Spectacular Warrior Dogs exhibit continues at Napa Valley Museum Yountville
By Dave Stoneberg
Trigger Warning: This article discusses the Warrior Dogs exhibit, which includes content related to military service, combat experiences and the sacrifices of military working dogs. Some readers may find these themes emotionally impactful, particularly those with a personal connection to military service or experiences with traumatic events.
YOUNTVILLE, Calif. — One reason to visit Yountville has nothing to do with fine cuisine. The exceptional, comprehensive and surprisingly emotional “Warrior Dogs” exhibit continues at the Napa Valley Museum Yountville, adjacent to the Veterans Home of California in Yountville. It honors the service and sacrifice of America’s four-legged fighters and is presented in partnership with the Tug McGraw Foundation. Its six-month run ends Aug. 25.
The exhibit includes photos, written descriptions of different breeds of warrior dogs, gear worn by military working dogs and the history of the use of dogs in the U.S. military – beginning in the Seminole War of 1835.
It also includes 17 breathtaking wooden dog sculptures carved by Master Ohio craftsman James Mellick. Some of the dogs represent fictitious dogs with visible wounds, but seven depict real dogs that have served during the global terror wars. One of the dogs, Cairo, was part of SEAL Team Six that captured and killed Osama bin Laden, with her handler Will Chesney. Bin Laden was the al-Qaeda mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The raid, named Operation Neptune Spear, happened on May 2, 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Chesney has written about Cairo and that raid in his book, “No Ordinary Dog,” and will be discussing his experiences during a July reunion at the museum. After his military service, Cairo was able to retire with Chesney.
Laura Rafaty, executive director of the museum, and Jennifer Brusstar, founder, president and CEO of the Tug McGraw Foundation based at the Veterans Home of California in Yountville, created the exhibit. When Brusstar was helping unpack the sculpture of Cairo, she became emotional.
“It made me feel so good when that dog came out of the crate, and I thought about the soldiers and servicepeople who took bin Laden down. But seeing there was a dog attached to it, it just made me bawl,” said Brusstar, who on Sept. 11, 2001, was a flight attendant coming home from Paris on American Airlines. “We all were somewhere on that day, and I lost friends and my manager’s husband.”
Rafaty said she had tried to get Mellick’s dogs several years ago, but it didn’t work out.
“I reached out to him again because I had been thinking about it,” she said. “And it just so happened that the museum where they were supposed to be displayed was wiped out by a hurricane, so they were available.”
Rafaty and Brusstar were thrilled to be able to mount the exhibit and decided to put the Warrior Dogs in the main gallery.
“I realized that we needed to put this whole story in context,” Rafaty said. “Although the sculptures of the injured dogs are powerful, we needed to tell the whole story about warrior dogs, dogs that serve our country.”
Rafaty enlisted Brusstar’s help, and the pair had a scant two months to create the exhibit. They had wanted to work together for years, and this exhibit was the perfect opportunity to build a bridge between the Veterans Home and the community. Brusstar is married to a retired Navy SEAL, and Rafaty said Brusstar was able to use her contacts in the military “to bring us some incredible objects and gear that the dogs use in combat, but also to make sure that we were respectful and had the right tone in the exhibition.”
Although dogs had been a part of the military for years, especially during World War II, they were viewed as mascots. Brusstar said it wasn’t until Vietnam that the use of dogs and their canine handlers exploded, with handlers using between 4,000 and 4,900 dogs. They served as scouts, worked in mines and tunnels, were trackers and performed sentry duties, according to the exhibit.
“Their work was directly responsible for saving an estimated 10,000 American lives,” Brusstar said. “Yet the dogs’ story is a largely forgotten part of that work.”
She said that only 204 dogs came home from Vietnam during a 10-year period. The dogs were considered service equipment and were not allowed to come home with their handlers.
Some 2,700 dogs were turned over to the South Vietnamese army and another 1,600 were euthanized, according to this website. A memorial plaque to these dogs is part of the exhibit.
Brusstar added, “That was shocking for me as I did not know that story.”
In November 2000 President Bill Clinton signed Robby’s Law, which allowed all military working dogs to be available for adoption after their service.
