104 British War Do£s 



Keeper Errington in the following report gives an 

 account of his three dogs " Jack," " Whitefoot " and 

 "Lloyd." "Jack" was an Airedale, and the other two 

 were Welsh terriers of a large size : 



" I started running these dogs in difficult circumstances 

 at Strazeele on April 14th, 1918. The roads were busy 

 with traffic and stray dogs in abundance, cattle, sheep and 

 poultry were being killed by the heavy shelling. We had 

 10 dogs running, in which the dogs were thoroughly tested 

 — I found the greatest difficulty at first was the Relay 

 Post. The dogs were sent to this post, a distance of 2 kilos., 

 and had to wait there until another runner came to take 

 them to the front line 1^ kilos., the waiting here was from 

 30 mins. to 2 hours, therefore the dogs usually stopped at 

 this point the first few runs, but with practice it was soon 

 all right. I started at Nieppe Forest (Hazebrouck Front) 

 in May, the dogs did some excellent running — the distance 

 was 5 kilos, at first, the average time 45 mins. ; the front 

 got quieter and the distance was reduced to 3^ kilos. 

 ' Whitefoot ' acted as runner for Brig.-Gen. Taylor, who 

 personally took the dog to visit his Battalions in the line. 

 After receiving the Intelligence Report, he released the dog, 

 which ran to Brigade Hdqtrs. 7 runs in succession. 

 This dog's time was 23 and 25 mins. The greatest difficulty 

 here was gas which affected the pads of the feet, especially 

 during damp or wet weather. ' Jack ' was killed and 

 ' Whitefoot ' and ' Lloyd ' were footsore, but soon were 

 running again. 



" During damp weather and when it was muddy and 

 heavy running for dogs, I used to clip the hair between the 

 toes (pads) that prevented any gas in the mud from 

 adhering to the feet and causing inflammation. 



