War Dogs

by Rebecca Frankel

  This willingness on the part of a dog to protect his human companion is not, according to Kevin Behan, cognitive; rather, it’s innate. Instead, Behan says, it’s all part of the deep emotional bond they have with their humans.30 That dogs are wholly emotional beings is a tenet Behan argues to the hilt in his 2012 book Your Dog Is Your Mirror. And because they are so keyed into this emotional connection, Behan believes the bond between a dog and a human can run so deep that it actually gets to the point of what he calls “fusion,” where the dog perceives himself in his handler. And this über-attachment—or fusing—is only heightened by the stress of vigorous training, as well as what a team might experience while on patrol, especially during a deployment.

  After working with those police dog teams in Connecticut, Behan began to notice something remarkable, something that at first he wasn’t quite sure was actually happening. It appeared the dogs were able to anticipate a cloaked threat, intuiting danger before the actual danger came. At first Behan couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It appeared that these dogs were able to sense criminal intent in people who weren’t yet doing anything criminal.

  After he got over his initial surprise, this behavior began to make perfect sense to Behan. It would be only natural, he reasoned, for the dog to pick up anything disquieting to his handler. It’s all about the strength of connection between the handler and his dog. “They have this bond with this human, they feel so tight with this one human, that they feel in other humans, discrepancies.”31

  So emotionally close are they that there’s virtually no barrier between them.

  When a dog protects his handler, he is also protecting himself. This collective sense of “one” that Behan describes in the dog’s emotional state is similar to a known phenomenon that occurs to men who go into battle together. Men in combat zones are known to form strong bonds—they meld from being a group of individual men to a single unit, embracing a shared will for all to live or die. It is this instinct and emotion that propels a soldier to throw himself on a grenade to shield his fellow soldiers.

  Revered American war reporter Ernie Pyle, better known as the “foxhole correspondent,” spent years on the front during World War II and traveled throughout Europe writing and reporting on the soldiers he met and the war he experienced.32 Pyle was killed by Japanese machine-gun fire during the battle of Ie Shima while reporting from the front on April 18, 1945. But sometime while he was in Italy from December 1943 to April 1944, he made this salient observation: “The ties that grow between men who live savagely together, relentlessly communing with Death, are ties of great strength. There is a sense of fidelity to each other in a little corps of men who have endured so long, and whose hope in the end can be so small.”33

  Over the course of a year, from June 2007 to June 2008, journalist Sebastian Junger embedded with the US 2nd Battalion in the Korengal valley of Afghanistan, where the fighting was at its most wild and raw. In his 2010 book War, he describes the intensity of the soldiers fighting at the tip of the spear together—facing the likelihood of one’s own death as they watched their fellow soldiers bleed to death, alternating mind-numbing boredom with the adrenaline-pumping action of battle—and how it all culminated not in a slow massing of fear but in a “desperate bond,” one that is ultimately “the core experience of combat.” It is, he writes, a “shared commitment to safeguard one another’s lives [that] is unnegotiable and only deepens with time. . . . What the Army sociologists . . . slowly came to understand was that courage was love. In war, neither could exist without the other, and that in a sense they were just different ways of saying the same thing. According to their questionnaires, the primary motivation in combat (other than ‘ending the task’—which meant they could all go home) was ‘solidarity with the group.’”34 So it would stand to reason that a dog strongly bonded to his handler would, in the end, make for a better war dog. That the more “love” there is, the stronger the team.

  When John Mariana talked about Bronco, he was adamant that the strength of their working relationship was based on a mutual commitment and a deep and shared connection. “He didn’t work for me out of fear of me correcting him. He worked for me because he loved me and I loved him. And I really believe that he knew that.”35

  A loving dog makes for a formidable asset in war.

