20 July 2011

The Last Dog Ole Osama Ever Saw...

Meet Cairo from SEAL Team Six


Cairo -like most canine members of the elite U.S. Navy SEALs- 
is a Belgian Malinois...

The breed is similar to a German Shepherd but a bit smaller/more compact -adult male cca 65 lbs- and is therefore considered better for various parachute jumping and rappelling operations with the USN's SEAL teams. 

This particular dog was indeed the one that entered the Abbottabad compound that night. He even got to meet President Obama afterward, although it's doubtful the dog was impressed... these things can smell weakness a mile away, heh.


Like their human counterparts, the K9 SEALs are highly trained, highly skilled, highly motivated special ops experts- 
able to perform extraordinary military missions by SEa, Air and Land (thus the acronym 'SEAL').


The dogs carry out a wide range of specialized duties for the various military teams to which they are attached: with a sense of smell 40x greater than a human’s, they are trained to detect and identify both explosive material and hostile and/or hiding individuals. 

Thinking of running? lol, good luck with that: these powerful pups are at least twice as fast as any human being, so anyone trying to escape on foot is unlikely to outrun Cairo... or his buddies.... nor their teeth, which are soon to be sunk deep into yer skeevy rear-end, son.


The dogs -equipped with realtime video cameras atop their backs- often enter danger zones first, acting as scouts that provide live imagery recon, much as a drone can from the air these days. SEAL dogs are even trained parachutists, jumping either in tandem with their handlers or solo if the jump is into water.... these little guys are plenty capable.

Last year canine parachute instructor Mike Forsythe and his dog Cara set the world record for highest man-dog parachute deployment, leaping from 30,000+ ft.... yep, up where the 747s are. Of course both he and the dog were wearing oxygen masks and skin protectors for the jump. Here’s a photo from that jump, taken by Andy Anderson for K9 Storm Inc:


In addition to their many other desirable qualities, the dogs are faithful, fearless and ferocious -incredibly frightening and efficient attackers when called upon to do so. 

When SEAL Team 6 hit bin Laden’s Pakistan compound on May 2nd, Cairo’s feet likely would have been four of the first on the ground. Like the human SEALs, Cairo was wearing super-strong, flexible body armour outfitted with high-tech equipment that included “doggles”- especially designed and fitted dog googles with night-vision and infrared capability that would even allow Cairo to see human heat forms right-through concrete walls... 


Founder Jim Slater was a canine handler on the Winnipeg Police Force when he crafted a Kevlar protective jacket for his own dog, Olaf, in the mid-1990s. Soon Slater was making body armour for other police dogs... then the Canadian military... and soon the world. The pioneering business is currently based out of Ottowa. The standard K9 Storm vest also has a load-bearing harness system that makes it ideal for tandem rappelling and parachuting.




Special hi-tech add-ons made the K9 Storm especially appealing to the American SEALs, who bought four of K9 Storm Inc.’s top-end Intruder “canine tactical assault suits” last year for $86,000. You can be darn sure Cairo was wearing one of those four suits when he jumped into bin Laden’s lair. Here’s an explanation of all the K9 Storm Intruder special features- this is really something else:

-click to enlarge-


And just as the Navy SEALS and other elite special forces are at the cutting edge of their profession, so too are their dogs at the top of a canine military heirarchy. In all, the U.S. military currently has about 2,800 active-duty dogs deployed around the world, with roughly 600 now in Afghanistan and Iraq.


solo jump

tandem jump


via email -thx Kirb

Not sure where all data/pics emanated from originally, 
but most of this was posted previously online/updated 
by the Toronto Sun.