Soldier Dogs (25 page)

Dogs are very sensitive to body language, so the least little tense movement—a change of gait, a slight hunching of shoulders—can be observed and interpreted as something being amiss. When we’re upset, our voices can go up slightly in frequency as well. Dogs get these nuances in ways most people don’t.

Masking strong feelings by acting like things are OK may not always work, either: It’s quite likely that dogs can smell fear, anxiety, even sadness, says Horowitz. The flight-or-fight hormone, adrenaline, is undetectable by our noses, but dogs can apparently smell it. In addition, fear or anxiety is often accompanied by increased heart rate and blood flow, which sends telltale body chemicals more quickly to the skin surface.

It makes for a trifecta of revelations to a dog: a bouquet of visual, auditory, and olfactory cues that makes dogs incredibly tuned in to how we’re feeling.

It’s comforting to think dogs have empathy and want to see the people they care about feel better when things are not quite right. This sort of action adds to their reputation as man’s best friend. But most scientists who study dog behavior say it’s more likely that dogs who seem to be acting in comforting, helpful ways simply want to restore order to their pack.

John Bradshaw explained it to me this way: “People are more important to dogs than anything else, and they rely on us to provide them with a stable and predictable social environment. If they
sense that anything unusual is going on, that people are behaving in ways they don’t usually behave, they will do anything they can to restore the situation.

“Initially they’ll do things that have worked in similar situations in the past. They’re not trying to comfort anyone else, they’re trying to comfort themselves, but often one leads to the other. The dog picks up a toy and uses it to get someone’s attention, usually the person who’s behaving oddly (as far as the dog is concerned), but not necessarily. The dog is just craving attention—but if it does this in a “cute” way, then the effect may well be to calm that person down. That is in itself rewarding for the dog, so the next time a similar situation presents itself, the dog wheels out the same strategy. It doesn’t know why its behavior has the desired effect, it just knows that it works.”

It makes sense. And I’ve heard this from a few different dog experts. But I prefer my own interpretation of Jake’s actions when I’m having a rare bad day. He follows me around significantly more, making an extra effort to visit me at my writing desk. He usually leaves me alone here: This is my turf, distraction-free as possible, which is handy on tight deadlines. But on a tough day, Jake will inevitably scratch on my door for admittance. Happy to see a friendly face, I let him in and pet him for awhile. That alone makes me feel better. Then he usually curls up under my desk, falling asleep at my feet.

It may not be scientific, but it feels pretty good to think Jake has empathy. Sometimes he even seems to pick up on my likes and dislikes, favoring the people I enjoy but getting downright testy with one rude man we see sometimes at the park. Whenever we encounter him, this man snarls at me: “Better clean up after your dog,
lady.” Apparently he does this to all people with dogs. I don’t take it personally, but it’s annoying.

The first couple of times this happened, I assured him of my poop-scooping vigilance, but now I just try to avoid him when I see him. But sometimes our paths will cross. When they do, Jake does something he doesn’t do with 99.9 percent of the people we meet on our walks. He barks. Just a few good deep bellows, followed by a long stare as if to say, “Leave us alone or else.” I don’t bother telling him to stop. He’ll join up with me within moments, and I quietly cheer him on with a “Good boy!” He may not be wearing one, but my feelings have clearly dumped down the leash.

Of course, Gunny Knight could have told you all about dogs’ senses long ago without any studies. “I don’t need all that scientific stuff. The best lab is right out here with the dogs, and especially over on deployment. That’s where dogs and handlers really get to know each other.”

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I
n February 2011 a marine squad of about twenty men was returning to base in the upper Gereshk Valley of the Helmand Province in Afghanistan after a morning of patrolling a small village. Coalition forces hadn’t been in this area for ten years, but they had encountered no problems. They’d walked from the lush “green zone” near the Helmand River up to a plateau in the muddy “brown zone.” It was a cold, wet, overcast day and they were glad to be heading back.

Suddenly three Taliban insurgents opened fire with AK-47s from about sixty yards behind them. The marines in the rear immediately whirled around and fired back with M4s, 240s, and 249s, while other marines flanked the insurgents so they wouldn’t get away. It’s a tactic known as laying a base of fire and enveloping the enemy. It can be highly effective, but this time the insurgents bolted just before the squad could surround them.

