In 1914, when France was drawn into what was to become a world war, she set about to aid her adopted country. Dogs of all breeds and descriptions were gathered into the Refuge in Neuilly. A systematic training school was organized to fit these dogs for war work, some for the Red Cross, some for trench work, and still others to become messengers to carry important documents and light burdens. It was most essential that a dog for each division of this work should be thoroughly trained, and after this was accomplished the work became one of routine and practice. The trained dogs became the instructors, and it was a stupid pupil indeed that did not become more or less proficient in the work set for it in the course of a week or ten days. To watch this training process is most interesting. A green dog, that is, one without any training, is attached by a short lead to the dog instructor. The command is given to perform a certain duty and at once the trained dog is off on his mission, pulling the untrained dog with him. This is repeated time and again until the pupil learns the word of command and the execution of the same. It is but a question of a few days until the green dog has learned his lessons, and he himself becomes an instructor to some new arrival at the home.
Six hundred dogs were thus instructed for their various war duties and sent to the front. The war is now at an end, and while many of these faithful creatures paid the supreme sacrifice, hundreds are left, some crippled for life, and all in need of proper care for the balance of their lives. During my three months’ stay in Paris following the armistice, dozens of these dogs were returned to the Countess to be cared for. Knowing the burden placed upon her, both in a financial and physical sense, I am writing this story of the heroic deeds of these wonderful animals. Every penny derived from the sale of this booklet will be devoted to assist this noble work of the Countess Yourkevitch of Neuilly, France.
THE DOG’S MANIFOLD DUTIES AT THE BATTLE FRONT
The stories of the devotion of dogs to their masters under the most trying conditions of the battlefront form one of the epics of the great struggle.
It is said that there were about ten thousand dogs employed at the battle front at the time of the signing of the armistice. They ranged from Alaskan malamute to St. Bernard, and from Scotch collie to fox terrier. Many of them were placed on the regimental rosters like 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.”