Belgian Malinois, German Shepherd: Hero Dog Who Hunted Bin Laden

If this dog wasn’t man’s best friend before, he sure is now. The U.S. military says a pooch—most likely a German shepherd or Belgian Malinois, although there’s no official word—was part of the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed Osama bin Laden. But while this pup is especially famous, it’s just part of a ramped-up focus by the armed forces on dogs, which are more useful in detecting bombs and IEDs than any tool and run twice as fast as people. “The capability they bring to the fight cannot be replicated by man or machine,” Gen. David Petraeus said last year.