260 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



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Photograph by William Reid 



FIVE FRIENDS ON A SEE-SAW : SCOTLAND 



The dog is man's oldest friend among the animals, and the one with whom he most 

 willingly trusts his children. Both as playfellow and as protector, the dog has for centuries 

 been a loved and loving member of countless households. 



he bark? How natural it would have 

 been for him to do so ! But no, a bark 

 or a growl might have told the raiders 

 they were discovered, and thus have pre- 

 vented the animal's own forces from giv- 

 ing the foe a counter-surprise. So he 

 wagged his tail nervously — a canine adap- 

 tation of the wig- wag system which his 

 master interpreted and acted upon, to the 

 discomfiture of the enemy. 



Often whole companies were saved be- 

 cause the dog could reach further into 

 the distance with his senses than could 

 the soldiers themselves. 



It was found that many dogs would do 

 patrol and scout duty with any detach- 

 ment. But there was another type of dog 

 worker needed in the trenches — the liai- 

 son dog, trained to seek his master when- 

 ever turned loose. Amid exploding shells, 

 through veritable fields of hell, he would 

 crawl and creep, with only one thought — 

 to reach his master. Nor would he stop 



until the object of his search was attained. 

 Many a message of prime importance he 

 thus bore from one part of the field to 

 another, and nought but death or over- 

 coming wound could turn him aside (see 

 pages 186-190). 



But the work of the dogs of war was 

 not limited to the front. Where the 

 motor lorry was helpless, where the horse 

 stood powerless to aid, where man him- 

 self found conditions which even the iron 

 muscle and the indomitable will that is 

 born of the fine frenzy of patriotism 

 could not conquer, here came the sled 

 dog to the rescue. 



Alaska and Labrador contributed the 

 motive power for the sleds that kept the 

 men in their mountain-pinnacle trenches 

 in the high Alps provisioned and muni- 

 tioned in the dead of winter. In four 

 days, after a very heavy snowfall, one 

 kennel of 150 dogs moved more than fifty 

 tons of food and other supplies from the 



