Military Dog Helped With Bin Laden Raid - Page 1

An unsung four legged hero:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/04/military-working-dog-used-bin-laden-compound-raid/?cmpid=cmty_fb_Gigya_Military_Dog_Used_in_Bin_Laden_Compound_Raid

In the artical I read it says
"Many SEAL dogs come equipped with "titanium fangs capable of ripping through enemy protective armor," at a cost of "about $2,000 a tooth," according to the Daily."
 
Now thats pretty awesome 

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/05/belgian-malinois-dog-osama-bin-laden_n_858050.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec3_lnk3%7C60885

Titanium fangs are awesome! The first article also said the dog had full body armour and was equipped with infrared night sight cameras! Cool!

This article is about Navy SEAL dogs and has a news report at the end about these elite dogs: http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/gadgets-electronics/blogs/titanium-fangs-the-technology-behind-navy-seal-dogs

The seal dogs do not come equipped with Titanium fangs to rip body armor.  The dogs get titanium canines to replace worn or broken canines.  They are not given Titanium canines to rip or shred body armor.  Don't believe everything you read.   We have a GSD in our unit with four Titanium canines, the dog wore the enamel down on his teeth and had them capped with titanium.  I have seen many of the seal dogs and have never seen one with Titanium teeth.  There is no doubt that if a dog broke or wore a tooth down they would get the titanium replacements or caps, just as a sport dog or a Police K9 would.

Jim

Even with alot of padding the dogs manage to bruise and cut skin. Some dogs bites are so
hard it is difficult  to decoy for them in training...with just the teeth God gave them.

I am glad to see this in news..."Man nor machine cannot replace our Military Dogs".
They bring something to the fight that is helping our men in Afghanistan.

I salute the 4 legged soldiers!

Slamdunc--here's a quote from the article on my last post that reaffirms what you wrote: Titanium Teeth The most important thing to note on this topic is that the Navy SEAL's and other enforcement agencies are not just ripping out a dog's teeth for the sake of creating a terrifying looking war machine. There was a general misconception yesterday on the web that titanium teeth were preferable to the real thing - but as Wired points out, they're more of a backup solution when injury strikes. War dogs, police dogs, etc. are all trained to bite - but many times, those bites can lead to broken teeth. Replacing injured teeth with titanium (at a cost between $600-$2,000/tooth) is one way to help a dog to continue its service. Generally, the canines (the four longest and most noticeable teeth) are the most common injured teeth replaced so that the animal can again grip and tear through material (including body armor) without injuring itself. However, as one canine training specialist pointed out to Wired, titanium fangs are not as stable as a regular tooth and are "much more likely to come out during a biting."

Here's a slide show with some pretty cool "war dog" pics, complete with comment.  I also heard that the dogs wear ear buds, so they can get remote commands!

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/05/04/war_dog?page=0,0

GSDTravels,
You would be amazed at the level of training and technology these dogs have.  I have seen the dogs and some of their training.  I have taken things learned from them and incorporated it into our K-9 training, especially when working the dog with SWAT team.  Their dogs are hand selected by a couple of my buddies who are some of their trainers.  Really impressive stuff to say the least.


Jim 

Nice pictures.  Some of the same ones are in the article I posted and were used in the news video feed at the end of the article.  Here it is again:  http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/gadgets-electronics/blogs/titanium-fangs-the-technology-behind-navy-seal-dogs