A tribute to the dogs who fly into danger, sniff out bombs, mines and dangerous fugitives. One such dog, whose identity is being kept a secret, was there with the U.S. SEALS the night they found Osama bin Laden. See Rebecca Frankel’s on-line photo essay in Foreign Policy Magazine.

Also, check out the World War 11 Mascot section of this blog.

Gary Durian and Baxter

Each Task Force will be composed of approximately 72 personnel, including Urban Search and Rescue canines and 75 tons of rescue equipment. The teams are in the process of getting a health clearance for their dogs from their veterinarians, certifying that the dogs are in good health and able to be deployed. Unlike other national disasters Japan is asking for immediate help.

The National Disaster Search Dog Foundation was founded in 1996 with a mission to strengthen disaster response in America and across the world by recruiting rescued dogs and partnering them with firefighters and other first responders to assist in finding humans buried alive in the wreckage of disasters. Currently there are 74 Search Dog Foundation teams located in California, Florida, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah.

World Vets is an international veterinary aid organization that provides “free veterinary aid, resources and support during times of disaster all over the world”. Their non-profit efforts spans 25 countries and 6 continents, and handles both veterinary issues and human health issues caused by animal-related infectious diseases.

The National Disaster Search Dog Foundation is a non-profit, FEMA-certified agency that searches for survivors in the wreckage of catastrophic events such as the one is Japan. NDSDF has already deployed six Canine Disaster Search Teams to respond to the current crisis; each task force is made up of approximately 72 members (including both humans and Urban Search and Rescue dogs) and some 75 tons of rescue equipment.

In February 2009 their five year old Shi Tsu, Buddy, (pictured left) weighing about eight kilograms, lay asleep outside the gift shop. Suddenly, a cougar turned up at the open front door, picked Buddy up in his mouth, and began walking down the boardwalk with him.

Horrified, Mary and her assistant, Cara Aman, ran after the cougar yelling and screaming. Buddy was struggling in the big cat’s mouth so they knew that he was still alive. Mary’s husband, Jim, grabbed an axe and chased the cougar as he took off up the stairs toward the Borrowmans’ house. When the cat growled at Jim, he quickly dropped Buddy who rolled down an embankment. Jim was able to pick him up right away.

Buddy was in terrible shape. His eyes had popped out of their sockets because of the pressure. The Borrowmans rushed the little dog to a veterinary clinic where his eyes were treated as well as a cracked jaw, broken teeth, and other injuries.

In the meantime, the cougar was treed by a neighbour’s Rhodesian Ridgeback. As a precaution, he was shot dead by a conservation officer who thought that the cat’s taste for blood might escalate his prey instincts.

Out of love for their dog, the Borrowmans forfeited their holidays last year to pay for five surgeries on Buddy. Eventually most of Buddy’s injuries healed, but he did loose his sight.

The little fellow coped well enough during the summer, but when Fall came, Mary says he seemed to be depressed and disinterested in activities. She contacted support groups online and was advised to get another dog to keep Buddy company.

Initially Jim and Mary were doubtful, because Buddy is more of a people lover than an appreciator of his own species. When Joey, a Shih-Tzu/Lhasa Apso mix, arrived as an eight week old puppy, Buddy growled at him every time he tried to play. But little by little they grew closer and closer and the dogs are now inseparable.

Mary says that it is hard to know if Joey knows whether or not Buddy’s is blind, but Buddy doesn’t go anywhere without Joey anymore. They’re always seen together greeting visitors on the boardwalks at Telegraph Cove. Joey manoevres Buddy around obstacles. He’s Buddy’s guide dog.

Before immigrating to Canada after the Second World War, Ron had joined the British Royal Navy in 1935 and spent 2 ½ years based in Bermuda attending torpedo school. This was the time when Imperial Japan was planning the eventual domination of the Eastern world. Its primary targets were Great Britain and America. By February 1939 Ron began serving on one of Britain’s gunboats, the H.M.S. Tern, which patrolled six hundred miles up the Yangstze River in China.

