More than Pets:
Canines with Careers

By Andrew, Elliot, and Mac
Published April 17, 2025

For tens of thousands of years dogs have been seen as pets for humans. However, dogs can be trained to do other things than just be pets. They can be trained to help in the military, to serve with police, or to be emotional or physical support dogs for humans. Dogs are more than just pets and can help humans with vital tasks that are necessary in human’s everyday lives. 

One example of this is police dogs.  While they might not be seen very much, they are actually really helpful. There are many things that police dogs do. Drug dogs are the dogs that people see in the airport and sniff someone to see if you have any narcotics. These dogs help protect the U.S. from smugglers and they are one of the main factors keeping airports safe.  Also they can smell contraband items like food coming from another country that aren’t allowed in the United States. Depending on how the police dog is trained, they can smell almost anything like explosives, large amounts of currency, and firearms. In the article “Drug Sniffing Dogs: What Can They Smell” , it says ”training narcotic detection canines involves exposing them to the scent of the substances they need to detect. Positive reinforcement techniques,such as treats and play reward the dog when it successfully identifies the scent." 

Another topic to cover is service dogs which play a bigger role than people might have thought. Service dogs play a big role in helping people with special medical needs.  The most common type of service dog is a guide dog. Guide dogs guide or lead the visually impaired.  According to “Types of Service Dogs and How They Benefit People With Disabilities” “they obey commands, but still make choices based on their own assessment of a situation”. That means that while the guide dog still listens to their owners, they also have to be trained to make decisions by themselves. Service dogs are also able to alert people when they have to take medication and then they can retrieve it for the person if needed. According to “How a Service Dog Knows When It’s Time For You to Take Medicine”, “these highly trained dogs know when it’s time for their handler to take medicine through routine recognition, alarm responses, scent detection, and awareness of physical and behavioral cues.,”meaning that dogs can be trained to recognize the sound of an alarm, detect cues in someone's behavior, use scent to smell when they need their medicine, and more.

Similar to service dogs, emotional support dogs are also very important. Emotional support dogs do so much for the community and are a big part of society even though people don't realize it.  Emotional support dogs help with people who are going through a hard time and they might be depressed or sad so they need a companion to help them. In the article  “Everything You Need to Know About Emotional Support Dogs”  it says  “to legally be considered an emotional support dog, also called an emotional support animal, the pet needs to be prescribed by a licensed mental health professional to a person with a disabling mental illness.” These dogs are meant to make people happy in a state of emotional depression and other things that might be troubling.  Since emotional support dogs help people they are also allowed on flights for people who might get nervous on planes. Emotional support dogs provide a unique necessary sercice and deserve to be noticed. 

Much like police dogs, military dogs also play a major role in keeping the world safe. Military dogs can be trained for different things including searching for hidden bombs,  attacking enemies, warning the fighters if your enemies are near, and even to kill. According to “ Four-Legged Fighters”, only 13% of military breed dogs actually make it to become a military dog and go through training.” Many militaries are very specific on the dog breeds they use. The only breed that the “San Antonio service” breeds is the Belgian Malinois because of their agility and quickness the caregivers look for traits in the military dogs. The caregivers need to see  if they are not afraid of loud noises, not too aggressive and like to play with a lot of toys.  The only breed that the US Marine Corpsuse are german shepherds. At age 1 the military dogs go through a special training to see if they are fit to be a military dog.  These dogs take 120 days to train. Even though they go through so much hard work, they are given really good care and food so they keep healthy and strong. Military dogs play an influential role in keeping our world safe.

These important canines are more than just pets and play a huge part in a variety of people's lives. Military dogs, police dogs, service dogs, and emotional support dogs all have necessary jobs in our world.