The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1894-05-10
CANDIDATES FOR POLAR HoNoRs.

CANDIDATES FOR POLAR HONORS.
Cog. In fact, the cost of keeping draft
dog is almost nothing. He lives on the
scraps and waste from his masters table,
poor as those usually are. If he misses a
meal, he only wags his tail and patiently
awaits the next. Grocers and other dealers
who found themselves approaching bank
ruptcy on account of the cost of maintain
ing delivery wagons drawn by horses
changed to dog power and grew rapidly
rich. The carts used for dogs cost much
less than wagons suitable for horses The
harness for the smaller animal is mere
trffie A dog needs neither shoes nor sta
bic. He requires no care. And he will
take his load of a thousand pounds and
trudge along with it at smart gait all
the day long. After we get through with
this north pole business, if we ever do,
we think of taking shipload of draft dogs
to America and thus teach our country
men the use of a new motive power. So
far as that is concerned, the millions of
idle dogs in America should be set to work
A little training would convert the great
majority of them into useful draft ami
mails. 1t is high time our lazy old dogs
were taught few new tricks
These Belgian draft dogs are of no spe-
cial breed They are conglomerates. If
there is any type among them, it is the
long cared foxhound, though pure pedi.
gree is almost unknown. Their value con-
sists not of blood or of breeding, but of the
uses to which they are put, though it must
be true that the employment of generation
after generation for draft is gradually de-
veloping not only mental aptitude for
f0 L h,,f
ity to pulling heavy loads. If the thou
sands of men who devote their energies to
the breeding of dogs for beauty, ugliness,
for the chase or for pets were to turn their
attention for few decades to the produc-
ton of breed for draft, they might evolve
a dog that could pull 1000 pounds, or as
much as an ordinary horse, and in so do
ing they would give the world new pow
er that would possess almost as great an
Importance industrially as electricity AL
ready the mere circumstance of use has in
western Europe produced dog with ex-
traordinarily tough feet, heavily muscled
legs, sinewy SHOULDERS dog which gets
himself down toward the ground and pulls
like mule. If this is the result of the
chance of mere use, what could not be done
with the design of skillful interbreeding
of hounds, mastiffs and bulldogs?
The special advantage which these dogs
possess for our use in the arctics consists
of their strength, which is greater than
that of the Eskimo or Siberian dog; of
their tractability, which is such that one
team will follow another even without a
driver; of their immunity from the epi-
denies which carry off so many of the
packs heretofore used in the arctics, and
of their ability to get along with so little
food. We have been asked about million
times if these dogs can withstand the cold
Of the arctics, and about half million
times we have replied that the summer of
the arctics has no severe cold, and we
have further explained that the two most
adaptable animals of the world are the
two which we are taking with us-men
and dogs. These are the creatures that
are able to pass in a single season from
equatorial heat to arctic cold without suf-
fering ill effects from the violent transi-
ton. Whatever man can endure dog
can Withstand, and not much depends upon
the breed in either case. Payer had with
him on his sledge journeys in Franz-Jo-
sef Land four or five swarthy Italians, and
they endured 40 degrees below zero without
murmur. Nor are we the first to take
European dogs to the arctics. Payer had
with him in Franz Josef Land number of
dogs from Vienna, and he testified that
they were Of more service to him, even in
extreme cold, than the Siberian animals
which he had with him. The only trouble
with his European dogs, he explained,
was that they had not been trained to
draft. In this respect our pack is ideal.
We had great sport buying our dogs In
Last page