Approximately six hundred miles of the lower areas of the river were patrolled by small gunboats. Each gunboat was given the name of an insect. Today we might call them bug boats. The canteen committee of the Gnat wanted to get a pet. The Bee already had two cats, the Cricket had a dog, and the Cicada had a monkey.

It was then that Quartermaster introduced a purebred brown and white English Short-Haired Pointer puppy he’d picked up at the Shanghai Dog Kennels. Her Chinese name, Shudi, meaning ‘peaceful’ and was changed to Judy. The puppy was given an official ship’s book number, an open topped box for her sleeping quarters, and a ship’s blanket. Judy had joined the Navy.

Not long after her arrival, Judy crawled through a portside guardrail onto slippery steel plates outboard and fell into the fast running river. Her rescue was greeted with cheers of relief. Many a man had been lost in the treacherous Yangstze River. From then on, Judy was on full alert.

She became adept at warning her crew of the presence of river pirates, barking and baring her teeth at their silent approach. She quickly became a favourite with the men, wandering among them, chewing offered peanuts, accepting pats. Judy took part in all shipboard activities, leaving her puppyhood behind her as the weeks and months went by. In the Spring of 1937, the Yangstze Flotilla Flagship, the Bee, arrived at Hankow to relieve the Gnat. A number of Judy’s good friends left on board the Bee.

Japanese action in the area became increasingly dangerous. The gunboat men sympathized with the Chinese people who lived along the shores of the great Yangstze River. When families asked that their riverboat homes be tied up to the gunboats for safety, they were never refused. Judy extended her friendship to everyone aboard the Gnat and to the many Chinese merchants and families along the shoreline.

During one visit to Hankow the Gnat tied up beside a French gunboat which also had a dog, another pedigreed Pointer, aboard. For the two dogs it was love at first sight, a union which resulted in Judy’s first offspring, thirteen puppies. Pups Jocylin and Jessica from this litter are seen with Ron Cuthbert in the photograph. As the weeks went by, the boat teemed with puppies galloping about on fat little legs. Eventually they were dispersed to Consular officials and their families as well as local river steamers and fans of Judy.

By 1939 the gunboats had become old and in June of that year part of the Gnat’s company, including Judy, were transferred to the Grasshopper. The gunboats continued to patrol the river, but when war was declared on Germany in September of 1939, the Admiralty signaled the entire withdrawal of gunboats from the great river. The Gnat, Ladybird, Cockchafer, Cricket, and Tarantula all followed the Scorpion, Dragonfly and Grasshopper to Singapore. Judy, new girl on a strange ship, sailed away from the Gnat which had been her home for three years. After overcoming seasickness, Judy enjoyed a happy and carefree period, unaware of the forces of history that were to overtake her and her human companions.

Things came to a head on Sunday, December 7, 1941, when planes from six Japanese aircraft carriers attacked the U. S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii. Japanese forces went on to also air bomb Hong Kong and the Philippines. On Christmas Day, 1941, Hong Kong surrendered to the Japanese, leaving Singapore as the next obvious target.

During the next two months Judy saw action big time. When the Grasshopper’s guns opened up, she didn’t panic or cry or howl but she stuck it out like the rest of the gunboat’s crew. She became, in fact, a reliable early warning system, barking in the right direction before enemy planes appeared, and she was reliably quiet when stealth in the darkness of night was required.

By early 1942, the Grasshoppper, several other gunboats, and a few other even smaller vessels continued to be in demand, but the little ships were increasingly limited in their effect because of the Japanese advances on land and their overwhelming superiority at sea and in the air. Then came the fall of Singapore. A number of Judy’s soldier friends were to die in the terrible days that followed. The crew of the Grasshopper took aboard escaping children and women. Judy, sensing the gravity of the situation, personally welcome aboard every newcomer. The children were her main concern; she walked around the ship with them, played with them, even slept with them. When the Grasshopper was bombed, Judy remained calm, even as the Commander gave the order to abandon ship.

