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Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me, Reena Stanton Sharma.

I'm going to tell you a story about a tiny dog who was a war hero TV star

and was believed to be the world's first therapy dog.

It all started in 1944 when she had a profound impact on wounded soldiers.

Smoky being there kind of turned things around a little bit because she had been a dog in the war with them

and she was novel in her size and what she was doing.

They had her story and they watched her perform and so it really had a whole different effect

than your average therapy dog would because these are wounded, they're coming off a combat.

Here's this little dog that's going through the war with them.

That's Bill Winn, Smoky's owner. He's speaking in a 2005 University of Tennessee film.

Bill was a corporal in the US Army Air Corps. He was a photographer in the 26th photo reconnaissance squadron in Papua New Guinea.

That's where he adopted the Yorkshire Terrier who weighed less than two kilograms and stood at just over 15 centimetres tall.

Bill bought Smoky after another soldier found the scruffy looking pooch in a band and foxhole.

Bill instantly fell in love with her and began teaching Smoky tricks to entertain his army mates.

His strong bond with dogs developed early.

Growing up without a father, Bill would move around a lot while his mum was looking for jobs.

Bill's good friend, Adrian Brigham, explains.

As they were travelling around looking for work, Bill and his brothers spent quite a bit of time in orphanages

and they just never really had a lot of time to develop strong relationships.

He'd always seemed to have a dog around and always loved the dogs so much that it was just kind of natural.

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