  The day Marine Lance Corporal Matt Hatala was paired up with Chaney, his new IED detector dog and soon-to-be deployment partner, he went home frustrated, utterly convinced there was no way he could work with this dog. Chaney had been working with another handler and wanted nothing to do with this new Marine; the black Labrador retriever was 85 pounds of strong-willed stubbornness, and though he never became aggressive or mean, the dog simply refused to listen to Hatala, using his weight to cement his resistance. Chaney may have been heavy—literally hard to lift—but Hatala, who was strong and agile after his years of high school wrestling, could handle the dog’s size. And with his Iowa upbringing he weathered the dog’s attitude. Slowly, steadily, over the next couple of months of training Chaney became more trusting of Hatala. By the time they deployed to Afghanistan’s Southern Helmand Province in October 2010, they were finally in sync.

  Hatala and Chaney were stationed at Patrol Base Tar, a small expeditionary outpost that was once a private compound but had been taken over by the military. When one of the detection dogs there had been killed by an IED, saving the lives of three men on the patrol in the process, the Marines renamed the base after the dog. There were only about eight Marines at PB Tar and a couple of Afghan National Army soldiers. At night the Marines bunked in a mud hut. At first Hatala kept Chaney’s kennel outside, insulating it as best he could by tucking hay around the bottom and wrapping a poncho around it. But the temperatures began to drop, and Chaney was soon sleeping inside, tied to Hatala’s cot. After a while, trusting that Chaney would stay where he was supposed to, he let him off the leash.

  Every morning as soon as he woke up Hatala would take Chaney outside to do his business. It was always early and most times they would catch the sun rising over the desert. It was his favorite time of day, calm and quiet. He would listen to the music his wife had burned for him and sent over on CDs, letting the sound of it flood his ears, and watch his dog. Hatala was growing very attached to Chaney; the dog had become his anchor, his best friend. The other guys loved Chaney too, and though it went against his training, Hatala never felt it was right to keep them from petting his dog. Why should he be the only one to benefit from his good company? They all had tough days, and Chaney was especially good at picking out who among their unit was in the darkest mood. The dog would seek out whoever it was and just nuzzle up next to him.

  The Marines out at PB Tar took part in daily patrols—morning, afternoon, night—traveling back and forth between the nearby town and the base, checking in with locals and ensuring their area of operation was secure. Their small base was mostly surrounded by desert that was flecked with small remote farms. Further out, about 500 meters from the back of their compound, was a small town settled into an embankment. Houses lined the top and bottom of the ridge. Beyond that, there was only wide-open nothingness that stretched until a mountain range. The Marines had relatively good relations with the Afghans who lived there. The only thing that interrupted their missions was the massive Afghan dogs who would alert to their otherwise discreet nighttime presence. These outside dogs were large and unruly and never tied up. At night they roamed around in packs. Hatala and his unit would often hear them at the back of the base rummaging through the garbage.

  On one afternoon patrol, Hatala, Chaney, and a few others were making their way through the town on the low side of the ridge. The patrol was spread out, their interpreter was in the middle, and Chaney was working off leash while Hatala and his friend, Lance Corporal Shea Boland, were out in front. Up ahead, Hatala spied one of the yard hounds come stalking toward them. The dog was well over 100 pounds, his coat a tangled mess of
gray, his white underbelly and legs caked in dirt. The dog’s back was arched; he was growling. They’d crossed into whatever this dog considered his territory, and he was coming straight for Boland.

  They weren’t authorized to shoot these dogs, so Boland threw a rock at him to scare him off, but the dog showed no sign of fear, and only skulked closer. A few feet behind Boland, Hatala readied himself to shoot if the dog should attack his friend. And then Chaney came out of nowhere and planted himself in front of Boland, hackles raised, his muzzle quivered; he let out a deep, savage growl. If the giant dog moved, Chaney moved to block him; he wouldn’t let the other dog get any closer.

  Keeping one eye on Chaney, Hatala motioned to Boland and the others and they slowly moved the patrol forward and away from the yard dog. Chaney stood his ground, snarling—his body always between this threat and the other men.

  When they were finally clear Hatala called out to his dog, “Hey, hey. Chaney, here!” Chaney broke the standoff and trotted back to rejoin his handler. The other dog watched them for a while before losing interest.

