog news: The 673rd Security Forces Sqaudron at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska held a memorial service for not one, but two of its MWDs. RIP Jack and Benjo.

By Rebecca Frankel

Chief Canine Correspondent

Mr. T. E. Ricks has asked me to select my top three favorite War Dog posts of 2011. A daunting task, but who says no to Tom? Not I.

This was without a doubt, the year of the War Dog. The sensation wrapped around Cairo, the  canine reportedly on the fateful mission that took down Osama bin Laden, cemented -- well, more like exploded -- the interest we knew was there all along. Our own War Dog photo essay received over 8.2 million page views in May alone, making it the most clicked on piece in Foreign Policy history. (Pardon the pre-holiday horn tooting.)

And while the Osama bin Laden dog is inarguably the most exciting and momentous tale to come out of this year's MWD highlight reel, it's not my favorite. Not even close. The stories I find are the most compelling are the ones that illustrate how powerful the dog-handler bond can be, what it's capable of, and how it makes these teams an unsurpassed force in a combat zone where, unfortunately, we still need them the most -- leading in front, clearing roads for IEDs.

While it was hard to chose, these are also the posts that prompted the most visceral responses and the most touching comments, both on the blog comment feed and off. These stories dig into the heart of why we respond to these dogs in the first place. Here they are in no particular order. Not surprisingly, my favorites posts this year were some of yours.

• Eli, brother and protector, goes home

• One bad ass handler and his jumping war dog

• Did Theo the bomb dog die of a broken heart in Afghanistan?

Some end of the year news: This note feels especially fitting as we close in on the two-year anniversary of this Friday feature: A War Dogs book is coming. I'm currently on leave from my desk at FP and working on war dogs full-time. I hope to bring many dispatches and new stories as I work and travel over the next few months. Many thanks to all of you who've been following along, sharing your comments, your suggestions, and of course your dogs. Happy holidays.

In the picture above, Lance Cpl. Tom Welstand, a native of Berystedmunds, England, and a military working dog handler with 103 Military Dog Squadron, shares a moment with his search dog, Steegan, during Operation Zamrod Olai, June 25, in northern Nad'Ali district, Helmand province.

By Rebecca Frankel

Chief Canine Correspondent

The first time I spoke to former Marine dog handler Mike Dowling I asked him about his working dog, Rex. He chuckled and declined; explaining the brief time we had on the phone that day just wasn't enough to do Rex justice.

Next week the seasoned and still-working German Shepherd will officially be given his due tribute in Sergeant Rex: The Unbreakable Bond Between a Marine and His Working Dog. The forthcoming book, written by Dowling, chronicles the team's tour in Iraq in 2004, most of which they spent in Mahmoudiyah, better known as the Triangle of Death.

Dowling was one of the first of the initial 12 Marine handlers sent with their dogs to Iraq in 2004. Prior to their deployment there hadn't been a U.S. dog team on the front lines in a combat zone since Vietnam. They were, as Dowling tells me, the guinea pigs. Neither Dowling nor Rex had seen combat before. "I didn't know how unprepared I was until I got there."

While Dowling was confident in his and Rex's strong working dynamic he had doubts about how quickly they would adapt to the unforgiving working conditions and the chaotic violence churning around them. "I didn't know how effective we would be in a combat environment, specifically in an environment with 125 degree heat, with strays and shit and trash everywhere. I didn't know what to expect so I didn't know if I was prepared or not."

Prepared or not, the pair was thrust into the thick of it almost immediately. Dowling and Rex's first mission - which makes for one of the most gripping scenes in the book -- was a veritable gauntlet through hell, replete with a pack of wild dogs, razor-edged barbed wire (that would slice through Rex's underbelly), and a Shawshankian ditch of human waste.

Despite the unknowns of IED detection and patrol work in Iraq and the aversion Rex had shown to firefights in training, that night was a success. "Rex knew that it was training when it was training," Dowling told me. "But when we were in combat, he knew we were in combat because he could read it in my eyes and was very obedient. It gave me this incredible sense of calm and confidence in us as a dog team to preform well."

Read on

By Rebecca Frankel
Chief Canine Correspondent

This video has been circulating around some Military Working Dog groups and I thought it worthy of space here. Here's the brief note that went with the post, titled "no leg ski diving, with my dog" -- as I saw it last week:

"I am still rocking! For those who haven't heard, I was blown up, with my MWD, Axe, Feb 17th of this year. I lost both of my feet, and was back to work in July. ..."

Aside from documenting an incredible free fall where you actually get a full view of the dog on a jump, this is emotionally moving footage. Without any fuss it shows the strong bond between this handler and his dog. There's little else I can say that would better complement the triumph and joy on display. So just watch.

