A Belgian Malinois apparently was used to track down OBL during Sunday's raid. They're a German Shepherd-ish dog but slightly smaller. More and more, police agencies seem to be using them over German Shepherds as a "better" working dog. As for the labs, I would wager the Border Patrol is using them for detection or tracking rather than more general policing duty.

Best war dog breed? I think it depends on the task, same as best police dog or best weapon. There's a wide range of uses for dogs on the modern battlefield and no one breed is perfect for all of them. Or course the real answer, just like the best rifle, is the one you have when you need it.

As with human's differences between individuals generally are as great as those between the size , color and design variations.

The question of selection devolves to one of mission. Is the conceptual dog you're looking for supposed to warn intruders off, or silently warn snipers that their hide is being approached? Comfort the war savaged psyches and bodies? Or track and flush the triggerman, to take the suicide bomber down short of his innocent targets?

So what is our mission, in selecting 'war' dogs, or promoting them here at BD. A canine popularity contest, a warm fuzzy feeling perhaps?

I point back a few days to the Lynch guest column, where this 'war-lite' crowd is directed to consider that THE MOST IMPORTANT mission for the USA in Afghanistan is training. That is the strategic heart of the post-OBL war, to grow Afghan self sufficiency. Bringing the worn out dogs home, while sending our sons and daughters back? That's not very aspirational imho

What is the trend line for Afghan K-9 capability? Is there a Bagram school for breeders and trainers? If not, we are sucking wind, letting the Pashtuns bleed out, in year ten of this mine and suicide bomb-laden war.

In an earlier incarnation I owned (in the bureaucratic sense of "owning") a de-mining school in the Northwest Frontier of Pakistan where we trained Afghan de-miners back in the days of the Russians.

All our dogs were Belgian Malinois. They came to us straight from a basic training school in Belgian (and hence they understood the basic commands: Stop, go, sit, left, right, etc) in Flemish. On the advice of our chief vet (a former Special Ops vet who had run the mules for the SF team in Colombia that took down Che Guevarra) it was not prudent to switch the dogs to a new language. So our Pashto-speaking de-miners learned to command their dogs in Flemish.

The dogs had learned only basic obedience in Belgium. All of their mine/ordnance savvy was acquired in our school. After graduation they went into Afghanistan for 6 month deployments and then returned to school for refresher training.

The cultural challenge of getting Pashtoons to bond with/sleep next to dogs was a greater hurdle than getting the Malinois to discriminate amongst personnel and vehicular mines. But, in hte end, both the men and dogs learned their roles well at the school.

After the 6-month deployments, however, the human skills had degraded more than the canine skills. Which is why we lost quite a few human deminers in action, but never had a dog killed by ordnance.

Great Krieg story, marine. Other commentors with theater experience have spoken of local attitudes towards dogs (dirty scavangers?) that tend to limit canine de-mining potential. That puzzles me a bit, since what I read indicates dogs are part of the normal farm and village security screen.

Do you have current contacts with AfPak handler-training knowledge? Were lessons learned, and the program re-booted in the current war?

In Afghanistan dogs are, indeed, a part of rural life. They help protect livestock, they guard compounds and (in winter time when the livestock is penned) they participate in a bloodless form of Afghan dog-fighting (more like dog-wrestling).

But..... the man/dog relationship is not akin to the Anglo American model. The dogs are like the rough "barn dogs" on an old New England dairy farm. They sleep outside with the stock. They largely fend for themselves. They are not petted or named. Afghan kids are more likely to throw stones at a dog than to play with one.

All that said, Afghan de-miners did learn to bond with their dogs (which is essential if the system if going to work).

In Afghanistan dogs are, indeed, a part of rural life. They help protect livestock, they guard compounds and (in winter time when the livestock is penned) they participate in a bloodless form of Afghan dog-fighting (more like dog-wrestling).

But..... the man/dog relationship is not akin to the Anglo American model. The dogs are like the rough "barn dogs" on an old New England dairy farm. They sleep outside with the stock. They largely fend for themselves. They are not petted or named. Afghan kids are more likely to throw stones at a dog than to play with one.

All that said, Afghan de-miners did learn to bond with their dogs (which is essential if the system if going to work).

In Afghanistan dogs are, indeed, a part of rural life. They help protect livestock, they guard compounds and (in winter time when the livestock is penned) they participate in a bloodless form of Afghan dog-fighting (more like dog-wrestling).

But..... the man/dog relationship is not akin to the Anglo American model. The dogs are like the rough "barn dogs" on an old New England dairy farm. They sleep outside with the stock. They largely fend for themselves. They are not petted or named. Afghan kids are more likely to throw stones at a dog than to play with one.

All that said, Afghan de-miners did learn to bond with their dogs (which is essential if the system if going to work).

In Afghanistan dogs are, indeed, a part of rural life. They help protect livestock, they guard compounds and (in winter time when the livestock is penned) they participate in a bloodless form of Afghan dog-fighting (more like dog-wrestling).

But..... the man/dog relationship is not akin to the Anglo American model. The dogs are like the rough "barn dogs" on an old New England dairy farm. They sleep outside with the stock. They largely fend for themselves. They are not petted or named. Afghan kids are more likely to throw stones at a dog than to play with one.

All that said, Afghan de-miners did learn to bond with their dogs (which is essential if the system if going to work).

don't know what happened