NAME:	Chips
SPECIES:	Mixed-breed German shepherd, collie, and husky
DATE:	1942 to 1945
LOCATION:	Africa, Sicily, Italy, and France
SITUATION:	World War II
WHO WAS SAVED:	American soldiers
LEGACY:	WWII’s most-celebrated combat dog, famous for having his military medals revoked

Napoleon Bonaparte knew the worth of military dogs. In 1798, he successfully used dogs as sentries in Alexandria, Egypt, and he once recommended in a letter that another French general do the same. Many nations, like France (see page 257), have long histories of using trained dogs in their armed forces, but not America.

The US military did not develop a formal war-dog program until WWII. When they did, the first animal to show how useful and heroic canines could be was Chips, who became that conflict’s most-decorated war dog.

THE K-9 CORPS
The US military had long understood that dogs are morale boosters. Stubby, the WWI hero (see page 272), was just one high-profile example of the hundreds of dogs who had been adopted over the years as mascots across every branch of service. As important as these animals were for providing comfort and lifting spirits, however, they had no formal role and were often officially discouraged.

Largely pushed by the volunteer organization Dogs for Defense, the military established the K-9 Corps in March 1942. Taking Napoleon’s advice about 150 years late, they first trained dogs for sentry duty, but the program’s scope expanded to include search-and-rescue work, scout patrols, and messenger missions. The military also experimented with bomb-detection and parachuting dogs, but training methods were haphazard and these efforts were scrapped. Their day had not yet come.

Each branch was encouraged to develop dogs for their own needs. In particular, the Marines were very successful using Doberman pinschers, dubbed “Devil Dogs,” as scouts and messengers in the South Pacific.

Especially initially, the suitability and appropriateness of using dogs in combat was often questioned within the US military. One Marine trainer, Captain Jackson Boyd, succinctly characterized the program’s purpose:

“The dogs are not to be considered as a new weapon; they have not replaced anyone or anything. They have simply added to security by their keen perception, and their use should be limited to situations where that increased perception is of service.”

CHIPS TAKES THE POINT
Chips, whose military number was 11-A, was a mutt: part German shepherd, collie, and husky. He was among the first dogs trained, solely for sentry duty, and he was attached to the 30th Infantry, Third Infantry Division, along with three other dogs: Watch, Pal, and Mena.

In October 1942, the dogs joined their division as part of a North African invasion fleet, landing in Vichy-held French Morocco. Working as sentries, the dogs successfully deterred nighttime sorties by the enemy, and no soldiers were killed while on duty with the dogs. However, Mena could not handle the gunfire and thunderous explosions of battle, and she soon became too scared and confused to work.

In fact, the aural cacophony of war overwhelmed many animals, and preparing dogs for this would become essential to later training.

In July 1943, Chips joined Patton’s Seventh Army during its amphibious landing in Sicily, where his greatest heroics occurred. Not long after landing, in the predawn light, Chips and his handler, Private John Rowell, were working inland from the beach. Though Chips was not trained as a scout, he was working the point anyway, for handlers often improvised during battles.

Suddenly, machine gun fire erupted from a camouflaged pillbox. Chips instantly broke from Rowell’s grasp and ran full-tilt at the hidden bunker, covering the three-hundred-yard distance in a flash. The machine-gun fire abruptly stopped, and within moments, an Italian soldier stumbled out, flailing in terror at the slashing and biting dog. Three more soldiers then emerged, arms raised in surrender. Rowell called off Chips and took the four Italians prisoner.

Chips suffered a minor scalp wound and powder burns, indicating the Italians had tried to shoot Chips with a firearm, but the four men were no match for a single dog. After treatment, Chips went back to work that same night. While on duty, he alerted as ten Italian soldiers walked down a road, and once again, Rowell took all the men prisoner without firing a shot.

In September 1943, Chips continued with the Seventh Army into Italy and saw action in two more campaigns, often working as a tank guard dog. In one incident, Chips alerted on an ambush, and then as fighting erupted, he ran back to base with a phone cable attached to his collar, allowing the platoon to call for needed backup.

CELEBRITY AND CONTROVERSY
As the press got wind of Chips’s heroic exploits, his celebrity grew quickly. General Eisenhower even made a point of greeting Chips personally while in Italy—though when Eisenhower tried to pet the dog, Chips gave him a warning nip.

This gaffe aside, Chips was an exemplar of what a war dog could be. As such, in October 1943, the military waived the regulation that prohibited giving medals to animals and awarded Chips both a Silver Star and a Purple Heart.

For some, this went too far. The national commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, William Thomas, wrote to President Roosevelt and the War Department in protest, saying this demeaned all those who’d received the award. He wrote: “It decries the high and lofty purpose for which the medal was created.”

As the feel-good story threatened to turn into a political black-eye, the military reversed course. They took the medals back and restored the prohibition against giving military decorations to “other than persons.”

This prohibition is still in effect today, though it’s an attitude that is not shared by most soldiers. As Michael Lemish observed in his book War Dogs: “No one who ever worked with a dog felt it demeaning to have a medal bestowed upon the animal.”

In Italy, Private Rowell and several other soldiers created their own medals for Chips, and they honored him in a private ceremony out of the public eye.

THE TRAUMA OF WAR
In December 1943, after more than a year of war, Chips began to show signs of battle fatigue. He was becoming skittish, and so he was sent for a few months to the rear for quiet sentry duty, away from the gunfire and exploding artillery.

In August 1944, Chips returned to the front lines and joined troops in southern France for a succession of campaigns. But after awhile, Chips again displayed evidence of stress, and perhaps of a bad diet, and he was reassigned to POW sentry duty.

WWII officially ended in September 1945, and Chips returned to the United States a month later, in October. After a few months, he was then discharged back into the care of his previous owners, who had originally donated him to the army.

Unfortunately, Chips never fully recovered from the trauma of three years in active combat. His kidneys were failing, and after only a few short months of civilian life, he died on April 12, 1946.

The US used thousands of dogs in WWII, and most exhibited exceptional valor and resilience, but none became as famous as Chips.

CLEVER HANS: THE FAMOUS HORSE
WHO DIDN’T ADD UP

When it comes to animal intelligence, perhaps the most famous cautionary tale in all of science is that of Clever Hans, a German horse at the turn of the twentieth century who became legendary for his ability to understand both German and mathematics. Clever Hans is a fun story that sheds light on how our assumptions can often guide our conclusions, and it’s worth telling.

Besides, there is an unwritten law that you must mention Clever Hans in any book on ethology. Whip this out in science class for guaranteed extra credit.

A HORSE IS A HORSE, OF COURSE
In late-nineteenth-century Germany, a former math teacher, Herr Wilhelm von Osten, claimed that he had taught his draft horse, Hans, how to read, spell, and add. Before increasingly large crowds, Herr von Osten would ask Hans to spell a word, or show him an addition problem, or present him with a number story, like: “If the eighth day of the month comes on a Tuesday, what is the date of the following Friday?”

Hans would then paw or tap the ground until he had reached the correct number. Almost without fail, Hans would stop on the right answer, and his fame soon spread worldwide. The public became enthralled with the horse’s unique and amazing intelligence, even as the scientific community grumbled that it must be a trick. No horse could do what Hans was said to do.

So in 1904, a commission investigated Herr von Osten and his marvelous animal. Yet despite their best efforts, they could find no chicanery, no hoax of any kind. Much to their chagrin, they had to admit that Clever Hans was the real deal.

THE ANSWER IS IN THE QUESTIONER
Still, one of the psychologists on the commission, Oskar Pfungst, remained unconvinced. Though Herr von Osten seemed genuine—he truly believed in Hans’s abilities—Pfungst continued testing the horse.

To eliminate any possible coaching, Pfungst questioned Hans himself, alone, and he had strangers question Hans. But no matter who asked the questions, Clever Hans gave the right answers nearly 100 percent of the time.

However, Pfungst noticed something interesting: If Hans was shown a word to read or a math problem to solve, he never looked at the paper, but, Pfungst wrote, “he would always make the most strenuous efforts to see the questioner.”

Further, if the questioner didn’t know the answer, or if the person stood out of the horse’s line of sight, Clever Hans almost never got the answer right. In these situations, the horse’s accuracy plummeted to less than 10 percent.

Based on this, Pfungst determined that the horse couldn’t understand language or do math at all. The only thing Hans was “reading” was body language.

SMART, BUT NOT WHAT YOU THINK
Pfungst unmasked the mystery of Clever Hans’s “genius,” and ever since scientists have used this story to illustrate the dangers of anthropomorphism and observational bias, as well as the inadequacy of anecdotes. Researchers need to guard carefully against seeing more in an animal’s behavior than is there. Or seeing only what they want to see. Animal studies must rigorously avoid situations where animals perform in ways to please observers without truly understanding what a test is asking of them.

Clever Hans mimicked intelligence he did not have, but he wasn’t trying to fool anyone. On the contrary, Clever Hans knew exactly what his questioners wanted—for him to tap until they thought he should stop. Invariably, Clever Hans performed best with people who believed in him and wanted him to succeed. However, the horse was so good at reading people that he knew when someone felt he should stop despite the person’s best efforts not to show it. Face-to-face, Clever Hans could not be fooled.

This, in itself, is rather remarkable. And today, many scientists now “defend” Clever Hans: In the kerfuffle over Hans’s supposed mathematical abilities, his real talents were overlooked. That is, how did Clever Hans figure out the “game” Herr von Osten was playing? Why did he decide to play along with anyone and everyone? And how sensitive must horses be to read human thoughts and emotions from the tiniest physical cues?

These, then, are the “other” lessons of Clever Hans. First, as dog expert Elizabeth Marshall Thomas wryly notes, that “he proved himself to be a better observer than the most prominent scientists of his day.”

But also, as anthropologist Pat Shipman writes, “the Clever Hans phenomenon is not a story about a failure to teach an animal language but rather a success story about achieving a fairly sophisticated level of communication across species boundaries.”

This intuitive communication and openness to humans is what natural horsemanship trainers like Ray Hunt depend on, and it probably helps explain why horses sometimes provide such powerful therapeutic benefits. Maybe horses can’t read, and they’ll never talk like TV’s fictional Mr. Ed, but they possess gifts that are still worth marveling at.