United States military working dogs from 2019 -2021: analysis of causes of service discharge and decreased service life

Dakota Discepolo^1,2*Brian D. Farr³Desiree Broach³Andrea Henderson³Angelina Gerardo³Jessie Dyer³Eric Best⁴

• ¹Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), Oak Ridge, United States
• ²U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Chemical Biological Center, Maryland, United States
• ³Holland Military Working Dog Veterinary Hospital, Lackland AFB, Texas, United States
• ⁴University at Albany, Albany, New York, United States

Introduction: Military working dogs (MWDs) are maintained by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) in effort to maintain readiness. MWDs provide valuable abilities which include explosive and drug detection capabilities as well as security support. However, acquiring, training, and maintaining MWDs requires significant investment of resources. Therefore, understanding the prominent causes of service discharge and associated causes and demographics associated with decreased service duration in the modern MWD population is crucial. Methods: To meet this objective, an extensive review was conducted of service discharge records of MWDs who were discharged from service in fiscal years 2019 through 2021. The causes of service discharge were categorized and subcategorized by Army Veterinary Corps Officers with extensive MWD experience. Service life and operational service life was calculated using lifecycle dates. Chisquare analysis compared frequencies of categories and subcategories, and logistic regression analysis was conducted on occurrence of the 5 most prominent categories to identify associations with breed, size, subpopulation, goal at procurement, outcome of service discharge, and duration of service. Results The presented results include data on 1,230 MWDs who were discharged from service during the selection period. The five most prominent causes of service discharge were neuromusculoskeletal disease, training, fear-anxiety, neoplasia, and heat injury which accounted for discharge of 83.50% of the MWDs. Each of these prominent categories were significantly associated with at least one of the population characteristics analyzed and all of them were significantly associated with duration of service. ANOVA analysis comparing mean service life resulted in significant differences of mean overall service with main effects of breed (p = 0.0252), outcome (p = 0.0004), service discharge category (p < 0.0001), and subpopulation (p < 0.0001). Conclusion: These findings can inform mitigation strategies to prevent early or preventable service discharge in the future.