with the bomb unreleased, which in a live situation would have killed both the dog and the operator. Continual failures brought about a simplification. The bomb was fastened on the dog and detonated upon contact with the target, killing the dog. Whereas in the first program, the dog was trained to locate a specific target, this task was simplified to find any enemy tank. Dogs were trained by being kept hungry and their food was placed under tanks. The tanks were at first left standing still, then they had their engines running, which was further combined with sporadic blank-shot gunfire and other battle-related distractions. This routine aimed to teach the dogs to run under the tanks in battlefield situations. Each dog was fitted with a mine carried in two canvas pouches adjusted individually to each dog. The mine had a safety pin which was removed right before the deployment; each mine carried no markings and was not supposed to be disarmed. A wooden lever extended out of a pouch to about in height. When the dog dived under the tank, the lever struck the bottom of the tank and detonated the charge. Because the underparts of the chassis were the most vulnerable area of these vehicles, it was hoped the explosion would disable the vehicle. Deployment by the Soviet Union The use of anti-tank dogs was escalated during 1941 and 1942, when every effort was made by the Red Army to stop the German advance at the Eastern Front of World War II. In that period, dog training schools were mostly focused on producing anti-tank dogs. About 40,000 dogs were deployed for various tasks in the Red Army. The first group of anti-tank dogs arrived at the frontline at the end of the summer of 1941 and included 30 dogs and 40 trainers. Their deployment revealed some serious problems. In order to save fuel and ammunition, dogs had been trained on tanks which stood still and did not fire their guns. In the field, the dogs refused to dive under moving tanks. Some persistent dogs ran near the tanks, waiting for them to stop but were shot in the process. Gunfire from the tanks scared away many of the dogs. They would run back to the trenches and often detonated the charge upon jumping in, killing Soviet soldiers. To prevent this, the returning dogs had to be shot, often by