In a declassified CIA document from 1954 titled âUse of Dogs by Soviet Border Troopsâ it claims that âBorder Troops in the USSR used a good many dogs to perform various duties,â and that the breed used was the German Schaefer Hund, rendered in Russian as Nemetskaya ovcharka, meaning German shepherd.
They were trained to diligently patrol long stretches of remote terrain, carry arms, track intruders, and hold suspects until soldiers arrived.
A Soviet service-dog manual/table of contents also shows that Soviet service dogs were trained in distinct specialisms: protective-guard service, search service, sentry service, and guard duty. It does not state that every border dog performed every task, but it indicated that certain dogs took to different tasks and that tracking, guarding, and controlled aggression were only some parts of the formal Soviet dog-training doctrine.