A note: Back in May when FP ran the epic "War Dog" photo essay after the Osama bin Laden mission, a fair few readers wrote in concerned that the military dogs parachuting out of planes were being either being forced or were too frightened or ill quipped to handle the experience unscathed. For anyone still worried, pay careful attention to the dog in this video. He's having the time of his life.

By Rebecca Frankel
Best Defense goddess of dogginess

It seems that India is attempting to infuse its military workings dogs with a little James Bond style mojo.

According to reports out this week, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) is claiming to have a one-of-a-kind elite war-dog team. Details of this new force, comprised of six Labrador Retrievers called Bomb Drop Dogs (BBD) who've been trained at the ITBP's National Training Centre for Dogs, range from the intriguing to the insignificant bordering on painfully obvious.

According to a report in the Telegraph, India's BBDs boast a variety of Mission Impossible worthy skills including the ability to: "carry explosives in their teeth, sneak into terrorists' lairs, drop remote-controlled bombs, hide secret cameras, understand instructions in English and Hindi and interpret body language."

But in a statement to The Pioneer that outlined the scope of this program and its aims, the Additional Director General of the ITBP, Dilip Trivedi, said that the team of six BBDs would go a long way to "minimise casualties of our soldiers" because BBDs could "approach the target and secretly plant explosives. When it goes off, the terrorists would be exposed and thus easily targeted. As they are smaller in size to men, these canines are not easily spotted by the enemy. According to the situations, they further lower themselves and approach targets by crawling." (This is the painfully obvious part, History of Military Working Dogs 101.)

Still, another, more compelling point of view was given to the Telegraph by the Indo-Tibetan Police Force's spokesman, DK Pandey (who was also sure to make assurances about the focus on the dogs' safety):

It's the first time in India such a dog squad has been successfully trained in dropping of bombs, video and audio devices and other equipment inside enemy hideouts. They will be carrying them in their mouth and drop it inside the suspected hideout and when [the dogs] report back to their handler and commander, then only the next step will be taken -- triggering the blast through remote control,' [Pandey said.]

While noteworthy, I'm not ready to concede that India's BBDs yet have a paw up in the wide world of MWDs. While I don't doubt that these Labs are highly trained or that these dogs are capable of learning such intricate tasks, India's BBD force still appears to be in the early stages. There are no reports that this training has been put to use or proven successful and effective in the field. Let's put this one in the wait-and-see pile. 

By Rebecca Frankel
Best Defense chief canine correspondent

Chase was South Korea's best sniffer dog -- making headlines as a record-holding service dog until he retired in 2007. Now, Chase's descendants are in the spotlight for their remarkably keen noses. Which, genetically speaking, are exact replicas of their "father's" because South Korea is cloning sniffer dogs. Does anyone else hear the music Twighlight Zone?

A scientist by the name of Byeong-Chun Lee successfully cloned a littler of seven puppies in 2007. Three of those dogs, referred to as "Tomorrow Dogs" and called "Toppies" for short, are now employed, and enjoying extremely successful careers with the security team at Customs in the Incheon International Airport.

One of those dogs, Tutu, a bounding and very enthusiastic yellow Labrador Retriever, has been particularly good at his job, holding the record for detecting "the most drugs" at the airport. He and his handler have been working together for three years and so far so good. (You can watch CNN's report of the happy pair here.)

Tutu and the rest of his cloned siblings are "part of an ongoing study on how genetic reproductions of prized work animals may revolutionize their use in the field." Each Toppy is reported to run a price tag of around $100k, which is tens of thousands more costly than your average bomb-detecting dog but their rate of success is inordinately high: "Incheon security estimates that about 30 percent of their dogs are able to be used ...  every single cloned dog passed the test to become a drug-sniffer..."

I'd be curious what handlers think about this new development and whether or not the U.S. military should follow suit and clone IED detection dogs (if it hasn't already). We're already genetically "enhancing" dogs' olfactory abilities. But where do we draw the line? Dr. Lee and his team have also done work cloning endangered species like grey wolves. That seems worthwhile, but what about glow-in-the-dark dogs? FP's own Josh Keating reported in 2009, scientists at Seoul National University have already done that.

Okay, now cue the music.

Hat Tip: Dimitry. 

She's back!

By Rebecca Frankel
Best Defense chief canine correspondent

There was blood on his legs, seeping out between the impromptu bandages. From the photos, the blood looked to be caked along his tail, on his hind- and front-paws, even staining the fibers of his leash a deep red. Five Marines, three of them dog handlers, flanked the stretcher that carried Drak, a bomb-sniffing dog with their unit, the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, Regimental Combat Team 8, onto a helicopter for emergency evacuation.

