War Dogs: Book Report

Hey guys, it's Adventure Van here with an updated and better blog post! This one's about War Dogs, a book by Rebecca Frankel about the role dogs play in War. As the bit on the front cover says, it's going to have 'TALES OF CANINE HEROISM, HISTORY, AND LOVE". I picked it up because I loved dogs, and because it had some information I could use for my Science Project, which was AWE-SOME!

Some facts I learned:

• Dogs, while never being used in battle per-say, accompanied Attila the Hun to guard his camps,  and the Romans used them as alarm bells for there garrisons.
• In the Vietnam war, dogs were so successful at thwarting ambush attempts that the Vietcong had bounties double their handlers' amount placed on them.
• Cairo was the top dog for a short period of time, as the dog who helped a Navy SEAL team take down Osama bin Laden.
• War Dogs have been known to break ribs through full padded suits, and don't often 'bite' an opponent.
• Dogs can tell if a tomato can that's been sitting in a puddle for a week is a bomb and can save entire crews from explosions.
• Not every dog, even those with extensive training, can be a military dog. It doesn't matter how well you do at simulations if you can't do the real thing.
• In combat situations, the dog will die to protect you, and you should do your best to die to protect your dog.
• Dogs are better then humans. Period. You don't need a book to tell you that.
• A heavy wind can make it almost impossible to track someone with a dog.
• George Washington, during the Revolutionary War, returned a dog to General William Howe, who was fighting for the British.
• General Custer got a large following of dogs in his travels, all the ones who followed him into the battle of Little Bighorn were slain. 
• Dogs for Defense became an official U.S. army branch at WW2, starting with 200 dogs as sentries. The most effective branch was the Scout Dogs, however, detecting enemies from 1,000 yards away.
•  In Sicily a dog called Chips was one of the first dogs to be brought to the front lines, and captured an Italian Machine Gunners nest, surviving the bullet wounds, including one to the face. An article said, soon after, 'Chips was ready to bite Hitler' and was rewarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart.
• A mantra/instruction of all Dog Handlers is "Where I go, my dog goes. Where my dog goes, I go."
• Dogs are trained as furiously as humans in camps, and some dogs do drop out, as well as some humans.

I loved it's concentration on details, and the hand to hand experience the author had with actual units. It is a very in depth book, which will take up a lot of your brains processing. And I will admit, I cried some. I love all dogs, so it wasn't to hard to include War Dogs under my belt. You should definitely take a look at it, so here's the link. Adventure Van, out!