Anti - tank dog Anti - tank dogs ( " sobaki - istrebiteli tankov " or " protivotankovye sobaki " ; or " Hundeminen " , " dog - mines " ) were dogs taught to carry explosives to tanks , armored vehicle s and other military targets . They were intensively trained by the Soviet and Russian military forces between 1930 and 1996 and used in 1941 – 1942 against German tanks in World War II . Although the original dog training routine was to leave the bomb and retreat so that the bomb would be detonated by the timer , this routine failed and was replaced by an impact detonation procedure which killed the dog in the process . The U . S . military trained anti - tank dogs in 1943 for use against fortifications , but never deployed them . Dogs strapped with explosives were unsuccessfully used by Iraqi insurgents in the 2000s . History . In 1924 , the Revolutionary Military Council of the Soviet Union approved the use of dogs for military purposes , which included a wide range of tasks such as rescue , delivery of first aid , communication , tracking mines and people , assisting in combat , transporting food , medicine and injured soldiers on sledges , and detonation of enemy targets . For these purposes , a specialized dog training school was founded in the Moscow Oblast . Twelve regional schools were opened soon after , three of which trained anti - tank dogs . The Soviet Army had no dedicated dog trainers , therefore they recruited hunters and circus and police dog trainers . Several leading animal scientists were also involved , in order to help organize a wide - scale training program . German Shepherd Dog s were favored for the program for their physical abilities and ease of training , but other breeds were used as well . The idea of using dogs as mobile mines was developed in the 1930s , together with the dog - fitting mine design . In 1935 , anti - mine dog units were officially included in the Soviet Army . Training . The original idea was for a dog to carry a bomb strapped to its body , and reach a specific static target . The dog would then release the bomb by pulling with its teeth a self - releasing belt and return to the operator . The bomb could then be detonated either by a timer or remote control , though the latter was too rare and expensive at the time to be used . A group of dogs practiced this for six months , but the reports show that no dogs could master the task . They performed well on a single target but became confused after the target or location was changed and often returned to the operator with the bomb unreleased , which in a live situation would have killed both the dog and the operator . Continual failures brought about a simplification . The bomb was fastened on the dog and detonated upon contact with the target , killing the animal . Whereas in the first program , the dog was trained to locate a specific target , this task was simplified to find any enemy tank . Dogs were trained by being kept hungry and their food was placed under tanks . The tanks were at first left standing still , then they had their engines running , which was further combined with sporadic blank - shot gunfire and other battle - related distractions . This routine aimed to teach the dogs to run under the tanks in battlefield situations . Each dog was fitted with a mine carried in two canvas pouches adjusted individually to each dog . The mine had a safety pin which was removed right before the deployment ; each mine carried no markings and was not supposed to be disarmed . A wooden lever extended out of a pouch to about in height . When the dog dived under the tank , the lever struck the bottom of the tank and detonated the charge . Because the chassis was the most vulnerable area of these vehicles , it was hoped the explosion would gut the vehicle . Deployment by the Soviet Union . The use of anti - tank dogs was escalated during 1941 – 1942 , when every effort was made by the Soviet Army to stop the German advance at the Eastern Front of World War II . In that period , the dog training schools were mostly focused on producing anti - tank dogs . About 40 , 000 dogs were deployed for various tasks in the Soviet Army . The first group of anti - tank dogs arrived at the frontline at the end of the summer of 1941 and included 30 dogs and 40 trainers . Their deployment revealed some serious problems . In order to save fuel and ammunition , dogs had been trained on tanks which stood still and did not fire their guns . In the field , the dogs refused to dive under moving tanks . Some persistent dogs ran near the tanks , waiting for them to stop but were shot in the process . Gunfire from the tanks scared away many of the dogs . They would run back to the trenches and often detonated the charge upon jumping in , killing Soviet soldiers . To prevent that , the returning dogs had to be shot , often by their controllers and this made the trainers unwilling to work with new dogs . Some went so far as to say that the army did not stop with sacrificing people to the war and went on to slaughter dogs too ; those who openly criticized the program were prosecuted by " special departments " ( military counterintelligence ) . Out of the first group of 30 dogs , only four managed to detonate their bombs near the German tanks , inflicting an unknown amount of damage . Six exploded upon returning to the Soviet trenches , killing and injuring soldiers . Three dogs were shot by German troops and taken away , despite