Author: Wind Qianli
China has a long national border, and in addition to the border trade passes where the cities are crowded and people come and go, the border defense zone is more of a no-man's land with a harsh environment and few people, a plateau and mountainous land with heavy snow and mountains all year round, a river valley with a river network, and a primeval forest full of miasma. In these treacherous areas, border guards can still often be seen bravely and fearlessly holding out, and when they patrol with danger, they can always see the figure of their loyal little friend, the military dog.
A military dog that guards the gates of the country with border guards
The history of human domestication of dogs has been 15,000 years, and as early as when human beings were still in the obscure tribal clan society, dogs and ancestors formed a close symbiotic relationship. Derived from the characteristics of its ancestors wolf and fox, domestic dogs have a super sense of smell and hearing, but also have a certain degree of night vision ability, and domesticated domestic dogs, showing far stronger loyalty than other domestic animals, after breed improvement and training, domestic dogs gradually play an irreplaceable role in human production and life. Compared with horses, cattle and sheep and other relatively single-purpose domestic animals, domestic dogs can be described as real all-rounders, can take care of homes, can graze cattle and sheep, can assist in hunting, etc., of course, there are also a large number of domestic dogs trained by humans to become military dogs, walk into barracks, go to the battlefield.
The image of a warrior with a hound in an Assyrian relief
In medieval illustrations, military dogs fighting with noble knights
After entering the era of civilization, military dogs began to appear in large numbers in historical materials and cultural relics. In assyrian reliefs, it is common to see samurai leading military dogs in battle. During the Peloponnesian War, the Greek city-states were told of guarding the coastline with dozens of military dogs. In the burial pit of The Yin Ruins in China, a large number of skeletons of domestic dogs have been excavated, which proves that in the Yin Shang period, it was quite common for military nobles to use domestic dogs for military purposes. By the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the Central Plains were still frequently fought, and many princely states had set up a special "dog camp" to train military dogs (called "dog attachments" in historical records), but in ancient times, whether Chinese or foreign, the main task of military dogs was to exert the advantages of smell and hearing to guard, as stated in the "Zizhi Tongjian": "Where the marching army goes down to the camp, dog shops are set up on all sides, and dogs are guarded." When the enemy came, the dogs barked, and the camp was alerted. ”
In the industrial age, as human combat methods continue to be complicated and the intensity is constantly strengthened, the tasks undertaken by military dogs have begun to diversify, from simple guard vigilance to multi-project tasks such as battlefield rescue, communication and transportation of materials. Military dogs have proven to be extremely adaptable and exhibit similar adaptability and discipline to humans when dealing with different environments. In the copperplate engravings that survived during the Napoleonic Wars, there are often scenes of military dogs assisting humans in transporting food. At the Battle of Austerlitz, a military dog named Moustache showed great bravery, rushed into the enemy line to rescue a badly wounded legionnaire, and assisted him in bringing the flag back, and the heroic deeds of the long beard impressed the French marshal Lana, who even personally awarded the army dog.
A scene depicted in an 1836 copperplate engraving of the "long beard" freeing the flag bearers of the Legion
However, it was during the First World War that humans brought military dogs into the first-line battlefield on a large scale. In the Western Front, when trench warfare became the norm, the trenches and barbed wire with interlaced teeth, coupled with the machine gun fire covered from all angles, there were no ubiquitous snipers, making the soldiers on the front line unable to move, and a simple tactical task was like fighting death. At this time, the fast and agile and easy to conceal military dogs began to be valued, and soldiers on both sides would domesticate a large number of military dogs, which would first be used for vigilance in the trenches to sound the alarm when the enemy sneaked in at night. At the same time, they also played the role of communications soldiers and medics in trench warfare, laying telephone lines in no-man's lands full of mines, barbed wire and trenches, delivering bandages and medicines to the wounded who could not move, and sometimes following soldiers in special operations such as sneak attacks and wreckers.
At the beginning of the First World War, French soldiers who led various hounds to the battlefield were mostly recruited from the people
Military dogs used to lay telephone lines on the battlefield
Under the baptism of war, Europe, which was originally rich in noble dogs, emerged a number of military dog breeds that were proved suitable for military tasks. For example, the German Shepherd (Deutscher Schäferhund) and Dobermann (Dobermann) native to Germany, the Belgian Shepherd (Chien de Berger Belge) native to Belgium, the English Springer Spaniel native to the United Kingdom and the Boston Terrier native to the United States, among others. These dogs often interacted with each other, such as many British and French soldiers who preferred to use German Shepherds, while some German soldiers had a soft spot for Springers. Due to the huge demand of the war, the number of military dogs domesticated by the military was not enough, and the participating countries had to recruit a large number of medium and large dogs suitable for military use from the civilian population like conscripts, and many new soldiers even brought their own pet dogs to report.
For example, a Boston terrier named Stubby of the U.S. 26th Infantry Division was promoted to sergeant for repeatedly transporting urgently needed medicine for wounded soldiers on the battlefield and capturing German soldiers with his teammates, and was personally awarded the medal by General Pershing after the war. Because the domestication of military dogs at that time was far from regularized and systematic, coupled with the mixing of different breeds of military and civilian dogs, although military dogs began to play an important role on the battlefield, the actual use effect was uneven, because the casualty ratio of military dogs caused by improper use was even higher than the casualty ratio of ordinary soldiers at that time.
A Doberman domesticated by the Germans during World War I
A German Storm Commando soldier and his German Shepherd
German Shepherds and Dobermans deliver medicine to the wounded in trench warfare during World War I
By the time of World War II, the belligerents on the European battlefield had further selected and domesticated excellent breeds such as Satsuma and Alaskan sled dogs on the original dog breeds. In the Eastern Battlefield, there is no sense of special training of military dogs in China, and some are just soldiers who pull domestic dogs to the battlefield for simple vigilance. This kind of use of domestic dogs on the battlefield actually does not go beyond the scope of nursing homes, and it is difficult for local dogs that have not been professionally selected and trained to undertake any practical tasks on the battlefield.
In contrast, the development of military dogs in Japan was much earlier, as early as the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese began to learn from the Russian army how to domesticate military dogs. After the Battle of Qingdao in 1914, the Japanese captured many German Shepherds from the Germans stationed in Qingdao, and the Japanese finally got excellent Western dog breeds. In 1919, the Japanese Army Non-Commissioned Officer School began to try to breed a new breed of dogs, they on the basis of the German Shepherd, combined with the blood of the Shandong earth dog, bred the Japanese wolf green dog, which is slightly smaller than the German Shepherd, but has a keen sense of smell, sensitive movements, strong sense of protection, but fierce temperament, and strong teeth bite force. After being domesticated on a large scale, the Japanese wolf qing quickly became one of the armed forces of the Japanese army invading China.
General Pershing, who was awarded the order of Stuby
In 1900, during the German occupation of Qingdao, local Chinese police officers in Qingdao used German Shepherd dogs as police dogs
Like the West at the same time, the initial tasks of the Japanese wolf green included vigilance, patrol, communication and medical care, but as the Japanese army continued to penetrate into the Chinese mainland and began to be exhausted by the guerrillas behind enemy lines, the Japanese began to consciously play the brutal side of the wolf green dog in training. They even fed wolf qing with human flesh and trained wolf qing's attack power with Chinese prisoners of war. In this tragic training mode, the Japanese wolf youth has become more ferocious than ever. In the sweeping war against the base areas, the Japanese army often released wolf green to attack the military and civilians in the base area, and with its keen sense of smell and strong desire to attack, wolf green once caused a lot of trouble to the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army. During the interrogation of captured Chinese soldiers and civilians, the Japanese army often released hungry wolf greens to bite, and this military dog, which originally combined the best breeds of East and West, was finally trained to be as bloodthirsty and brutal as their masters.
After the September 18 Incident, the military dogs of the Japanese Kwantung Army were bred into Japanese wolf-green dogs bred by the Institute
A wolf-green dog that followed the invading Japanese army in a sweeping operation against the Japanese base area
In the face of the attacks of the wolf qing in groups, the military and people in the base area also came up with countermeasures, in addition to specially training the grass-roots officers and soldiers and militia in the technique of assassinating the wolf qing, to ensure that they could stab the key point before being bitten by it, and also mobilized the native dogs of the peasant families to kill the wolf qing. Among these earth dogs, the most effective against wolf green is a kind of earth dog that is called "bench dog" by local farmers. This Chinese native hound, because of its long body, wide legs, short legs, and shaped like a bench, is named, don't look at the usual cuteness, but the territorial sense is extremely strong, and can rely on the same powerful bite force, as well as more complete willpower, successfully repelled the swarm attack of wolf qing. When attacked by wolf qing, bench dogs often bite them to death, even if they are outnumbered, they do not retreat one step at a time, this tenacious fighting style often makes wolf qing afraid, and its disposition is also like that of Chinese soldiers and civilians during the arduous war.
The "bench dog" who was once the nemesis of the wolf green dog
After the end of the War of Resistance, the military dog training playground of the New First Army
However, relying on this kind of native hound dog alone can only achieve passive defense, and China urgently needs to cultivate its own special military dogs. At the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Dong Hanliang, known as the father of Chinese police dog science, selected several superior Zhejiang Changhua dogs in Chongqing and specially trained them for the weaknesses of the Japanese wolf-green dogs. The trained Changhua dog showed excellent combat effectiveness compared with the german shepherds and other western fine breeds in the same period, so it began to be promoted on the frontal battlefield. In actual combat, these specially trained Changhua dogs encountered wolf qing like a fierce tiger pouncing on food, they could often bite wolf qing's throat at the first time and kill them, and the Fear of Japanese wolf qing by Chinese soldiers began to decline. At the same time, the new First Army, which was trained in Ramga, India, also began to train military dogs in accordance with the US military model, and later set up a special training base for the training of New Army military dogs, which was specially designed for the selection and domestication of dog breeds such as German Shepherds and Springers.
In 1960, China began to introduce German Shepherd dogs from East Germany for breeding optimization
Kunming dogs in training
A Kunming dog patrolling with border guards
At the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Eighth Route Army used captured Japanese army dog training personnel and some Japanese wolf youth to carry out the selection and training of military dogs, and bred the first generation of military dogs of the Eighth Route Army, and achieved good results in the final battle against Japan. On the basis of its predecessors, the People's Liberation Army formally established a military dog breeding and training institution in Beijing in 1949, and two military dog teams were formed in Heilongjiang and Yunnan, and the people's army officially owned the military dog establishment from then on. In 1960, on the basis of the German Shepherd dog imported from East Germany, the Yunnan Military Dog Team finally bred an excellent dog breed comparable to the Western standard in 1988 - Kunming Dog, and passed the national acceptance after years of breeding and domestication.
The Kunming dog is quite similar in appearance to the German Shepherd, with developed limbs and a thick body, but the climate of the Yunnan Plateau is significantly more adaptable than that of the German Shepherd, which is very suitable for border patrol tasks. Their keen sense of smell and odor discrimination have allowed them to be widely used in special tasks such as anti-drug, smuggling inspection, explosion prevention and search and rescue. Of course, the most widely used Kunming dog in China is still border patrol, as one of the strongest environmentally adaptable dog breeds in the world, Kunming dogs can basically be bred and worked in almost all environments in China's border defense zone, and are currently the main dog breed of China's border defense forces, known as an indispensable part of China's border defense forces.
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