Both civilians and seamen made their way to shore, but no one realized that Judy was not with them. When a second bomb hit the vessel, a row of seamen’s lockers toppled and somewhere beneath them lay Judy.

A quick thinking seaman requested permission to swim to the sinking Grasshopper to see if he could fashion a raft and salvage anything aboard. Once aboard, he heard a whine. He recognized the voice. It was Judy. He freed the dog and she slowly got to her feet, shook herself and leaped up and down like a lamb.

Lack of fresh water became a very serious problem for the survivors. As if sensing the problem, and likely driven by her own thirst, Judy began to dig down into the wet sand where the tide had receded. Whining excitedly, she dug with purpose. Some of the men, seeing her, joined in, stopping when fresh clear water surged up from the bottom. Judy had saved the day!

Five days after the bombing of the Grasshoppe,r the survivors were taken off the island by a large whaling ship. It eventually made it to Padang in Sumatra where it was hoped that British and Australian naval vessels were waiting to carry them to Colombo and freedom. What they didn’t know was that by this time South Sumatra had fallen into Japanese hands. At Rengat, when the boats could go no further into the jungle, local people advised the survivors that they would have to travel the next 170 miles on foot.

Spurred on by the expectation of ships waiting at Padang, the survivors made stretchers for the wounded and the sick who were unable to walk. With Judy loping ahead leading the way, they set off along the beaten track beside the river. At one point during the trek she suffered a gash on her shoulder by a lurking crocodile. Judy’s injury required an unscheduled pause at an abandoned warehouse where her wound was cleaned. The trek took five weeks in the humid jungle. When they finally reached Padang, it was at the very time when it was being surrendered to the Japanese.

Departure from the peninsula was forbidden and they became Japanese prisoners of war. Women and children were kept in one camp, men in another. The men tried to explain to the Camp Commandant that Judy was an official member of the Royal Navy but were ignored. No official ration came her way, and she was forced to stalk and kill her own food which was made up of rats, snakes, lizards and birds. She became a first class scrounger.

During daylight hours, Judy was closely watched for her own safety because the Japanese soldiers didn’t like her at all. But at night she quietly slipped out through one of the open windows, crawled through a small gap under a wire meshed gate, and disappeared into the darkness to forage.

Months went by. There was no reliable news of the outside world. One day, half the prisoners at Padang were ordered to move to a seaport in North Sumatra. Four of Judy’s closest human friends decided it would be safer for the dog if she went with them. They climbed into their transport truck, patted her, and covered her with rice sacks. Whenever stops were made during the four day journey, she remained hidden under the sacks. At their destination, the men were housed together in an old Dutch army barracks. Again, Judy looked after herself, sneaking out of the camp whenever she could in search of food. These forays outside the camp grew increasingly dangerous as all dogs in the area were hunted, shot, and eaten. Inside the camp itself she moved around freely and openly, but giving the Japanese or Korean guards a wide berth.

It was about this time that Judy met the young Royal Air Force technician, Frank Williams who was to become her number one human being. As the months passed and the food situation deteriorated, Judy did her best to contribute to the company larder. Although bartering was punishable by death, it flourished. Judy would enter the camp from one of her dangerous forays and would not loosen her grip on the rat or snake she had caught until she could lay it at the feet of Frank Williams.

One day Frank noticed that Judy was pregnant. The men worried that with her growing plumpness she would be considered an even better addition to the stewpot. When her nine puppies were born, five survived. Frank offered one of the pups to the Camp Commandant’s girlfriend who, whenever she saw Judy, was friendly to her. The Commandant accepted the gift and Frank took the chance of requesting again that Judy be made an official prisoner-of-war. Surprisingly, the Colonel agreed and scrawled the official order on a sheet of paper. Before morning, Judy was wearing her own tag, clearly marked “81A Medan”. Her four remaining pups were a great morale booster and one was eventually adopted by the Dutch Women’s Prison Camp.

