How the Movement Began 58 



establishments, in a more or less experimental stage, and 

 in the case of Italy the experience gained was put to good 

 use in the Tripoli campaign. I visited Tripoli personally 

 during that war, and gained many valuable hints, and I 

 was allowed to visit the battlefields in Morocco, at the 

 invitation of King Alfonso, in the Riff campaign, taking 

 one of my own dogs with me. These experiences in actual 

 warfare were added to by a visit to the Balkans when war 

 broke out there in 191 1. The Albanians used many of their 

 shaggy sheep dogs of ferocious disposition, which rendered 

 excellent service in the mountains as guards to their sen- 

 tries. The Bulgarians also used sentry dogs. I was able 

 to send out a pair of dogs from my own kennels to the 

 8th Ghurkas for the Abor campaign in India. These were 

 used by sentries and patrols, and rendered considerable 

 service in the dense scrub by preventing the sentries from 

 being surprised and the battalions rushed. One was an 

 Airedale and the other a cross-bred sheep dog. 



It was in Germany that I found much the most organized 

 service of both military and police dogs. Between the years 

 1900 and 1914 I paid several visits to their training estab- 

 lishments, and had admired many of their methods, but I 

 quickly saw that we had the advantage in this country 

 by the possession of a better choice of dogs for the work, 

 and also I questioned whether the immensely detailed system 

 of training the keepers of the dogs, and also the dogs them- 

 selves, was to any useful purpose. It seemed to me that, 

 as in other forms of German organization, not enough 

 attention was directed to the psychology of the subject, 

 and too much to the letter of mechanical instruction. I 

 knew that in the event of dogs being employed at all in war 

 large supplies, and quickly trained, would be needed, 

 and that, therefore, a quicker system of instruction was 