Rafaty and Brusstar wanted to exhibit Mellick’s sculptures and to provide context, to tell the story of the military’s working dogs from their initial training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas through their working days with their handlers to the dogs’ retirement after maybe 10 years of service. Females are preferred because they are more agile and smaller than males, so they can get through smaller spaces. The six preferred breeds are Belgian Malinois and Tervuren, Dutch and German Shepherd, Labrador Retriever and Rottweiler.
To turn a puppy into a certified military working dog, there are 11 steps that each dog and his handler need to pass. It begins with selecting the right dog and allowing her to have a normal puppyhood. Then puppy training begins at 7 months old, and after that a dog attends a military working dog boot camp, for four to seven months. Experts there assess a dog’s ability in detection and patrol work.
Next comes an assignment to a kennel at a U.S. military base and a handler is assigned. It is here that the real training begins for both the dog and handler, in obedience, patrol and detection. The dog and handler must work well together and train every single day to build trust and a bond. The final step is dog-team certification. The training costs between $40,000 to $175,000 per dog, depending on their ultimate mission, and to outfit a dog costs anywhere from $30,000 to $90,000, depending on the mission.
Are the dogs worth it? Gen. David Petraeus, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and a 37-year veteran of the U.S. Army, thinks so. Brusstar said one of her favorite quotes is from Petraeus: “The capability that military working dogs bring to the fight cannot be replicated by man or machine. By all measures of performance, their yield outperforms any asset we have in our inventory.”
The exhibit also discusses the three types of trained dogs:
-Service dogs, which are trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability. This includes post-traumatic stress service dogs;
-Emotional support animals, which provide emotional support, well-being or companionship to individuals;
-Therapy dogs, which provide comfort for people in a variety of environments such as disaster scenes, medical facilities, libraries, schools, etc.
The exhibit might evoke tears and sadness for some people. For others, it could act as a trigger and cause post-traumatic stress, so it includes some Tug McGraw Foundation links on how to reach out for help. One of those is the 988 Lifeline.
“The one thing that I thought was super-important is that post-traumatic stress happens to all of us, whether it’s the threat of injury or death, a terrorist attack or our wildland fires,” Brusstar said. “It’s important to know that these are normal feelings and that 988 is not just for veterans, it’s for all individuals. I think our country has been under a lot of stress for the last three years, and mental-health issues are at the top of the list. Reach out if you need help because I feel this exhibit can trigger a lot of emotions. It is really important for you to recognize and honor those feelings.”
Lots of people have visited the exhibit since it opened on Feb. 24, and it’s clear the exhibit was made with a lot of help: Police and firefighter shoulder patches are on a bulletin board in Rosie’s Tiki Bar that is a nod to television’s MASH 4077; the directional arrows in front of the bar were made by veterans from the Vets Home, and a canine handler from Vietnam came in and brought a poem about dogs being the guardians of the night. Also, a Napa police officer called Brusstar and wanted to come and see the exhibit. He added that he might have a couple of items to display. She said she was stunned when he showed her what he had.
“I was floored because he had his original jungle boots from Vietnam in which he walked his dog, he had pictures (black-and-white photos) of him and his dog,” Brusstar said. “But what got me was his (handmade) calendar that he kept for his year in Vietnam and his prayer card that his mother gave him.”
A part of the exhibit is a video from the U.S. Coast Guard of their dogs and handlers on a static rope.
“These dogs do enjoy this,” Brusstar said. “I would have never believed it until I saw this video that the Coast Guard did. And these dogs are jonesing to go with them. It’s spectacular to watch.”
The Warrior Dogs exhibit is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesdays through Sundays at the Napa Valley Museum Yountville. Admission is $15 for adults; $10 for seniors 65 years old and older, veterans, law enforcement and first responders; $5 for youth from 6 to 17 years old; and free for children 5 and younger, museum members, Yountville Vets Home residents and active-duty military. For more info, visit here.
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Dave Stoneberg is an editor and journalist who has worked for newspapers in both Lake and Napa counties.
For a well-written description of a warrior dog and his partner in action in a modern (2014) thriller:
The Kill Switch: A Tucker Wayne Novel (Sigma Force Novels): Meet the newest recruits to the expanding Sigma Force universe--former Army Ranger Tucker Wayne and his stalwart companion, Kane, a military working dog of exceptional abilities...
https://www.amazon.com/Kill-Switch-Tucker-Wayne-Novels/dp/0062135252