Unfortunately, when a new Commandant took over the camp, things quickly deteriorated. The man disliked Judy and dismissed her new status. The POWs were made to work harder than ever. When an order arrived announcing that that the men be shipped to Singapore, the new Commandant ordered that Judy remain behind in camp Medan. But Frank was determined to smuggle Judy with them. By this time she had become a rangy, scruffy looking animal with dull skin and protruding ribs. Frank’s plan was to carry her in a sack at certain stages of the journey where any guards might see her. At other times he would have to depend on her strict obedience and her understanding of his hand signals.

First, Judy had to learn how to get in and out of the sack as quickly as possible at the click of Frank’s fingers. More than seven hundred men assembled to move together out of Medan camp. Aware of the risk they were taking, several men formed a screen around Frank as he took a blanket out of his sack and clicked his fingers. Judy bounded over into the sack and Frank hoisted it over his shoulder. This is how Judy boarded the waiting train.

When the train arrived dockside, Frank released the dog and Judy disappeared underneath the train. As the prisoners drew up in ranks along the dock, they were counted and inspected. Seven hundred men kept silent as Judy crawled on her stomach between their ranks until she reached Frank who again removed the blanket from his sack, helped her into the sack, and lifted her onto his shoulder.

The men were ordered onto an old, rusty ex-Dutch tramp steamer ship. On the morning of June 26, 1944, two Japanese torpedoes struck the ship and killed more than five hundred of the seven hundred prisoners crammed into its holds. Frank Williams was swept overboard and tread water for two hours until, exhausted, he was helped aboard a Japanese tanker. In the meantime Judy, also thrown into the sea, allowed a man swimming at her side to fling his arm across her back. When friendly hands lifted her from the water, she was more dead than alive. But there was no time to treat her as the heroine she was,she had to be hidden from the threat of execution.
Judy in tow, the surviving prisoners were transported to River Valley Camp where she was reunited with Frank Williams. After several difficult weeks in this camp they were sent to another camp in central Sumatra. This involved another forced march. Judy hung onto life, but only because Frank carried the sore and hungry dog over the more difficult parts of the journey through dangerous swamps and across precarious bridges.

At thisdestination in Sumatra the soldiers were ordered to lay 3,000 miles of railway tracks, a project the Dutch had abandoned before the war because of its difficulty and cost. They suffered from the effects of hard labour, beri-beri and cerebral malaria which were two common diseases in the jungle. And they were always hungry. Frank was down to half his normal weight. Judy was half starved, always on the hunt for food. At night she foraged for food which she would lay at Frank’s feet to contribute to the stew pot. Even the guards appreciated her contributions of protein in the form of rodents and local snakes.

During these days of hard labour, malnutrition and disease, rumours spread that the Japanese were accepting the possibility of defeat. Perhaps the end of war was in sight. When peace was finally announced, it came just in time for Judy who had started to snarl at the guards. Then suddenly one morning all the guards were gone. Warned by their own High Command, they had fled before they could be taken prisoners by the advancing forces of the allies. By this time Judy and her human soldiers had spent 3 ½ years as POWs.

Suddenly food and equipment began to pour into the camp: clothes, meat, vegetables, eggs, bread and even books. Slowly the men were evacuated. Frank received his papers that indicated his departure for England aboard a troopship. The order, however, stated that no pets of any kind were allowed aboard. Not wanting to leave Judy behind after all this time and her ever valiant efforts, Frank waited until there wasn’t much activity near the ship. He boarded, waited while nearby men were deep in conversation, and then whistled for Judy to join him up the gangway. Three days into the journey, when the ship was well on its way to Britain, the dog’s presence on ship was disclosed. Messages were sent to England requesting permission for Judy to land.

While on board ship, the dog was able to regain her strength. Once docked in England, she was obliged to enter quarantine for six months. She survived quarantine too, aided by frequent visits from Frank.

By the time she was released from quarantine, word had got out. Judy was famous. Frank Williams was awarded the White Cross of Saint Giles. Judy the Short-Haired English Pointer received the Dickin Medal and a citation which read:

For magnificent courage and endurance in Japanese prison camps, thus helping to maintain morale among her fellow prisoners and for saving many lives by her intelligence and watchfulness.