furious attempts by the Soviets to prevent this , which provided examples of the detonation mechanism to the Germans . A captured German officer later reported that they learned of the anti - tank dog design from the killed animals , and considered the program desperate and inefficient . A German propaganda campaign sought to discredit the Soviet Army , saying that Soviet soldiers refuse to fight and send dogs instead . Another serious training mistake was revealed later ; the Soviets used their own diesel - engine tanks to train the dogs rather than German tanks which had gasoline engines . As the dogs relied on their acute sense of smell , the dogs sought out familiar Soviet tanks instead of strange - smelling German tanks . The efficiency of using anti - tank dogs in World War II remains uncertain . There are claims by the Soviet sources that around 300 German tanks were damaged by Soviet anti - tank dogs . This claim was questioned by Russian historians as propaganda , trying to justify the dog training program . There are however documented claims of individual successes of the program , with the number of damaged tanks usually being within a dozen . For example , at the front of the 160th Infantry Division near Hlukhiv , six dogs had damaged five German tanks ; near the airport of Stalingrad , anti - tank dogs destroyed 13 tanks . At the Battle of Kursk , 16 dogs disabled 12 German tanks which had broken through the Soviet lines of defense near Tamarovka , Bykovo ( height 244 , 5 ) . The German forces knew about the Soviet dogs from 1941 onwards , and so took measures to defend against them . An armored vehicle ' s top - mounted machine gun proved ineffective due to the relatively small size of the attackers as the dogs were too low to the ground and because of the dog ' s speed and the difficulty in spotting them . Consequently , every German soldier received orders to shoot any dog in combat areas . The hostility of German soldiers and officers to the dogs is mentioned in the semi - fictional novel " Kaputt " by Curzio Malaparte . As an Italian correspondent on the Eastern front during 1941 – 42 , Malaparte recounted how one of the German soldiers ' first tasks upon entering and occupying villages in Ukraine was to seek out and kill any dog on sight . After 1942 , the use of anti - tank dogs by the Soviet Army rapidly declined , and training schools were redirected to producing the more needed mine - seeking and delivery dogs . However , training of anti - tank dogs continued after World War II , until June 1996 . Use by other countries . The Japanese Army received about 25 , 000 dogs from their ally Germany and organized several dog training schools in Japan , and one in China at Nanjing . Some dogs were trained for demolition , but instead of strapping explosives to the dog , it was attached to dog - drawn cart s . Their deployment had little success , mostly due to poor training . In the late 1940s , anti - tank dogs were used by the Viet Minh forces fighting in Indochina . In 1943 , U . S . forces considered using armed dogs against fortifications . The aim was for a dog to run into a bunker carrying a bomb , which would then be detonated by a timer . Dogs in this secret program were trained at Fort Belvoir . The dogs , called " demolition wolves " , were taught to run to a bunker , enter it , and sit whilst waiting for a simulated explosion . Each dog carried a bomb strapped to its body in canvas pouches , as with the Russian method . The program was terminated on December 17 , 1943 out of safety concerns . During the training , dogs often returned to the senders without entering the bunker or waiting there for supposed period of time which would have caused friendly casualties in a live fire situation . It was feared that in the actual battle , dogs would return much more often , scared by enemy fire . Attempts to continue the program in 1944 and 1945 failed . William A . Prestre , a Swiss citizen living in Santa Fe , New Mexico , proposed using large dogs to kill Japanese soldiers . He convinced the military to lease an entire island in the Mississippi River to house the training facilities . There the army hoped to train as many as two million dogs . The idea was to begin island invasions with landing craft releasing thousands of dogs against the Japanese defenders , then followed up by troops as the Japanese defenders scattered in confusion . One of the biggest problems encountered was getting Japanese soldiers to train the dogs , as very few Japanese soldiers were being captured . Eventually , Japanese - American soldiers volunteered for the training . The biggest problem was the dogs , as they were either too docile , did not respond to training teaching them to rush across beaches , or were terrified by shellfire . After millions of dollars were spent , the program was abandoned . Around 2007 , insurgents attempted to use bomb - equipped dogs during the Iraq War . Remote controls were used to detonate the bomb . In one documented incident in Iraq , the dog was detonated without inflicting damage . This caused protests among Iraqis , even though dogs are treated as an " unclean " animal in the Muslim world , as in Islam , it is considered sinful to kill animals for reasons other than food . More often , donkeys were used , as they were more reliable . Donkeys are traditionally equipped with sacks and thus could carry a large explosive charge without looking suspicious .