THE DOG IN WAR.*
COLONEL RICHARDSON, the well-known authority on dogs, has written a most interesting account of the part played by dogs in the late war. In August, 1914, only one sentry dog, an Airedale, was attached to the British Army. He went to manoeuvres with the 2nd Batt. Norfolk Regiment, accompanied the battalion to France, and was killed by a shell on the Aisne. For many years Colonel Richardson had been studying the use of trained dogs in warfare, and immediately on the outbreak of war had recommended their use to the authorities not only as sentries, but as messengers and in guard and ambulance work. He could get no concerted action taken. A certain number of ambulance dogs were employed by the Red Cross, but it was soon found that the disregard by the Germans of the Red Cross symbol, and the conditions on the Western front generally, made it impossible to continue this work. Later Colonel Richardson supplied dogs to various officers for messenger, patrol, and sentry work with such satisfactory results that at the request of the War Office he started a War Dog School at Shoeburyness, and very soon there was a regular messenger-service organized in France. Sentry dogs were also sent out to Salonika, and a large number of dogs were used for guard duties at munition factories and other vulnerable points at home, thus releasing • Brstish War Dogs. By Lieut.-Colonel B. H. Elobardson. London: ShoIDag- ton sod SOD. 141a. meta
man power. The special value of dogs as messengers during heavy bombardments is readily obvious:—
" Telephones soon become useless and the danger to the human runner is enormous. Added to the difficulties are the shell- holes, the mud, the smoke and gas, and darkness. It is hero that the messenger dog is of the greatest assistance. The broken surface of the ground is of small moment to it, as it lightly leaps from point to point. It comes to its duty in the field well broken to shell-fire, and so has no fear. Its sense of direction is as certain at night as in the day, and equally so in mist or fog. Being a smaller and more rapidly-moving object, the danger of its being hit is much less than in the case of a runner, and it is a fact that during the war casualties were extraordinarily low among the messenger dogs, especially when it is taken into considers. tion that their work was always in the hottest of the fight."
Colonel Richardson reprints some of the reports sent to him :-
" On tho attack on tho Vimy Ridge the dogs were employed with an artillery observation post. All the telephones were broken, and visual signallin was impossible. The dogs were the first to bring through news."
' Jim,' a small cross-bred retriever spaniel, had a reputation for carrying important dispatches " in wonderful quick time."
" On another occasion while in the first lino trenches little `Jim' was instrumental in first giving the warning of gas, duo no doubt to his highly sensitive nose ; thereupon he was immediately relosaedwith the warning to Headquarters, arriving there a little more than three-quarters of an hour earlier than the warning given by wire."
`Creamy,' a cream-coloured, cross-bred lurcher, "helped the 3rd Londoners from being cut off on the right of Villers- Bretonnenx. She and ` Tweed ' kept the Battalion in touch with Brigade Headquarters." Tweed,' a Highland sheep-dog, had a fine record. Through a Boche barrage, covering three kilo- metres in ten minutes, he carried the message : "Send up rein- forcements and small round ammunition." " The French were sent up and filled the gaps and straightened out the line, other- wise Amiens would be in the hands of the Germans." At another time, when with his keeper attached to the 48th Batt. Australians, he helped to spoil German plans by getting through with the message : "The Germans are preparing for a raid." ' Tweed' ran as well whether on matters of high strategical importance or more homely affairs. Thus at Passchendaele in 1917 he came through with the useful message : "Moving forward to-night. Send socks for men and some S.O.S. Lights," and the 13th R.H.C., as they put on their dry socks, were no doubt full of gratitude to him. Boxer,' an Airedale, once having conquered a weakness for old carcases, was very useful. He wont over the top with the Keats and brought back important messages. His record was three miles in ten minutes. ` Flash,' a brindle lurcher, did well at Kemmel Hill, where " the dogs were running belly deep in mud." Paddy,' an Irish terrier, "never made a mistake during the six months I hied him," writes his proud keeper. Paddy ' carried a message from H.Q. on Passchendaele nearly to Ypres, a distance of five miles over about three miles of duck-boards, in about twenty- seven minutes. The same journey took runners nearly two hours. Poor Rab ' staggered back with her message at Kemmel Hill, though hit by a piece of shell and so badly wounded that she died the next day. ' Major '—" not much to look at—a cross lurchor and deerhound, but a heart of gold "—went for- ward in an attack, was released with a message asking for help, and covered 17 kilometres in an hour. We have not space to refer in detail to the valuable work done by sentry and guard dogs at home and abroad, but we must just mention the case of the Airedale who scented the enemy when the night patrol he was with could notice nothing suspicious: "The officer ordered the men to lie flat. Immediately afterwards an enemy patrol passed by, close to them, without noticing. Our patrols then rose noiselessly and captured them all." And in Egypt when the enemy attacked during a dense mist, the sentry dogs were so quick at scenting the approach that an order was given to fire into the mist. " When the mist cleared away, large numbers of enemy dead were found." In his chapters on training Colonel Richardson gives an interesting analysis of the capacities of the various breeds. Thus for all types of work, that hardy and devoted friend of man, the Airedale, is of great value. But the Highland sheep-dog, though often—like Tweed'—highly strung, is excellent; as also are collies, even the "show variety," lurehers, deerhounds, and Welsh and Irish terriers. One is not surprised, perhaps, to read that poodles are too light-minded, but lovers of the fox terrier will be disappointed to find that he was "too fond of play " and could not be induced to take work seriously. Alas I
is it possible that his rollicking high spirits and debonair mien indicate a shallow nature 7 Any person who has prided himself on the graceful twist of his dog's tail will read with concern that Colonel Richardson "rarely found a dog with a gaily carried tail, which curved over its back or sideways, of any value. This method of carrying the tail seems to indicate a certain levity of character quite at variance with the serious duties required." The majority of the dogs required a training of six weeks or two months, and it is most interesting to read of the methods of training and the zest with which the dogs went through -it. As with man, competition was a strong educator. The messenger dogs were divided into three classes according to progress :—
" Sometimes one class would be left in while the others were taken out for work. If the first class, which was the most highly trained, happened to be left in, it was most amusing to watch the indignation and contempt with which the incoming efforts of the lesser trained dogs were greeted by its members. They generally elected to watch the proceedings perched on the top of their kennels, and loud choruses of derision were hurled at the raw recruits. When the turn came afterwards for mem- bers of the first class to exhibit their prowess, great was the assumption of superiority and determination to show how much better they could do."
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