Dogs of war photo essay

Chips — The most decorated dog of the Second World War, Chips was donated to the U.S. Army by the Wren family of Pleasantville, New York shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The part German Shepherd, Collie and Husky mix served in North Africa and Europe.

The dogs were known to devour any enemy they could sink their teeth into. So feared were Spain’s canine combatants that the conqueror Ponce De Leon reportedly used a brace of them to put down a slave rebellion in Puerto Rico. [ 3] Military dogs continued to be used right up to the 20 th Century.

Already markers to patriotic pooches adorn such places as March Air Force Base in Los Angeles; Bristol, Pennsylvania, the U.S. naval base on Guam and Fort Benning Georgia. The difference is that this latest tribute will be the first-ever national monument devoted to dogs. An Ancient war dog in battle. (Image source: WikiMedia Commons)

Despite this upcoming recognition of canine contributions to the battlefield, archeologists suspect that humans have been using dogs in warfare since the animals were first domesticated more than 15,000 years ago. The first actual written record of war dogs comes to use from the ancient Kingdom of Lydia in modern day Turkey.