Austin Film Festival Review: Canine Soldiers

A working dog can expect to put up with a hell of a lot. PTSD and mortar fire seem like more than any hound should suffer, but that's what the U.S. military's working dogs go through, as shown in 3-D documentary Canine Soldiers.

Man's best friend under fire in Canine Soldiers

This is not a cuddly critter story. As one handler explains, "The dog is an asset. … We utilize it for a bigger reason."

The logic is coolly presented: A well-trained dog is better at sniffing out explosives than any equipment, so the U.S. military spends millions training them as self-propelled bomb detection equipment. However, unlike a radar array or a rifle, they don't need an operator, they need a handler. That's why these duos are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan – caught in POV 3-D by the handlers – as the human half of the partnership sends their friend, their tool, their cuddle buddy into mortal danger.

That's the emotional core of Canine Soldiers, but it never feels adequately tapped. If director Nancy Schiesari's purpose was to simply explain what MWDs are, then she could have done so in less than the 62 minute runtime. But if she wanted to truly explore the fragile, trust-based bond between handler and hound, then it needed more space to breathe.

The end result is only ever explanatory, not exploratory. Random factoids crop up, such as the surprising scale of both the military breeding program and the deployments in combat zones, but they feel like an editing afterthought, injected to contextualize an individual scene rather than construct a narrative. While she chronicles the experience of the handlers, it's in a scattershot, almost haphazard fashion, darting between individuals and stages in their lives and relationships with the many dogs that may pass through their lives.

The deepest frustration springs from Canine Soldiers' failure to explore the moral quandary in anything more than a superficial manner. As one of the occasional academic behaviorist talking heads puts it, this is the militarization of love. That removes MWDs from the normal spectrum of working dogs, and puts them into an extraordinary position. After all, they didn't sign up for this, and the deep bond and deep trauma they experience is nothing to do with this ridiculous human construct of war.

It's the conundrum facing any documentarian dealing with with an ongoing aspect of combat: They can either critique it, or shrug and say "it is what it is." Schiesari seemingly goes for the latter, a balanced and uncritical analysis. But when Dex the lab grins and prances with his handler, the stoniest of hearts will melt, and it's hard to see the upside of sending a dog into a place that will break its heart and its body.

Canine Soldiers screens again Monday, Oct. 17, 5:30pm, Rollins Theater.

The Austin Film Festival runs Thu., Oct. 13, through Thu., Oct. 20. See www.austinfilmfest.com for schedule and info. Follow our continuing coverage of the fest at www.austinchronicle/austin-film-festival.