The Twin City star. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1910-19??, 1917-07-07
DQQ5 War inRealLiif 9
: Trained animals otMe
. French army Asoover
The grounded and eUen
capture German days
as prisoners =: Many
ottAem haze beengUen
great military hono,S

z fed and enriched immeas-
+ urably the beautiful pact Of
~ friendship concluded ages
I'D ago between man and the
VIM dog and has conferred upon
Tt the venerable and sinister
ie NN phrase "let loose the dogs
'eo Of war; new and softened
meaning.
The dogs Of the French army are a
force to be reckoned with. They aie a
really necessary cog In the big army
machine. They have distinguished
themselves in Argonne, on the Somme,
on the User, in the Vosges. They have
contributed appreciably to divers local
successes. They have saved the lives
of thousands Of soldiers by their intel
ligence and devotion, by their courage
and address. They have given their
limbs, they have given their health,
they have given their lives. They
have been cited on the rosters Of their
companies, their battalions, their regi-
ments. They have been decorated.
Their virtues have been celebrated by
the cinema, by the newspapers and IL
illustrated magazines and by the novel.
Festivals have been held for the bene-
fit Of their hospitals and convalescent
homes. Their delegates were enthu-
siast1cally cheered at the Palace Of
the Trocadero by an audience Of over
5000 persons (including many wound
ed soldiers from the military hospitals)
on the occasion Of the last annual
meeting Of the s. P. A.(Societe Protec-
tr1ce des Animaux, corresponding to
our s. P. G. Az. And a committee has
been formed Cat the instigation Of
their two-footed comrades-inarms) for
the erection Of a monument in their
honor.
Saviors Of the Wounded.
At the moment of the mobilization,
$50 dogs, specially trained to rescue
the wounded, were put at the DISPOSE
ton Of the sanitary department Of the
Army Of the Societe Rationale du
Chen Sanitaire. After short stay at
Longchamp, they were sent to the
front, where they conducted them
selves, on the whole, exceedingly we'll.
""Pic' was brought down by a German
bullet in Argonne. '"Toby," alias
~Crapouillot," died from a shell wound
received at Vic-sur-Tourbe. KAISER"
''Kronprinz" and "Francois-Joseph"-
names given in derision, because Of
fancied resemblance to the sovereigns
of the adversaries-served zealously
and fell upon the field Of honor.
In 1915, mainly on the initiative Of
the 8. p. A. and the Anti-Vivisection
league, some three hundred more thor
.oughly trained dogs were turned over
to the sanitary department, and now
not hundreds but thousands are sue
'coring the wounded between Newport
and Alsace. "Prince," q superb Alsa-
tan wolf, the first dog to have his coat
dyed in the interests Of invisibility,
and still in the service, saved five
wounded men in single day at Vau-
-quois. "Pax," blind and paralyzed and
''invalided" in due form because Of
these infirmities contracted in the serv-
ice, has the rescue of more than two
hundred wounded to his credit. On
the other hand, cadet" efficient sing
ay, but too ill-tempered for team work,
has developed speciality altogether
his own, that Of gathering in" the
dogs Of the enemy. When cadet"
spies a Boche dog, he pounces upon
him, masters him, grips him by the
ear and brings him to the trench as
prisoner.
The sanitary dog" scours the battle
field in quest Of the wounded. When
he discovers a suffering soldier he
falls back on the brancardier to
whom he is attached and makes plain
by his attitude that his services are
needed. At the outset he was taught
Ito fetch to the brancarlier kept or a
But the handkerchief of
the soldier is very apt to be in a
pocket and he may
have lost his kept. Furthermore the
kept has been replaced largely by the
heavy helmet, and it is next to impos-
sible for a dog to remove the latter,
when it is held on by a chin-strap, as
It almost always is. So it has become
to have the dog fetch any
object whatever (pipe, handkerchief,
helmet, briquet, tobacco pouch, car
fridge box, bit Of uniformly, save
bandage, which he is taught to scrupu-
lousy respect.
Surprising Canine Versatility.
The sanitary dogs" having been
first in the field, thanks to tbs ante
bellum preparedness efforts Of the So