The three men ran behind a thick mud wall around a compound at the village edge and once again fired their weapons at the marines, who were in a vulnerable position in a field of short
poppies. Several marines ran toward the gunfire, shooting their own weapons in a fast, cyclic manner they’d practiced to perfection. They looked fearless on the outside, but inside, dog handler Marine Sergeant Mark Vierig told himself, “Just don’t get shot in the face. Just don’t get shot in the face,” as they charged the wall, running straight into the fire.

At this point, the insurgents probably realized they did not have fire superiority, and they fled toward the half mile–wide village, hoping to blend in and get lost.

But you don’t get lost so easily when there’s a combat tracking dog team in hot pursuit. Vierig and his Belgian Malinois, Lex L479, are a rare breed of military dog team. Their mission is twofold: to find the people who plant IEDs and to track down fleeing insurgents who so easily disappear into their familiar surroundings.

Vierig has been a dog handler since 2002 and a combat tracker for the last two years. His dog is six and one of the best noses in the business.

They set out after the men. Any of the three would do. Vierig ran to the spot where he knew one of the men had been, and put his dog on the track, telling him “
Zoeken!
” (Dutch for “Search!”; Lex is from the Netherlands.) Lex picked up the man’s scent immediately, and they started following the invisible trail toward the village.

The dog pulled strongly on the leash, nose to the ground, tail up, confident. Vierig followed six to ten feet behind, running in eighty pounds of full combat gear. As long as his dog had his nose down and “pulled like a freight train,” Vierig knew he was on track. In situations like this, where people are fleeing from a chase instead of just casually walking away from planting an IED, the
track they leave is particularly strongly infused with “extreme pheremones” and other scents that are highly interesting to dogs.

Tracking is a dangerous mission in Afghanistan, where IEDs are so prevalent that troops don’t want to go out without a metal detector or a bomb dog. Trackers don’t have either luxury. In situations like this, they’re heading into virgin territory at a jog or even a run. If a dog loses the track, and a handler doesn’t realize it, not only may the two lose their quarry, but they can lose their lives—and those of the troops following close behind.

But if the dog is on a good track, it’s a safer business. After all, the person the dog is pursuing has already run over the ground and would (in theory) have set off any IEDs. Plus the insurgents are often very aware of where IEDs are and will avoid those areas. (Much intel on IED placement is gathered by observing insurgents and others steering clear of certain areas.)

Lex continued into the village in confident pursuit of the insurgent. It’s tricky tracking around buildings, because there are many places for the enemy to hide and open fire. So once in the village, Vierig had to slow down his dog and begin doing tactical tracking. Slowing the pace increases the time/distance gap that’s important to keep to a minimum when tracking, but it’s the only way to proceed in villages. For instance, Vierig explains, there’s the matter of corners. Danger can literally lurk around every one of them.

“If I blow by a corner and the guy knows I’m tracking him, he can just hide behind a corner and as I blow by straight, he can shoot me. So I’ll get to the corner of the building, down the dog, pie the corner [a tactic where a handler can look around the corner in cautious “slices” to make sure no one is waiting to kill] and if it’s clear, we move on.”

Lex and Vierig tracked the man through the labyrinth of alleys in the village. People who had been out when the marines had patrolled the village earlier had all run inside for safety. The village appeared eerily devoid of residents. Lex didn’t lose the scent trail once. The insurgent wasn’t in sight, but he may as well have been. Lex’s nose could “see” his trail as clearly as you and I can see a path in a park.

Lex suddenly took an abrupt right turn down an alleyway. The dog “threw a huge change of behavior,” picking up his head a little higher, pulling to the point where Vierig couldn’t stop him. “OK, boys,” he yelled to the eight marines who were keeping up right behind him in perfect Ranger file, “we’re close, get ready.”

At the end of the alley, Vierig could see the man for the first time since he ran behind the wall. He was bent over a creek, rubbing his hands with water, presumably in an effort to remove any scent of black powder. As they approached, Lex barked “in a way that hits a nerve in my neck,” says Vierig. The man had nowhere to run. The marines snapped some flex-cuffs on him and radioed the others in the squad to take him. Vierig gave Lex loads of praise, lots of pats and rubs, and threw him a tennis ball, which he joyously destroyed. “His tennis ball is like crack cocaine to him. That dog would rather have a ball than breathe.”

So would a dog named Blek.

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