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Dogs have been part of warfare since ancient times. The Romans used the breed Canis Molossus with success until they fought the Briton’s Mastiff, which were more powerful with broad mouths. So the Romans imported and used these dogs thereafter. The Romans started employing war dogs at about 101 B.C., which was 1 company of canines for each legion. They had dog attack formations and put chain mail and spiked collars on the dogs. Other ancient groups used war dogs such as the Greeks, Egyptians, and Lydians.

At the Battle of Vercellae, also known as the Battle of the Raudine Plain 9101 B.C.), the female Teutons led the huge Kimber dogs to defend the laagers, which were wagon forts. The wagons were an improvised fort and were circled or placed into a rectangular shape for battle.

During the period of transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages, which is designated Late Antiquity or Classical Antiquity, Attila the Hun made use of Molossers in his battles. The Irish counterattacked the Brits with Irish Wolfhounds and the Brits had attacked them with dogs. The Irish also attacked the Norman invaders with Wolfhounds. A dog could pull a armored knight from his horse and then the Irish solder completed the defense.

During the Seven Years War between Russia and Great Britain, the former had messenger dogs. In 1580, Queen Elizabeth dispatched 800 war dogs to battle during the Desmond Rebellions. The French had dogs that guarded the French naval installations since the first part of the 14th century.; they stopped using them in 1770 because a dog killed a French naval officer. During the Russo-Japanese war of 1904 the Russians employed dogs as ambulance canines. During the Spanish American War, dogs were scouts for Teddy’s Rough Riders in Cuba’s jungles.

During World War II, the Russians used dogs to blow up enemy tanks. The dogs managed to disable 11 armored vehicles during a single battle. The German Panzergenadiers had orders to shoot every dog they saw because of the Russian success.

Dogs have been employed for various war purposes: pulling carts of wounded soldiers, pulling huge guns, and pulling phone wire from one spot to a distant place. Dogs have been used as sentries for a long time. In modern times, dogs were used as sentries by the United States during the Viet Nam War. They put dog teams ahead of bunkers and towers. They had been used also for finding weapon caches, detecting soldiers underwater breathing through reeds in Korean, Vietnam Nam, and during World War II. The dogs were very successful at detecting Vietcong intruders, so many more were employed beyond the initial 40 dog teams.

The French employed almost 1200 dogs during the Gulf War to guard their troops, supplies, and aircraft and the United States also used dogs during this war.

So during all of history, in different cultures, and eras the effectiveness of employing dogs for various wartime activities has been recognized and taken advantage of, though some ot the uses are obsolete, some are still useful today.

Dogs and War courtesy of Dog Articles.

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Puppies are cute, affectionate, loving and silly. They’re fun to play with and cuddle with and will never not call you back. What could be better than one puppy except two, right?

Maybe.

Puppies may be all of these great things, but remember, puppies are tons of responsibility. For all the work you’ll have to do to housebreak one puppy, you’ll have to do it all twice as much. For all the money you spend on food, toys, treats and supplies, you’ll have to spend double. For all the love, attention, work and time you put into one puppy, you’ll have to put in two times that amount.

Now, if you’re an experienced pet owner and have handled having two young dogs in the past before, you may already know all the work involved and are willing to do it. In that case, good luck and have fun. However, most of us have never had to bring up two puppies at the same time. That being the case, most of us can’t fully realize the kind of effort that goes into raising two dogs simultaneously. Remember this before you commit to two new family members.

One problem that is often brought up about rearing two puppies at the same time is that they get closer with each other than they will with you. If a puppy has another dog to be his companion, he doesn’t need the human partnership most pets crave. Additionally, once he passes a certain point without that human bond, he will never bond as close with his master as he could have if he were forced to at an early age.

An obvious problem with this is that oftentimes companion dogs will pay more attention to the other dog than they will to their humans. This can make the two dogs a lot harder to control, to train and to housebreak. Dogs are pack animals and once you have more than one dog, you have a pack. Packs are self-involved and hard to handle. They can also be dangerous in early years, as a pack order must be established and may or may not come easily. Fights can happen, intimidation, abuse from one dog to the other. Remember than all of these complications are very real possibilities that may occur from raising two puppies at once.

A common reason people have for wanting to get two puppies is that they want one to keep the other company. They overlook all the work that will go into raising two babies (as that is essentially what puppies are) at once and decide that one needs another. Remember that your dog will get plenty of company from you if you are devoting enough time and attention to it and if you still feel that you dog needs a companion, it is much easy and better idea to wait until your first puppy is a year of age, past housebreaking and training, to adopt another. That way, you’ll be positive that you can accept the responsibility of being a two dog household.

Should I Adopt Two Puppies courtesy of Dog Articles.

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