  Until that day, Hatala had never heard Chaney growl. Not once. Hatala had only ever heard him bark once or twice in all the months that they were together. That afternoon was the first and only time Hatala ever saw Chaney show aggression of any kind, but he’d revealed himself a dog to be reckoned with.

  Part II

  five

  A Dog of Many Talents

  The guard dog was incorruptible; the police dog dependable; the messenger dog reliable. The human watchman might be bought; not so the dog. The soldier sentinel might fall asleep; never the dog. The battlefield runner might fail . . . but the dog, to his last breath would follow the line of duty.

  —Ernest Harold Baynes, Animal Heroes of the Great War

  I have the leash in my hand. It’s a retractable, and I mindlessly click the button that controls the slack. Haus, the handsome German shorthaired pointer on the other end, looks up at me warily. He is not exactly a willing partner. We stand together at the threshold of a restroom at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colorado. There is a bomb in this bathroom—maybe, possibly, hypothetically—and it’s our job to find it.

  Haus is an experienced detection and patrol dog who has deployed five times with a solid record of finds. His body and legs are white and flecked with brown, save the one round patch of brown on his back, like a small, high-riding saddle matching his silky ears. I try to give him a look of reassurance and solidarity, belying the nerves that are spiking along my skin, but I must not be pulling that off because Haus throws a glance of clear concern and confusion back in the direction of Chris Jakubin and the rest of the group—the people this dog trusts—who are crowding around the entrance behind us.

  I’m not sure how to begin so I turn to Tech Sergeant Edward Canell, Buckley’s kennel master. “Just clear the room,” he says. The smile on his face indicates that this is all the help he will be offering me. A host of faces press even closer together in the doorframe; I am being tested. The fluorescent lights of the bathroom are hospital bright and render the nerve-wracking effect of a big shining spotlight.

  The bathroom is hardly a large space—a few empty stalls, a long counter with a few sinks, and a couple of urinals. I’m relatively confident I can do this. It should be easy enough; I have just spent all morning watching a handful of teams search the base chapel and a number of rooms in this building, sniffing out drugs and explosives.

  I point my hand down to the seam where the wall meets the floor, mimicking the gesture I’d seen other handlers use. Miraculously, Haus puts his nose to the very spot I’ve indicated and follows as I lead us forward. “Seek,” I tell him. I mean to give a clear, forceful command but my voice sounds hollow and small, making only a faint echo against the bathroom tile walls.

  Haus and I move along with moderate precision from there, clearing the counter and sinks. Trouble hits when we get to the bathroom stalls. The dog follows my lead into the first stall and around the basin of the first toilet bowl, but having to hold the door open for both of us trips me up and he darts ahead of me, skipping a stall. When I pull him back, the leash gets tangled around his legs. I manage to free Haus the first time; by the time it happens again a minute later, we’re a tangled mess. The door of the stall knocks into my back. I’m exasperated.

  Haus gives up on me right then and there. He sits in the middle of the bathroom, turning expectantly to Jakubin, as if appraising my performance with a look that says, “Clearly, you can’t be serious.”

  “Give up?” Canell asks, his eyes twinkling. I give one last desperate scan around the room, but nod. I can feel the heat rise in my cheeks.

  Canell, however, does not let me go quietly. Instead, he walks me to the paper towel dispenser; it’s your standard stainless steel container, with those brown napkins universally stocked in public toilets. There, as plain as day, is a sizeable piece of duct tape, hastily plastered above the keyhole of the clearly broken cabinet. It is out of place against the otherwise well-maintained and clean bathroom. He pulls back the tape and opens the silver compartment, revealing the “bomb.” In my hurry to perform well—or get away from the crowd of observers—I’d breezed right by this painfully obvious visual clue. If I had been looking more carefully, it would’ve been the very first thing I saw coming into the bathroom. But I hadn’t been using my eyes; I was relying on Haus to do the work and focusing all my attention on him. My clear inexperience, my confusion ran right down the leash to the dog. He knew the moment I gave up even as I was trying to hide it, and he exposed me by sitting in the middle of the room and giving up his search.

