I've read that during ww2, the Soviets used to train dogs to destroy German tanks but that it went wrong for a variety of reasons (dogs don't like loud noises, were trained on Russian tanks, etc.) All of this sounds pretty apocryphal so I was wondering if this actually occurred and to what extent it's true.
Yes. There's even video of them in action. (Mind the melodramatic music.)
Of course, the "anti-tank dogs" were never overly successful and were only deployed in the darkest part of the invasion, in fall 1941 and early 1942. There were manifold problems: Dogs took time to train and weren't always reliable. You seem to be aware of those issues, so I won't go into them.