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.
Read More
(5)
HIDE COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE