| NAME: | Treo |
| SPECIES: | Labrador retriever |
| DATE: | August 2008 |
| LOCATION: | Afghanistan |
| SITUATION: | War-time threat from hidden roadside bombs |
| WHO WAS SAVED: | Hundreds of Afghanistan-based Coalition Forces troops |
| LEGACY: | Medal-winning British military hero, exemplifies gutsy devotion of bomb-detection dogs |
Treo’s story begins like that of many working dogs who find themselves suited for the rigors of the military, the police force, or as search-and-rescue dogs. He was, as the British would say, a royal pain in the arse.
A feisty black Labrador retriever, Treo had a highly developed prey drive and an aggressiveness that his owners couldn’t control. The one-year-old pup growled at and confronted everyone. Frazzled and frustrated, the owners eventually donated Treo to the British military.
In fact, the military searches for exactly this kind of relentless, overachieving, Type-A canine personality. One British military dog recruiter said, “It is no good having a dog that will chase a ball behind the sofa a couple of times and then grow bored.”
PARTNERING WITH A HANDLER
Over a twelve-week training course, Treo’s energy was channeled into becoming a working military dog specializing in bomb detection. Then Treo was matched with a military handler—the soldier who would work with him in the field.
Treo was partnered with Sergeant David Heyhoe, who was actually Treo’s second handler, but that didn’t make their relationship, or their need to connect, any less important. The ultimate success of every canine-human working partnership, no matter what context, often relates directly to the strength of their emotional bond. Pairing the right dog with the right handler is essential.
Sergeant Heyhoe said his experience with Treo was virtually kismet. “I looked at him and he looked at me and that was that—I know it sounds daft, but it was love at first sight,” he said.
Then, once partnered, the handler and the dog spend as much or more time together than the person does with his or her own family. For deployed soldiers, this includes a spouse. For the next five years, except for one two-week period, Sergeant Heyhoe and Treo were together every single day. In this way, dogs and handlers come to know each other intimately and can read every nuance of each other’s behavior.
“Basically, me and the dog have got to get a rapport,” Sergeant Heyhoe said. “We’ve got to understand each other, and without that we can’t be effective on the ground. Everyone will say that he is just a military working dog—yes, he is, but he is also a very good friend of mine. We look after each other.”
In the military, the extraordinary closeness of the handler-dog relationship also relates to the inherent dangers of war. As Maria Goodavage, author of Soldier Dogs, writes: “Handlers put their lives on the line for their dogs, and the reverse is also true.”
FINDING BOMBS IN AFGHANISTAN
In 2008, Sergeant Heyhoe and Treo were deployed to Helmund Province in Afghanistan. They formed part of the British military’s contribution to the Coalition Forces during the Afghanistan War against the Taliban insurgency in the 2000s.
Sergeant Heyhoe and Treo were a detection team whose main role was to find improvised explosive devices, or IEDs—that is, hidden bombs along roadsides or near public spaces that are either detonated remotely or on contact. In the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, the opposition used IEDs rampantly, and locating these remains the most common and important role for working military dogs. It is also the most dangerous, since it “involves searching for arms and explosives out on the ground to the forefront of the troops,” Sergeant Heyhoe said.
During their six-month deployment in Helmund Province, Treo found numerous bombs, but two incidents in particular stood out.
In August 2008, Treo found “a daisy-chain that was three or four devices linked together,” Sergeant Heyhoe said. “If that would have gone off, it would have killed the whole patrol.”
Similarly, a month later, Treo uncovered a second daisy-chain that would have killed another entire patrol.
As a result of these two finds, and six months after he was retired from active duty, Treo was awarded the British Dickin Medal in 2010. The Dickin Medal is England’s animal equivalent to the Victoria Cross, which recognizes bravery in battle. The United States has no similar official award for working military animals (which has long been a point of controversy; see page 290).
While Sergeant Heyhoe said he was “very proud” to receive the award, he felt that it really honored all the dogs and handlers working in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“That’s what the medal means to us,” he said. “Taking it for the rest of the guys and their dogs.”
FOUR-LEGGED METAL DETECTORS
In the last decade, working military dogs have become an indelible, and perhaps irreplaceable, aide in battle, particularly for Britain and America. In 2008, Treo was one of twenty-five dogs serving the British military in Afghanistan, while the Royal Army Veterinary Corps (RAVC) currently has two hundred dogs trained for combat.
Today, the US military has approximately 2,700 working military dogs in service worldwide in a range of capacities.
With obvious affection, Sergeant Heyhoe once called Treo “basically a four-legged metal detector.” But the truth is, no mechanical device comes close to doing what a dog can do. One RAVC officer said, “A dog is a robust, fast piece of equipment that can work in all areas. Other kit often has far more technical and operating problems.”
Most soldiers bristle at the characterization of dogs as “equipment.” After all, working military dogs excel at what they do in part because they are unconditionally devoted to the soldiers. They are dogs, after all. This translates directly into lives saved.
Over an eight-year period in Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s, IEDs were responsible for approximately 60 percent of all casualties (including deaths and injuries) among Coalition Forces.
Without dogs like Treo, that percentage would have been far higher. Though estimates of lives saved by dogs vary widely, according to Goodavage in Soldier Dogs, it ranges “from 150 to 1,800 lives per dog.” And according the US Department of Defense, “non-canine detection units” have about a 50 percent success rate at detecting hidden weapons and bombs, while dogs have an 80 percent success rate.
THE NOSE KNOWS, BUT THE HEART FINDS
It’s no secret that dogs have a better sense of smell than humans. Depending on the breed, dogs have up to 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses, while humans have a paltry 6 million. Plus, the part of a dog’s brain devoted to analyzing odors is forty times larger, proportionally speaking, than in humans.
Because of this, dogs smell anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 times better than we do. If smelling were a sprint, a dog would be done before we took our first step.
But dogs don’t have the best noses in the animal kingdom. Bears, sharks, snakes, mice, and even moths are considered better sniffers.
So are pigs, and in the 1970s, military researchers discovered that pigs topped dogs at detecting underground bombs. So why are there no bomb-sniffing pigs—or bears, for that matter?
Well, pigs instinctively root, and they grow quite large, both of which are clear detriments if the underground object you’re hunting could explode.
According to Cat Warren in What the Dog Knows, researchers also experimented with bomb-sniffing coyotes, deer, raccoons, badgers, wolves, skunks, raptors, and even rattlesnakes. Over the years, they also tried bugs and special ferns (which turn white near dangerous chemicals). All of these can accurately detect bombs, but none of them are suited for bomb detection for a very simple reason: None are motivated to work with humans. Wild animals, being wild, easily become distracted and disinterested, and thus unreliable.
Domestic canines may not be the ultimate sniffers, but they’re the only animals who truly want the job. This applies to other areas, like disease detection, as well.
Plus, dogs work cheaply. When they make a find, their “pay” is typically play time with a favorite toy or even just a well-earned hug.