Overview: 'Canine Soldiers: The Militarization of Love' explores the experience of war from the perspective of Military Working Dogs and their handlers who must find improvised explosive devices (IEDS) before they injure, maim, or kill troops.

DVD Verdict: Dogs have been used for many different purposes. Different breeds were used for different things, but always met the demands of the handlers.

Many roles for dogs in war are obsolete and no longer practiced, but the concept of the war dog still remains alive and well in modern warfare.

Military Working Dog teams have become the most effective agents in detecting explosives and chemical weapons at home and abroad.

In short, their mission is to save lives, not kill.

From rigorous training to deployment, this quite poignant, and often times revealing sad film follows soldier handlers to learn what it takes to become a successful MWD team.

Learn how the dogs are bred, how their relationships with their handlers develop, and what it's like for these handler teams to live in interdependence on the war front.

Deployed soldiers eat, sleep, shower and patrol with their dog by their side. This special bond is critical in forming a relationship of trust where each understands and reads each other's cues.

As director of the Defense Department's Military Working Dog Program based here in the US, David Rolfe and his staff are responsible for the health and welfare of some of the most unheralded members of the fighting force: its estimated 2,300 working dogs.

These dogs, along with their handlers from every military service, are deployed worldwide to support the war on terror, helping to safeguard military bases and activities and to detect bombs and other explosives before they inflict harm.

With an acute sense of smell five to 10 times stronger than a human's, working dogs can detect minute traces of explosives or drugs and alert their handlers of their presence, Rolfe explains.

One trainer remarks that these soldiers don't have battle buddies to the right and left of them like a regular line soldier. Their only battle buddy really is that dog.

They literally place their lives in the nose of that dog.

'Canine Soldiers' is the first war documentary told from the point of view of a soldier/dog team, molding together their poignant stories with reflections from notable animal scholars who think outside the box about the significance of co-species evolution.

Relying on dogs to keep us safe in war is only the continuation of a long history of co-evolution with canines. Even in this age of advanced technology, we are again relying on a primitive animal's superior sense of smell to survive.

Does being dependent on another species to keep us safe during war open our hearts to new truths about ourselves, our connection to nature and ultimately to what it means to be human?

Ergo, this brutally intense and yet wholly addictive viewing of a film also raises the ethical question: Is coopting a sentient being in conflicts that involve violence ever justifiable? This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs.