Famous Working Dogs
By Elona Baron as Told to Laurie Baron
SAN DIEGO−When my owners take me for a walk, other dogs bark at me. People think it’s an expression of aggression, but actually it’s the way dogs communicate to each other since we don’t have IPawPads. After my Dog Day column appeared, they’ve been saying, “Sequel! We need more than one article recognizing famous dogs. Our puppies need role models.” So here’s a Labor Day Column in honor of working dogs.
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Mick the Miller was one of the most successful Greyhound race dogs in history. During 1928 and 1929 he won 19 races in a row, including two successive English Greyhound Derbies. He broke the world record four times. Following his retirement, he was put out to stud and appeared in several movies. His hope to combine the two careers and star in the porn film Mick the Driller never materialized.
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Chips was a mixed breed who served on the European front during World War Two with the US Army. Once when his brigade got pinned down by snipers firing from a pillbox, Chips rushed the pillbox and captured four Italian soldiers. Another time he alerted soldiers to an impending ambush. He received a Silver Star for valor and a Purple Heart for his injuries, but the Army subsequently confiscated the medals claiming that he was only “equipment.” He couldn’t understand their rationale since the Army had issued him a dog tag.
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Cairo is a Belgian Malinois who belonged to Seal Team Six. When the Team raised Osama bin Laden’s compound, he sniffed out hidden explosives and located the room where bin Laden was hiding. Time magazine awarded Cairo its Animal of the Year award in 2011 and noted “this heroic dog deserves an extra treat, or twelve.” How condescending is that? Cairo undoubtedly merited an appointment to the Joint Chiefs of Mastiffs.
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Buddy the German shepherd was trained to be America’s first seeing-eye dog. In 1938 he became the first service dog to be allowed to accompany his master in the passenger section of an airliner. Buddy always wondered why he hadn’t been trained as a smelling nose dog because his sense of smell was keener than his vision.
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Smokey the Yorkshire terrier is regarded as the first therapy dog. Abandoned in a foxhole in New Guinea, she was found by an American soldier in 1944. During the remainder of World War Two, she was employed by the US Army to comfort wounded GIs. After the war, she opened a practice for other dogs. She took notes as her patients reclined on doggie beds and whined about their traumatic puppyhoods then blaming everything on parental abandonment.
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Elona resides with Bonnie and Laurie Baron. The latter is professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. He may be contacted via lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com. No animals were harmed in the writing of this column.