  It was a fast but effective lesson. Haus didn’t trust me, and he revealed not only my limits but also his own when I failed to give him the proper guidance. It’s a lesson I only learned by doing, but it’s at the heart of the folly of all the poor or misguided decisions made by those who do not understand how to work with dogs or who have never gotten close enough to see it for themselves.

  Jakubin comes into the bathroom and relieves me of Haus’s leash. The dog can’t get away from me fast enough. Jakubin is amused. “Not so easy, is it?” he asks. His eyes are twinkling too.

  If you know what to listen for, the sound is unmistakable. The attuned human ear can hear when a dog has found the sought-after odor usually long before he gives his final alert. And depending on the training and the kind of detection work, the dog will either sit at the source of odor or lie down to the ground. For obvious reasons, search-and-rescue dogs will bark. A practiced handler will recognize his dog’s personal tells—the dog may twitch his ears or his movements may slow down and become more deliberate, or he may even have an “I’m definitely on odor” expression—but it’s really the sound that is the big giveaway. It’s the deep, staccato inhale and then the rush of a perfunctory and heavy exhale. It is the sound of satisfaction. It is the sound of discovery.

  The canine nose is a masterful creation; all earthly schnozes1 are not created equal, anatomically speaking. While the average dog has roughly 220 million scent receptors in his nasal cavity, the average human has around 5 million.2 The canine sense of smell is a thousand times more sensitive than a human’s. One of the best visual analogies of the dog’s acute sense of smell is given by author Mark Derr in Dog’s Best Friend: “Unfolded and flattened, the smell receptors from the average dog’s nose could cover it like a second coat with hair dragging on the ground.”3

  Even the way a canine nose functions is more developed than ours. A dog’s nose has four passages, two inner ones and two on the outside, almost like gills. The inner canals pull in the scent and then exhale to the outer, so that the exhaling air doesn’t disturb the ground or source of the next odor, allowing always for the intake of fresh scent. Humans, in contrast, have just the two nasal passages, and what goes up comes back out again the same way. (We can of course draw breath throug
h our mouths when we ingest or exhale oxygen, but it is not the best way to smell, although it is one of the best ways to use our sense of taste for certain foods—by orthonasal, or mouth, breathing. On the other hand, while dogs are great perpetrators of mouth breathing, they’re not using it for scent. Though they have good reason to do so. Dogs actually pant through their mouths to cool off, whereas we humans sweat.) That always-damp and cool-to-the-touch quality of the canine nose also has its purpose; moisture that is “secreted by mucous glands in the nasal cavity captures and dissolves molecules in the air and brings them into contact with specialized olfactory epithelium inside the nose.”4

  It’s not that we humans don’t use our sense of smell, but as a sense it’s powerful for very different reasons. Scent recalls memories and awakens our emotional subconscious. We associate different odors, good and bad, with people and places—and there’s no accounting for taste in what we relish either. My father, for example, loves the smell of a good barn populated with fragrant livestock. As a family driving the New England interstates, we inevitably passed open pasture, and as we did, my father would lower his window to get his fill of the open air heavy with manure, while my sister and I groaned and pinched our noses. He was taking in the scent of his childhood on the farm and all the memories that came with it—we children of the suburbs were just smelling, well, shit.

  Most people don’t make a conscious effort to imprint particular or special smells, to file them away for later use—they register more like background noise, though invariably certain things punch through the ether, people and places we are reminded of by the power of scent. But perhaps we should take our lead from dogs and program our brains to catalogue smells in more proactive and useful ways. In one of the great old Disney movies, The Parent Trap (with Hayley Mills and Maureen O’Hara), when one of the girls—Susan, pretending to be her twin sister, Sharon—meets her grandfather for the first time, she sniffs the lapel of his jacket with such earnest investigation that he pulls back. “My dear, what are you doing?” he asks. To which she replies, “Making a memory.” She puts her nose back to his tweedy chest, calling out the scents she identifies. “When I’m quite grown-up,” she tells him, “I will always remember my grandfather and how he smelled of tobacco and peppermint.”5