Cool, Calm, with a Warrior’s Edge
“WASHINGTON- …It looks like a leaner, more agile German shepherd. It has a 270- degree field of vision & the force of its bite equals 1,400 pounds per square inch. It can run almost 50 kilometres per hour. It can withstand the heat of the desert & an August day in Washington. It can smell drugs, bombs, & unmarked graves. It’s deadly enough to help take Osama bin Laden, but gentle as a toddler in a toy car.
Meet the Belgian Malinois… “WASHINGTON- …It looks like a leaner, more agile German shepherd. It has a 270- degree field of vision & the force of its bite equals 1,400 pounds per square inch. It can run almost 50 kilometres per hour. It can withstand the heat of the desert & an August day in Washington. It can smell drugs, bombs, & unmarked graves. It’s deadly enough to help take Osama bin Laden, but gentle as a toddler in a toy car.
The elite breed is the secret
service’s favored canine. After an intruder jumps the fence & triggers the
alarm, canine teams are trained to be released within 4 seconds ‘to act as a missile, launching in the air to knock the subject down, & then biting an
arm or leg if need be to subdue the person until the handler arrives,’…
In June, dogs, including the Belgian
Malinois & other breeds, started patrolling outside the White House gates-
the first time canine agents were deployed among the public.
The secret service has had a canine team
since 1976…The dogs train for 20 weeks before they start working & then do
8 hours a week of retraining for the rest of their professional lives…
The U.S.
navy SEALs used a Belgian Malinois named Cairo
in Operation Neptune Spear to capture & kill bin Laden. The dog helped
secure the perimeter of bin Laden’s compound, sniffing for bombs. Like the rest
of the elite force, Cairo
was outfitted with a Kevlar vest with harnesses for rappelling &
parachuting & a night vision camera with a 180- degree field of vision.
…During the Second World War, the
military asked patriotic citizens to offer up their dogs for a defense
program…A detachment of 125,000 dogs, ranging from Dobermans to poodles, was
sent overseas…
These days, military working dogs
are elite warriors…The 200- step training program the military uses costs
$50,000 per dog…The dogs have an 80% success rate detecting explosives, much
better than humans or machines. They also can be trained to find narcotics.
… ‘The dogs we deploy have to be
unflappable in all circumstances,’…’They have to perform their activities
willingly & with a single-minded purposefulness that few, if any, humans
possess.’…”
Gail
Sullivan
THE WASHINGTON POST
The Montreal Gazette
Sept.
24/2014
Weekly Chuckle
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