^ Diagram from DefenseTech
” The US Army is working on an Aibo-like robotic soldier dog designed to help carry some of the up to 100 pounds of gear that today’s soldiers are issued.”
Obligatory link to Patrick Farley’s Spiders. If you haven’t read it yet, do. Also, Natalie J’s feral robot dogs, which might well be the fate of misfit veteran dogbots; and my essaylette “Superpets last all autumn long”.
Petafloptimism 
$2.25 million for a prototype!? Why don’t they just use real dogs? You can get those for free. Of course, the cool factor is far less.
What a strange idea.