Colin with Tanner during daily training

This unit assists Conservation Officers in the detection and recovery of evidence and concealed fish and wildlife. The highly trained dogs accompany their handlers every day to work and ride with them in trucks, boats, snowmachines, helicopters and ATVs.

These dogs provide high visibility patrols to deter violators from poaching and/or crime scenes. When someone is lost in the back woods they provide search and rescue support.

Once the trainer has his or her dog, it is up to them to train the dog in obedience, detection, tracking, etc. Frequent and intense refresher courses are mandatory. It is very important for the dog to have complete trust in the trainer. The dogs live with their trainers and are treated as professionals within the family. They are police officers. At present there are only six to seven such dogs working in the province of Ontario.

Colin Cotnam is a Conservation Officer in the Bancroft District and is shown here during training exercises with his Golden Retriever mix, Tanner, who has been a canine officer since 2008. When not directly servicing the south and central part of Ontario, Tanner and Colin conduct educational seminars.

Thanks to Susan Henderson, Fergus, Ontario

When I read your request for stories in the Canadian Legion magazine I was happy. I have a story about an Irish Wolfhound. This photograph was published by the Star Weekly, Toronto, on October 28,  1939.                                                          

Before the war started, my father raised this and other Wolfhounds to show and breed. My dad was 17 years old in this picture. When my grandfather realized that he and his three sons were going to war, he sold and gave away his horses and his dogs.

Kenny was one of the nicest dogs he ever had. For my dad to be able to join the Regiment that Kenny was going on must have helped them both. Dad being only 17 years old, first time away from a very close family and Kenny now belonging in the army, the dog provided a familiar face.

Kenny was in his element with the soldiers. He never could decide who he’d have sleep by him. “My men felt so close to this dog it was decided to make him a Captain”, my grandpa said to me. And he got Captain’s pay.

One day the soldiers went on a very long march, from Montreal to Trois Rivieres on the way to the east coast. This kind of march was used as a recruiting drive. The dog wouldn’t stay at home base and he caught up to the marching troops. While marching, the dog walked at the head of the column. By the time the march was finished, Kenny was exhausted, the pads on his feet were worn down and became infected. He never recovered from that march and had to be put down. My dad said among the soldiers there was not a dry eye. Captain Kilkenny had a full military burial. He had been family to all those men in The Toronto Irish. I hope you can find a place in your project for this dog story.

Kenny in front

PS. Barbara Skipper wrote to let Good Dogs Canada know that her husband joined up in Toronto in 1940. In 1942, after the men had trained at Camp Borden and were ready to be shipped overseas, they were sent by train to Montreal. There, she recalls, they disembarked and walked through Quebec to recruit others. Barbara remembers her husband talking about the Irish Wolfhound who led the march all the way and how when it was over, the pads on the dog’s paws were too raw to be rehabilitated. The commemoration to this special Canadian dog is one of the reasons I created Good Dogs Canada. Thank you, Barbara Skipper, for sending me your husband’s memory.

Bob

This is Bob the Pug.  He belongs to Trevor Deschamps and Courtney Scott.   With their children they live in a residential area of Prince Rupert, B.C.   

On April10,2010, neighbours observed what they first thought was a large dog grab Bob from his front lawn and trot away with him in his mouth like a mother would pick up a kitten.

They hollered to Trevor and Courtney that a wolf had picked up Bob and run off with him.  Soon everyone, including Courtney who had given birth to her third child just two weeks before, was yelling and running in pursuit down the street into the woods nearby.  As they ran they kept hollering and making a lot of noise and throwing rocks and sticks.  Finally the wolf, who by all reports was a large and very handsome  guy, dropped the Pug and ran off.  Bob’s neck was punctured, but he was alright.  Apparently his neck was too fat for the wolf to maintain a good bite on him!

Bob is home safe with his family who wonder whether to put him on that diet they’d been considering before wolf boy paid them a visit.