Care Of The Military Working Dog By Medical Providers

Description

Care Of The Military Working Dog By Medical Providers
Vogelsang R 7(2). 33
Publication Type: Journal Article

Abstract:
Military Working Dogs (MWD) are important force multipliers. The U.S. Department of Defense MWD program has expanded significantly in both total numbers of dogs and scope of their missions. MWDs are utilized to enhance law enforcement and force protection capabilities usually associated with detection of explosives or illicit/illegal drugs. Currently, in support of the Global War on Terrorism, MWDs are particularly involved with explosives detection and perform duties such as vehicle and building checks, route and minefield clearing, cache sweeps, crowd control, and cordon searches. Though there currently are no MWDs organic to SOF, the concept of using MWDs within SOF is being considered. Depending on the size and maturity of a particular theater, conventional veterinary support may or may not be readily available to any MWDs which could potentially be used in support of SOF. In situations where veterinary support is difficult to obtain, or is non-existent, the only care available for MWDs will have to come from the handler or medical providers within the supported unit. MWDs are valuable and scarce assets which cannot be replaced easily or in a timely fashion. As such, it is important for medical providers to have at least a minimal knowledge set of emergent conditions common and/or unique to the MWD so that their intervention has the best chance of success to preserve life, limb, or eyesight of the canine patient. Though many conditions in the dog are treated in a similar fashion in the human patient, differences in anatomy, vital sign and laboratory parameters and, medications and dosages, may give the medical provider cause for hesitation to attend to canine patients. This article attempts to provide medical providers some basic knowledge of MWD patients, their conditions, and treatments.

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