Drak, a four-year-old Belgian Malanois, was injured during an insurgent attack, when a suicide bomber targeting Marines and Afghan police, detonated a "vehicle-borne improvised explosive device" outside FOB Jackson in Sangin, Afghanistan on Sept. 8.

Sgt. Kenneth Fischer, Drak's handler, was also injured during the attack when shrapnel from the blast pierced his legs. The pair was flown back to base, then off to surgery.

"He should be OK," Fischer told AP ten days after the attack from Bethesda, MD where he's recovering. "At first, there was some talk about him losing one of his legs, but not so much anymore. Knowing Drak, he should be fine."

Drak, described by his handler as a mostly calm and relaxed dog who never took to the sound of gunfire, is being treated at a facility in Germany but will be transferred to Lackland AFB in Texas to convalesce. If for some reason the young dog isn't able to resume his military service, Fischer has other plans for him, like "spend[ing] his days lying around at Fischer's home at his duty station in Twentynine Palms, California, or playing frisbee."

(The AP posted a gallery of Fischer and Drak, worth viewing here.)

In other news: For those celebrating the Jewish New Year this week, there's a bomb-sniffing dog for that.. The Congregation Mount Sinai Synagogue in Brooklyn, New York is also, for 50 hours a week, home to Gus, a retired bomb-sniffing dog, who was adopted by Rabbi Potasnik last year. Though the synagogue tightens security during the Jewish high holy days, Gus isn't part of NYPD's assistance. Nowadays he spends his time "barking at strangers, chasing rubber balls, and chowing down on treats."

By Rebecca Frankel
Chief Canine Correspondent

This week, FP is running a 5-part photo series: The War in Hipstamatic. A mesmerizing collection, these images were shot with iPhones by a group of photojournalists who embedded with the Marines in Battalion 1/8  in Helmand province for five months starting in September 2010. (It's all part of a project called Basetrack -- I encourage Best Defense readers to check it out.) 

The photos from this foray into app-image journalism number in the thousands and I was happy to discover among them three portraits of the company's dogs -- two bomb-sniffers and one adopted stray.

Above: Gunner, a military working dog, looks up from the cot where he was resting at Patrol Base Dehanna, in Nawzad district, on Jan. 9.

Image by Teru Kuwayama

Read on

By Rebecca Frankel
Best Defense Chief Canine Correspondent

Peg featured prominently in Private Conrad Lewis's letters to his family from Afghanistan and when Pvt. Lewis went home on leave for Christmas last year he told his family that when his tour was over, he wanted to bring Peg home with him.

Peg, short for Pegasus (the emblem the parachutists wear on their sleeves), is a caramel colored stray dog that Lewis adopted and looked after her at his base in Helmand Province. The dog took to Lewis a young, paratrooper at 22, and trailed after him wherever he went -- on patrol, through firefights, and sleeping with the unit at night. Apparently, she was a natural war dog who didn't flinch while under fire and while "on patrols Peg would sit down when the [paratroopers] took cover, then run alongside him as his platoon advanced."

Read on

Today is Dude's day. This story comes to us by way of Staff Sergeant Jaekeun Lee, whose unit, while based in Afghanistan, came to love one little stray... 

Dude was brought to our compound in Helmand province only a few days after a coordinated insurgent rocket attack on our base that resulted in the wounding of six local national children. Many of the members of our unit worked on saving these children: five were medevac'd and four of them survived and recovered. Needless to say the attack and dealing with the casualties had a large impact on the morale of the soldiers of our unit and Dude's arrival did much to lift the spirits of all of the soldiers on our compound.

Some local children brought Dude to our compound to sell to us but instead we offered them humanitarian assistance supplies of blankets, backpacks and food that they gladly accepted in exchange. All of the soldiers on the base took care of Dude and enjoyed his presence to help lighten the mood in the highly kinetic environment that we were experiencing every day. CPT Allen, one of the soldiers that arranged for the trade for Dude, wanted to make sure that the dog that had done so much for the morale of the soldiers would also be taken care of when we re-deployed. 

Read on

This is cross-posted from Chief Red Bull's blog, as his invitation.  I am happy to run it, especially because the other day when I was in the airport in Bangor, Maine, I recognized some Red Bull patches, because of his blog. (There also was a Ukrainian cargo plane there, which is ironic, given that the Cold War role of the Bangor airport was as an Air Force base, I'm guessing to launch interceptors to greet waves of inbound Soviet bombers.)  

