Dogs have been used as powerful weapons of war for at least the last 3,000 years. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Sarmatians, Britons and Romans are all known to have used dogs in combat, or for scouts, sentries, trackers, or executioners. But the Spanish conquistadors employed war dogs on a scale that had rarely been seen before, and with devastating effect.
Christopher Columbus was the first to use dogs as weapons in the New World. He released them upon the indigenous people of Hispaniola in 1493 and to disperse groups that came to stop his landing in Jamaica in 1494. But it was the Battle of Vega Real in 1495 that awoke Columbus to the potential that dogs had as weapons against the inhabitants of this new land.
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