The SEAL Dog CAIRO

When U.S. President Barack Obama went to Fort Campbell, Kentucky earlier for a highly publicized, but very private meeting with the commando team that killed Osama bin Laden, only one of the 81 members of the super-secret SEAL DevGru unit was identified by name: Cairo, the war dog. Cairo  is a Belgian Malinois. The Malinois breed is similar to German shepherds but smaller and more compact, with an adult male weighing in the 30-kilo range.

Like their human counterparts, the dog SEALs are highly trained, highly skilled, highly motivated special ops experts, able to perform military missions by Sea, Air and Land (thus the acronym).The dogs are twice as fast as a fit human, so anyone trying to escape is not likely to outrun Cairo . The Cairo carry out a wide range of specialized duties for the military teams to which they are attached: With a sense of smell 40 times greater than a human’s, the dogs are trained to detect and identify both explosive material and hostile or hiding humans. 

Cairo’s role was to help clear the buildings, sniff for bombs and booby-traps, search for false walls or hidden doors where Bin Laden could be hiding, or help keep curious neighbors at bay.