Final Reflection

Ever since I could understand things, I always knew I adored dogs. It started from my friends having dogs to Clifford the Big Red Dog to Scooby-Doo. My family has never had a pet of any sort but my sisters and I have been wanting a dog for quite awhile. But I didn’t start to understand that dogs did more than just playing fetch and being cute. When I joined social media platforms, I started following news pages and pages dedicated to adorable puppies. Through this, I became aware of the service and military dogs and, thus, decided to research more it. From this project, I learned just how priceless and significant the duty that service and military dogs do for us.

Through looking at how the use of service and war dogs developed throughout history, I aimed to discover just how significant these dogs are to people and how their work has changed the role of dogs in the world. For service dogs, I covered the rather short history of its development through the organizations that train and provide service dogs to people with disabilities. I also discussed the definition of service dogs and the types of work they do for people. For war dogs, there was an extensive history on its usage in the wars that United States participated in. I discussed the major wars (WWI, WWII, Korean, Vietnam), although dogs have been used by the United States for many years in different occasions (although some were not documented). As I have learned in the classroom, I chose these specific wars because of its importance to U.S. history but also for its impact in the development of warfare as well as the severity of it. Through this, I was able to see the importance of war dogs as well as the increased usage of it. Also, through this time period, the United States had been developing in many ways, specifically technologically especially in warfare. In fact, starting with the Civil War half a century earlier, modern warfare developed.

In learning about World War I, the Progressive Era, the Great Depression, and more, I researched the impact of these major events in correlation with the use of service and military dogs. In regards to service dogs, any type of war has always resulted in lives taken away and those injured. Service dogs have been used to care for people with disabilities. I have learned that modern warfare has a massive impact on the home front, so it wasn’t just soldiers in need of service dogs. Moving on, during this time, technology was still developing and, thus, accidents occurred where many got injured, especially in car accidents. Cars had been popularized by Ford Motors, thus, the average consumer had cars. Another factor for turning to service dogs was the lack of means to receive medical attention or other devices to help with disabilities. Especially during the Great Depression, many people suffered from poverty, but this also led to an increase in physical and mental disabilities. The first official center was The Seeing Eye, founded by Dorothy Eustis. But over time, service dogs expanded to help people with other disabilities than blindness. Additionally, the growth of therapy dogs began as the Great Depression and the two World Wars caused severe trauma for some people. Protection to service dogs as an important entity was given through the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). In regards to war dogs, their usage increased since World War I. As warfare became more severe, having war dogs would give the military an extreme advantage over the enemies (even though most countries use war dogs as well). The skills acquired by dogs through training has saved countless lives throughout their use. They continue to be an asset to the military and their usage continues to grow. In fact, several bills have been passed by the government to honor as well as give rights to war dogs, such as getting adopted upon retirement.

As the United States developed, dogs stayed by our side, helping us in many different ways. Whether these dogs receive the awards and attention they deserve, as long as we are grateful of their service to us, it is sufficient for now. Each and everyday, dogs, all dogs, provide mankind with all they can give, and to that, I dedicate this project to the dogs who serve others.

 

Update!

From reading my reviewer’s comment on my plans for presenting my project, I have come to the conclusion that making a board is tedious and useless. Instead, I will create a website on Weebly which is actually easier. So Weebly is quite neat; it’s my first time using it. I have high hopes for my website but I just need to finish putting together the posts that will be on the website. There’s so many parts to putting together a website and I want my site to be aesthetically pleasing but first, info.

I have changed my question to focus on the history of service/war dogs and how the usage of service and war dogs have helped people. My thesis hasn’t changed much because it does answer the refined question. Throughout my website, I am trying to explain and argue that service and war dogs have a positive and great impact on the lives of people. Not only do they perform specific tasks but they also provide their owner(s) company. And I mean, who doesn’t love dogs!?!

I’m still working on finding more primary sources but I think I have solved this issue partially as I have opened up my research. Through my recent research, I found many great sources that provide me new paths to take to further my project. For example, I found great news sources that talk about service/war dogs and they provide pictures (primary sources) as well as links to other sites that provide even more information! Additionally, I found some great pieces that will help with the “timeline” on my site. Since the the use of war dogs, organizations such as CIA K9 Corps have been created to use dogs for other purposes. This demonstrates that, not only do war dogs and service dogs have a significant role in the lives of their handlers/owners, the use and importance of trained dogs is increasing.

Not only will I be providing information that supports my thesis, but I will provide as much additional information as long as I have time for it. I want my website to be more than just a project. I want people to be aware of service and war dogs and how meaningful they are to us even if we don’t have one ourselves. And no, this won’t detract from my project.

An interesting (and quite sad!) fact is that war dogs used to euthanized or abandoned after retirement instead of being honored. It wasn’t until November 2000 when President Clinton passed “Robby’s Law” that allowed the dog’s handler and family to have first dibs at adopting the retired dog. Now there are organizations that take in these retired dogs and put them up for adoption to loving families.

HoA: Storytelling

I have not definitively decided what format I will do but I narrowed it down to creating a website (probably on Weebly) or a project board. Either way, the same information will be used only that the project board requires tedious work with cutting and pasting the information on the board. Plus, I will have to make an aesthetically pleasing board that will ultimately require a lot of time. If I don’t have enough time, I’ll probably just resort to creating a website. Additionally, I will be making a short little video, showing my meetings with service and war dogs. It will just be showing tours of the organization, the dogs, what they’re doing for others, and maybe their training. Hopefully, when I visit these local organizations, I can sit down with the organizers and get a short interview with them. I’ll probably ask them what they know about the history of service/war dogs and how it has changed/developed to the present.

HoA: Snags/Obstacles

One of my major obstacles is that it is quite difficult to obtain information on service and war dogs online. It takes intense research to analyze the sites I find and then decide whether it is useful or not. Since this is a history project, I need to obtain a significant amount of information and resources. I find it difficult to find primary sources, besides images, that is easily accessible to me. I might need to go to the library or something to get more sources and information. Most of my sources are from individuals and organizations discussing either service or war dogs but they’re not primary.

Additionally, I need to pinpoint all the events into some sort of timeline because I’d like to include that on my project board. This will be part of the history portion of the project. The problem is that it is difficult to articulate the history mainly because it is not a definitive history. I mean that these histories do not have a set date (like the start date of World War I). Furthermore, it is not like there was a specific day that the United States gained its first service dog (war dogs may be a bit easier to “define”).

From the sources I have obtained and from the sources I will obtain, I need to sift through all of them and extract the important information that I will include in my project. This will be time-consuming. I’ve already started it but lately I have been focused on obtaining sources.

Originally, I was thinking about doing a project board but I might reconsider it mainly because it is time consuming in the fact that it requires a lot of effort to make it visually appealing. Although this may make me sound lazy, I have about two weeks to complete this project. I think I can do a board and a video but if I do not have enough time, I’ll create a website or something.

Lastly, about the video, I need to first contact local organizations that specialize in service or war dogs. Service dogs would be more common from where I live. I plan to contact them as soon as possible. Then, if they agree to it, I need to find time as well as schedule a visit to see the organization, the dogs, trainers, etc. and hopefully (!), I can sit down with the people and I get an interview. At these visits, if I am permitted, I hope to film the dogs and the facility, etc. so I can make a simple and short film of dogs in action!!