By one estimate, some 200,000 canines are employed in the United States, many of them committed government servants.

Sixteen years ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture formed its Beagle Brigade to sniff out illegal fruits, plants and meat at airports. The dogs are comfortable in crowded, noisy places such as baggage-claim areas; they have an acute sense of smell and don't intimidate the average airline traveler the way a larger, more aggressive animal might. In fact, most people find the dogs endearing. But no matter how innocuous they seem, they get the job done: The Brigade makes about 75,000 seizures of illegal agricultural products every year.

Texanna is one of the most remarkable of them. An 8-year-old who, for the past seven years, has worked out of Charlotte, N.C., she can recognize about 50 odors – the usual apples and oranges, herbs and hot dogs, not to mention the canteen cover she once sniffed out made of reindeer skin.

Take Harriet, a 25-year-old umbrella cockatoo who works at the Helen Woodward Animal Center near San Diego. The bird is especially good with paralyzed adults. If a patient can't reach out and touch her, Harriet moves right in, cuddling against a chest, nuzzling a nose, tweaking an ear or stroking a cheek. “Harriet offers unconditional acceptance,” says Robin Cohen, outreach services manager for the center. “She doesn't care that patients may not be able to move. She accepts them for who they are at that exact moment, which is a gift only animals can give."

One man who was unable to speak after a stroke started practicing speech with Harriet. After a month of tender loving beak and feathers, he could almost say the cockatoo's name.

Horses, of course, have traditionally been the heavy lifters of the animal workforce, transporting backbreaking loads and, in the days before the internal-combustion engine, providing mass transit.

Today, their jobs – like everyone else's – have moved into a tighter niche. The Helen Woodward center has a staff of ten trained to help people with disabilities. Patients range in age from four to over 70 and may even be wheelchair-bound (there's a special mounting ramp for the wheelchairs).

The horses help their riders develop balance, muscle tone, posture and learning skills such as hand-eye coordination, concentration and short-term memory. There are also the added benefits of increased self-esteem, independence and control. As for the horses, they know when they're on the job. Whenever Questa, a horse who has been in the program for nine years, gets an able-bodied rider, she's "not very cooperative," says Lisa Orcutt, therapeutic riding administrative supervisor. But when someone with a disability gets on, she becomes a model employee.

Although the U.S. War Department waited till 1942 to start an official canine program, there were four-footed recruits long before then.

One of the most famous was Stubby, a bull terrier-boxer mix, the only American dog known to have served in World War I. Stubby was adopted by the Army's 102nd Infantry in Connecticut in 1917 and soon became one of the boys, eating with the soldiers, sleeping with them and, in February of 1918, sailing with them to Europe (having successfully smuggled himself aboard the troopship).

He proved his mettle under fire, comforting wounded soldiers on the battlefield, sniffing out impending mustard-gas attacks (and barking ferociously to warn his mates). Once, Stubby even stopped an escaping German spy, grabbing him by the seat of his pants and hanging (doggedly) on.

After the war, presidents Wilson, Harding and Coolidge all had audiences with Stubby; and General Pershing awarded him a gold medal. The dog led more regimental parades than any other dog in American history, writes Mary Elizabeth Thurston in her book, The Lost History of the Canine Race, and was promoted to honorary sergeant, becoming the highest-ranking dog ever to serve in the Army.

I got the bloodhounds for Search and Rescue...

Seeing many more animal shelter dogs going into SAR and a friend of mine is using shelter dogs for where he works..Indiana state penitentiary..They use a bloodhound that was bought for escapee's,
2 bird dogs they got from a shelter for drugs and such, and now looking for a German shepard as had to put his last one down after certified for aggression when pinched nerve and was suffering and vet said to do it.

Seeing more go into the service for Deaf, blind, and handicap to...