Drove over to San Diego to see the pens where the United States Navy holds and cares for dolphins. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the United States Navy gives these dolphins the very best care that they can give them, but it made me think about if the Navy should be using dolphins as working animals. The police use dogs as working animals to help sniff out drugs and bombs. Blind people use dogs to help aid for their loss of vision. Autistic people even use dogs to assist them. Is an animal’s life less valuable than a human life? Should dolphins be used to help find and identify potential threats to naval ships? If they are used in that regard why not use them to attack and do harm to others as well? Where do you draw the line for working animals? Should animals be used as combatants or kept as non-combatants? Koreans use dogs to smell out and track down north Korean defectors. Then again Koreans eat dogs too, so they might not hold animals in the highest regard. Should it be acceptable for the United States to use animals to protect the lives of American combatants and naval ships?
