War is something that none of us really desires, but in order to protect the integrity and values of our great nation, we must be willing to fight against the enemies of peace. As we know a lot of brave soldiers have been sent to the battlefield, we’ve seen many stories about their sacrifice and how difficult is their life in foreign regions but there is another type of fighter that we rarely heard about in these scenarios, “Trained Dogs”.
That’s right you read well, the men’s best friend also contributes to protecting the ideals of freedom and justice all around the world. From ancient times the dog has been considered as the human’s most loyal partner, this fact proves that not even a dangerous situation like war was going to stop our canine friends from helping their companion. One of the best examples on this matter is the story of Layka, a trained dog that ran into action to help young soldiers in combat.
The natural senses of dogs have been a real advantage for humans, their speed, high sense of smell and accurate vision are some of the features that allow them to work perfectly in many jobs related to security. Airports use them as an extra help to find illegal drugs or chemical weapons that might have passed through the regular check points, the police department applies the same technique and on top of that they use them to chase down suspects on the streets. The fire department gives special training to their dogs in order to find survivors after a devastating earthquake, therefore, it comes as no surprise that they are currently being used to secure entire areas, looking for explosives and other threats on the battlefield.
Layka was deployed in Afghanistan in 2013; her intelligence along with the capacity of dealing with stressful situations made her a wonderful asset to the army. Most of our canine friends have a terrible fear to loud noises so they tend to hide when they hear something similar to gunfire, we can observe this kind of behavior during certain festivities such as New Year’s Eve or 4 of July. But Layka was not an ordinary dog; she could handle these situations with the same bravery as soldiers.
Unfortunately one day during a firefight with the local rebels, Layka received 4 shots directly into her body. She was securing the area of a nearby building to look for more terrorist. It was really terrible, she was seriously injured but after the fight her platoon gave her the first aids and took her to the military hospital for an emergency surgery. She lost one leg but despite all the damage, Layka managed to survive the attack.
After all that happened, a Sergeant of her platoon named Julian McDonald thought that a heroic action like this one deserved to have a special recognition, so he decided to adopt her and make her last days in this world the best of all. With all the sacrifice she had made we can say for sure that she finally found the peace she deserved and living happy with her new family.
If you want to know more about the story of Layka, just click play on the video below and enjoy. As always don’t forget to share and comment on our section.
