Landships II

With regard to the Russians in WWII this was a little different to using dogs as draught animals.

The Soviet military had come up with the concept of the canine suicide bomber; an explosive charge triggered by a tall protruding lever was strapped to the back of a dog and would explode if the animal walked under a German tank and knocked the lever in doing so. The dogs were trained to do this by being fed under Soviet tanks so that they would associate the underneath of a tank with food. The dog mines were tried in action but the Soviets reckoned without the super sensitive canine nose; to a dog a Soviet tank smelt different from a German vehicle and so they associated only Soviet tanks with food. When released they headed for any Russian tank that might be in the vicinity. The result was that the Red Army was training and equipping dogs specifically to blow up their own tanks, a case of the biter bitten. The whole idea was dropped very rapidly.