Route 14 Was Not Briefed
DALLAS - Warhound, a Dallas startup that plans to clone and genetically edit military working dogs, came out of stealth this week with $200 million in seed funding and no published plan for the person who brings the mail. Technology commentators have taken to calling the concept Captain America for dogs. The Postal Service has not yet taken to calling it anything.
The company is backed by the founders of Colossal Biosciences and Anduril Industries, and it says its goal is to end the military's reliance on European breeders. According to Fortune, more than 80 percent of U.S. military working dogs are bought from Europe, and fewer than half of the animals acquired make it all the way to service. Warhound intends to pick out the best performers after training, store their genetic material in a biobank, clone them, and then make targeted edits. The first edits are aimed at hip dysplasia, certain cancers and muscle atrophy.
Every dog will be issued eye and ear protection, and the company has said it will sell to law enforcement and first responders as well as the military, as D Magazine reported. The first dogs are expected in about two years.
Why the Pentagon Wants Genetically Enhanced Working Dogs
The military's working dog program currently fields more than 2,200 dog teams. Warhound says the Pentagon has to buy and train roughly 200 dogs to end up with 100 that can work, a ratio the company describes as a supply chain problem. The Washington Times reported that the company is working with American Humane to guide training and set ethical standards from birth.
Warhound has said retired dogs will be reunited with their handlers. It has not said what happens when a dog is still on duty and the visitor is carrying a parcel.
What a Letter Carrier Sees When He Looks at Captain America
Dale Pruitt, 54, has carried mail in Garland, Texas, for 27 years and has been bitten twice, once by a beagle named Gerald and once by what he describes only as a Pomeranian with a grudge. He read the Warhound announcement at the station Friday morning, between sorting flats and an unresolved conversation about the vending machine.
"I've made peace with the beagle," Pruitt said. "He had a reason. His whole life is that porch. I'm not going to get bitten by a dog with a better medical plan than mine."
Pruitt noted that the new dogs will have ear protection. "Twenty-seven years I've been barked at with nothing on my head but a ball cap," he said. "The dog gets earmuffs."
He also pointed out that the dogs will be free of hip dysplasia. "That's the one thing that ever slowed one down," Pruitt said. "Bad hips. I'd bet on their hips over mine, and I'm the one who has to run."
Texas Already Leads the Wrong List
Postal data gives Pruitt's concerns some context. The Postal Service reported that dogs attacked more than 5,300 mail carriers in 2022, according to NPR. Texas ranked second among states, behind California, and Dallas ranked third among cities, behind Houston and Los Angeles. The agency said at the time that the typical offender is a good dog with no earlier history of menacing behavior.
Those figures were collected before any of the dogs involved had been cloned, edited, or fitted with protective eyewear. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has no category for them yet.
Marcy Tolliver, a regional safety coordinator for the Postal Service in North Texas, said carriers should keep following existing guidance, which asks customers to keep dogs inside, behind a fence, or on a leash when the carrier arrives. She added that an aggressive dog can lead the agency to suspend delivery to an entire neighborhood and require residents to collect their mail at the post office, a practice described on the USPS corporate site.
Asked whether the guidance covers a dog cloned from the top-performing animal in a national program, Tolliver said, "We would need to see the dog."
Neighborhoods and Ethicists Respond
The board of the Lakewood Pines homeowners association in Plano voted 5-0 Friday evening to amend its covenants. Genetically enhanced dogs must now remain behind a six-foot fence, a height the board raised to eight feet before adjourning. Board president Ron Strickland said the amendment passed in under four minutes, the shortest meeting in the association's history, which had previously been devoted to a dispute over mailbox color.
Dr. Gwen Abernathy-Kuhl, a professor of animal ethics at a Texas university she asked not to be named, said the project raises consent questions the field has not resolved. "A dog cannot consent to being enhanced," she said. "Neither can the postal worker who meets it on a front walk, although only one of them has a union."
Warhound said it expects to deliver its first cloned dogs in early 2027. Pruitt's route has 212 stops, 31 of which have dogs. He has put in for a transfer to a route with more apartment complexes.
"Apartments have the mail in a wall," Pruitt said. "The wall doesn't have a gene."
Humorous Observations
- They're calling it Captain America for dogs. Captain America had a shield. The mailman has a bag of catalogs and a flyer for a pizza place. That's not a fair fight. That's a coupon.
- The dog gets ear protection. The mailman has been getting barked at for twenty-seven years with a ball cap and a prayer, and now the guy doing the yelling gets earmuffs. Who's the victim here?
- They're editing out the bad hips. Oh, great. The one thing in history that ever slowed a dog down on a front lawn, and you went in and fixed it. Thanks for looking out for the dog's cardio.
- They clone the best dog. Not a good dog, the best dog. So somewhere out there is a perfect dog, and every mailman in Texas is about to meet it eleven times.
- The dog gets a security clearance. I can't get a guy to sign for a package without him looking at me like I'm the one with the problem. The dog is cleared for classified. I'm cleared for "leave it by the door." https://bohiney.com/?p=45646
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