Bury St Edmunds my friend. Although I grant you it is generally said as one word.

While generally enjoying the diversity and quality of Mr. Ricks' blog, I've always stayed clear of commenting to the war dog pieces. Until now.

What is a dog? The human's most faithful, loyal companion, ready and willing to defend and aid its host even at the expense of its own life. Yet humans degenerate these noble animals into mere guns with a nose, train them to hunt down, hurt or even kill other humans. You pursue, glorify and promote this practice. Shame on you.

Your war is not the dogs' war, it is your war. You feel you should go and occupy a country and kill a lot of people, fine. Your choice, your responsibility, your conscience, you deal with it. Would you use children to fight your war for you? No. Then why should a dog do it?

The dogs never attack a human unprovoked, unless commanded. You train and compel them to kill for you. They don't have a choice. You use these loyal animals as killing aides, abusing their inborn trust in humanity. There are dogs dying on the battlefields, sinking into depression, being wounded for the rest of their lives. Who has taken them to the battlefield? Who did this to them? You.

Have you ever heard of the Janissary caste in the medieval Ottoman Empire? They were children taken captive, then trained into rootless, ruthless warriors. Usually they were used at the other end of the empire, but sometimes against their own people, own parents, too. Yet they obeyed without a word, not having anything to relate to, knowing nothing and no one beyond the system. Their captors trained people to be mere killers, you train dogs for the same. How are you better than them? How is your empire better than theirs?

Stories about a heroic dog? Whose "heroic" feat was to hunt down another human, a human that was subsequently shot in the head and dumped into the ocean? Did you think this one through?

Well, I understand why you chose this trade. Dogs always make good headlines and book titles, you will sell a great many of your books, filled with the same sentimental hypocrisy habitual to your articles here. Making a living of the suffering and abuse of dogs, you can be proud of yourself.

Now, I'm through, I said what I had to say. Note that I'm not against the employment of dogs for peaceful purposes, like rescuing people after disasters, naturally. But promoting a practice that should be a war-crime should not get a free pass and even less air time.