The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1919-05-16
DOGS PLAYED LARGE
PART IN WINNING WAR
Ten Thousand Trained Animals at
the Allies Battlefront When the
Armistice Was Signed.

Washington, May 12.-"Add dogs TO
any list of the potent factors in WIN
ming the war;" counsels a bulletin from
the Washington headquarters of the
National Geographic society.
"Heroic deeds of the Red Cross dogs
have been widely celebrated, and
Justly so," the bulletin continues, but
not only did the dog figure g%loriously
as a messenger of mercy in the war,
but did his bit nobly in many other
ways.
at is said that there were about
ten thousand dogs employed at the
battlefront at the time of the sign
ing of the armistice. They ranged
from Alaskan malamute to st. Ber-
nard and from Scotch collie to fox
terrier. Many of them were placed
on the regimental rosters as soldiers.
In the trenches they shared all the
perils and hardships of the soldiers
themselves, and drew their turns in
the rest camps in the same fashion.
But they were always ready to go
back, and it is not recorded that a
single one of them ever failed when
it came to going over the top
At Listening Posts.
Mounting guard at a listening
post for long hours at a stretch, ig-
noring danger with all the s%tolidness
of a stole, yet alert every moment,
he played a heroic role. Full many
a time it was the keen ear of a collie
that first caught the sound Of the APP
preaching raiding party. And did he
bark? How natural it would have
been for him to do so! But no, a bark
or a growl might have told the raid
ers they were discovered, and thus
have prevented the animals w for
ces from giving the foe a counter sur
prise. So he wagged his tail nervous
ly-a canine adaptation of the wigwag
system which his master interpreted
and acted upon, to the discontinue
of the enemy.
"Often whole companies were saw
ed because the dog could reach far
Their into the distance with his senses
than could the soldiers themselves.
ut was found that many dogs
would do patrol and scout duty with
any detachment. But there was n
other type of dog worker needed in
the trenches-the liaison dog, trained
to seek his master whenever turned
loose. Amid exploding shells, through
veritable fields of hell, he would
crawl and creep, with only n 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 part
Of the field to another, and naught
but death or overcoming wound could
turn him aside.
Not Limited to Front.
"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 himself found conditions
which even the iron muscle and the
indomnitable 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 pin
nacle trenches in the high Alps pro-
visioned and munitioned in the dead
Of winter. In four days, after a very
heavy snowfall, one kennel of $50
dogs moved more than fifty IONS of
food and other supplies from the val
ley below to the front line on the
mountain above.
"1n the Vosges mountains more
than a thousand Alaskan sled DOGS
helped to hold the Hun during the
last year of the war"