AUSTRALIA'S TRACKER DOGS
Story and photos by Cpl Jason Logue
A SIGNIFICANT development in Australia's military tracking capability occurred during the Vietnam and Malaya-Borneo campaigns with the introduction of combat tracking teams to a battalion's order of battle.

Soldiers from 7RAR's Fire Assault Pl Tracking Team wait through a tropical downpour on the battalion helipad, Porky Seven, to carry out helicopter winching training with tracker dogs Tiber and Justin. Tiber is wearing a special harness allowing the tracking dogs to be inserted or extracted from the jungle by the helicopter winch.
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The team included visual trackers and tracking dogs specifically trained for military operations.

If the enemy successfully disengaged from a contact or the scouts in a rifle platoon located a track or incident site, a team was brought into the area to begin an immediate follow-up.

Pte Chad Sherrin, left, with Brutus and Pte Wayne Handley with Nero set out for a tracking exercise before the battalion's deployment to South-East Asia.
Photo courtesy of Chad Sherrin.
8RAR veteran Chad Sherrin is well known in military circles for his successful ambush on the night of August 11, 1970, resulting in 19 enemy killed and 10 detained. A little-publicised fact is that he helped raise Australia's tracker-dog capability and the subsequent training of the animals. He says once the tracker dogs had located the scent and were on track, they followed the quarry at a much quicker pace than could be achieved by a visual tracker.

To be successful as a tracker dog the animal required several qualities, which in Australian service were usually met by labrador crossbreeds. "The labrador was chosen as a dog that had a good temperament for tracking, because unlike a guard dog, which is basically a one-man animal, a tracking dog had to mix with his team as well as with any rifle company or platoon which called them out. He says that a pure labrador didn't have the endurance to cut it in military operations so crossbreeding with another dog solved the problem. "My dog was a lab-great dane cross but it didn't seem to matter which cross we went for - they all worked very well."

Training the dogs started as a game that developed the animal's air-scenting skills. They began playing 'find the handler' and progressed to 'find the stranger', each time over greater distances, before finally being put onto a track located by a visual tracker. To develop the animal into a good tracker the handlers simply extended the distance covered or age of the track out to 72 hours because after that the scent began to decay and the dogs would quickly lose the trail. A visual tracker always located the track first, then the dogs were introduced. Once the dog was on the scent, the visual trackers played no part. "If a track tended to get a bit old or it was quite windy, the dog could be following scent some distance off the visual sign."

Tracker dogs were enlisted into the army and were given a regimental number prefixed by D and most were promoted throughout their careers. "In Malaya my dog, Rank, outranked me - he was a sergeant and I was a digger."

Dogs were also trained to be winched into the jungle by helicopter and Mr Sherrin says if anyone ever wants to see a really sad dog, they should see them hanging on the end of a cable.

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A combat tracking team is choppered into a recent contact site to begin following up wounded Viet Cong
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Military operations introduced several new experiences for the animals and handlers but the affection that humans generally have for dogs continued within the army. The dog and handler lived, slept and ate together, developing the close bond people buy them as pets for today. Several handlers went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the safety and comfort of their animals, including manufacturing raincoats from old hootchies and digging an extra shell scrape for their canine mates. "We quite literally lived with the dogs 24 hours a day," Mr Sherrin says. "We fed and drank out of the same mug - it was a very close relationship."

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