52 British War Dogs 



get no generally concerted action taken. I did not give up 

 hope, however, and continued my private experiments. 

 Many people came to me for advice in obtaining safety for 

 themselves or their property. There are very few parts 

 of the world from which I did not receive either visitors or 

 letters in connection with this subject. Owners of tea and 

 coffee estates, sugar plantations, poultry farms, and animal 

 farms in all parts of the world, penitentiaries in North and 

 South America, rubber estates, large rambling mansions, 

 factories, docks, etc. In fact, all suffering from the same 

 trouble, namely, the difficulty and unreliability of the 

 human being, unaided, to provide the necessary guarantee 

 of security. Each case was treated separately, according 

 to the circumstances, climate, personnel and environ- 

 ment. 



As it was necessary to specialize in certain breeds, it 

 was found that for the particular needs of these pre-war 

 years the Airedale, as an all-round, courageous, reliable 

 and hardy individual, could not be beaten, and the extra- 

 ordinary way in which he is able to adapt himself to both 

 northern and tropical climates is exceedingly remarkable 

 and useful. I paid many visits to the Continent to those 

 countries which specialized in trained police or military 

 dogs. In France tentative experiments with army dogs 

 were carried on, largely owing to the energy and initiative 

 of M. Megnin, of Paris, and police dogs were used in suburban 

 areas of large towns. Russia had a definite establishment 

 of military dogs in which the Tsar took a great interest 

 and which were attached to many regiments. I may here 

 incidentally remark that I was in Russia three weeks before 

 the war broke out, acting as judge at the army trials of these 

 military dogs. The two other judges were Germans. 



Holland, Sweden and Italy all had canine military 



