Mercy Dogs on the Battlefield

A Red Cross dog finds a wounded soldier during WWI, circa 1917. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The phrase “a dog is a man’s best friend,” coined by King Frederick II of Prussia in the 1700s, took on an entirely new meaning during World War I. Canines were tasked with saving lives on the battlefields. “Mercy dogs” used their unique abilities to aid soldiers during the trench warfare the era and also played a role during World War II and the Korean War. The use of mercy dogs in WWI eventually led to the U.S. Defense Department’s creation of the military working dog program.

According to accounts by ancient Greeks and Egyptians, dogs have been used in various roles during battle for thousands of years. In fact, canines have played some part in every American war or conflict since the country was founded.

Maj. Edwin Richardson and dogs of his British War Dog School. Library of Congress. Public Domain

Around 1890, German dog lover and painter Jean Bungartz formulated an idea that dogs could be used to find wounded soldiers on the battlefields and launched the German Association for Medical Dogs. About five years later, the idea spread to England when Maj. Edwin Richardson learned of a man who was buying English dogs to be shipped to Germany. Richardson started his own experimentations with dogs using their superior sense of smell, and by 1917 he opened the British War Dog School.

A casualty dog reporting to its handler during U.S. Army training exercises in 1943. Public Domain

First, dogs were taught basic skills, trained not to bark, and then placed into a makeshift battlefield environments to teach them to ignore the sights and sounds of war. Then, the handlers used people they were unaccustomed to and put them in their opponents’ uniforms to teach them to distinguish between friendly and enemy soldiers. The canines were also taught how to tell whether a soldier was dead or how severely injured he was by his scent.

On the Battlefield

Once WWI started across Europe, the mercy dogs were quickly put to work. As soon as the smoke cleared from the battlefields, the dogs were sent into the trenches equipped with saddle bags full of water, alcohol, and first aid supplies. If enemy fire erupted, the dogs were trained to freeze in place or bury themselves.

Wounded soldiers could wave down a dog and use the supplies to treat themselves. The dog would lead them to safety or take a piece of the injured soldier’s uniform back to its handler, then lead paramedics to the wounded soldiers. If a soldier was severely wounded and wasn’t going to make it, the canine would comfort them in their final moments so they wouldn’t have to pass away alone.

Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Cheri Smith leads a military working dog through an obstacle course at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in San Antonio, Texas in 2021. EJ Hersom/DoD

Out of the thousands of mercy dogs that served on both sides during WWI, a few were later recognized as heroes. A French mercy dog named Captain was known for locating 30 wounded soldiers in just one day. Another canine named Prusco found around 100 soldiers in a single battle. It was even able to locate those who had fallen into brushes and deep ditches that they couldn’t crawl out of.

The idea of using dogs in battle grew in popularity. During WWI, the United States didn’t have any official working dogs of their own, but they borrowed them from their allies. The United States officially started its first War Dog Program in 1942 during WWII. Today, the Defense Department’s military working dog program uses canines for various roles, including sniffing out bombs in war zones.

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