By "Charlie Sherpa"
Best Defense bureau of Guard and Reserve affairs

Since July 2010, a 3-year-old yellow Labrador Retriever named Sgt. First Class Timmy, along with U.S. Army handler and occupational therapist Capt. Theresa Schillreff, have reached out a helpful paw and hand to service members struggling with deployment stresses, whether those stem from combat experiences or problems at home.

"It's helping people understand that if I have 'X, Y, and Z' going on in my life, how can I cope with that and make sure that I can do my job, meet our mission, and not be sent home," says Schillreff, a member of 254th Medical Detachment, an active-duty U.S. Army combat-stress unit stationed at Miesau Army Depot, Germany. On Bagram Airfield, the unit's Freedom Restoration Center is a 3- to 5-day program that offers a restorative environment to critically stressed-out soldiers. "We really try to fit them up for success."

While soldiers catch up on sleep, nutrition, and physical fitness, the center also offers classes on anger and stress management, resiliency, positive thinking, and leisure and life skills. Staff includes psychiatrists, psychologists, occupational therapists, chaplains, social workers, and nurse practitioners. Service members from all military branches may be referred to the center by a healthcare provider or chaplain. They can also self-refer, although only with approval from a commander.

Timmy and 3-year-old Sgt. First Class Apollo, a black Lab, are the only two military therapy dogs in Afghanistan. The first such dogs deployed to Iraq in 2007, Schillreff says. Timmy and Apollo are part of an ongoing study on the effectiveness of dogs in addressing soldier stress downrange.

Read on

By Rebecca Frankel
Best Defense chief canine correspondent

So the world has been set alight with war-dog fever (it's about time). There were reports this week that over 400 inquiries about adopting retired MWDs have been made in the three weeks since news came out about Cairo, the dog who was allegedly a part of the U.S. Navy SEAL team that got bin Laden. And while this is nothing but happy news for the military and its service dogs -- a bunch of kids from Lebanon Indiana were way ahead of the trend. These middle school students helped raise enough money to bring Alice, an Afghan stray home to Indiana so she could be reunited with Captain Matt Taylor, who lives in their town and was one of the soldiers who looked after the puppy while on deployment in Afghanistan.

Alice, like most dogs in Afghanistan, had rough start to life before she found a home with the group of U.S. Marines who adopted her. Capt. Taylor says that she was emaciated -- a measly 10 to 15 pounds -- and pocked with scars from scuffles with other dogs.

But she made herself at home, offering love and comfort in exchange for room and board -- quickly becoming more than just the unit's mascot:

"You come home and it's hot or cold or you are wet or tired and there is always somebody who is real happy to see you," Taylor said. "You're not going to get a hug and a kiss from a Marine when you come back from patrol, but there is always a little girl like this to come up and give you a lick, put her head on her lap and remind you there is something nice in the world too."

But when the news came that the unit was getting a bomb-sniffing dog, there was no other option -- Alice would have to go. But no one had the heart to turn her out, so Capt. Taylor and his fellow soldiers started to drum up support with a website, the money from the Lebanon middle school, raised one dollar at a time, and the combined assistance of a British non-profit that offered the dog safe passage from Dubai back to the States. But Taylor took a chance on getting Alice to the airport -- putting her in a taxi for a 14 hour drive with nothing but the assurances of the enthusiastic driver. But Alice arrived in Indiana safe and sound where Taylor joined her a few months later.

Alice and Capt. Taylor paid a visit to the school last week so the pair could properly give thanks, and so the students could see what their good efforts -- and maybe their allowance money -- was able to accomplish.

"I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart and my Marines' hearts because this little girl helped us through some hard times, Taylor said. "[Alice] was a really sweet reminder of what is good and good things that can happen when people like you come together."

Chief canine correspondent Rebecca Frankel has run away again, so this is Tom filling in here. I actually think she has become a celebrity. Next thing I expect we'll hear she's dumping Johnny Depp or something.

There's one big war dog story this week: The presence of a dog on the bin Laden raid has the mainstream media all aflutter about war dogs. Welcome to the crowd, fellas. We're celebrating with a special feature on war dogs.

One reason for the popularity of this weekly feature, I suspect, is that there is some visceral connection between soldiers and dogs. As long-gone Army Maj. Gen. Aubrey Newman once pointed out, soldiers in his time were called "dog faces," wore identification information around their necks on "dog tags," and sometimes slept in "pup tents." 

Cats? As far as I'm concerned, they're working for the enemy. That said, one of my dogs, nicknamed "Mr. Soul," really likes cats.