Their masters in the meantime are sleeping in their rabbit skin sleeping bags, which weigh from six to twelve pounds.
Hard as the work is yet these faithful sled dogs are eager for each day’s work and are nearly heartbroken if they are unable to take their places in the traces.
The teams driven by white men are driven tandem, while Indian teams are fan shaped, each dog being hitched to the sled by a separate thong.
Of hunting dogs there are many varieties which are always of the utmost importance to frontier peoples, where they guard the flocks and the premises from all kinds of four-footed marauders. Upon the frontier these dogs also assist in the chase and thus furnish meat for the table and help rid the country of vermin, such beasts as the wolf that have to go before civilization is secure.
These hunting dogs also serve a less important use among the leisure class. Field trials of pointers and setters have become important events in the annals of dogs, while the running of greyhounds and wolfhounds is a national sport in some countries.
But what shall we say of the house dog, who is one of the family? The sharer of all our joys and sorrows: the one from whom we have no secrets: the social intimate whose tail is a perfect barometer of sunshine and storm in the family: the custodian of the premises, who always sleeps with one eye open, and one ear cocked for the sound of prowlers: the friend of the children who follows them about like a shadow, watchful lest any danger threaten them, often sharing in their romps with all the zest of a boy.
This dumb creature worships you, to him you are a sort of God—often a rather sorry God, hardly worthy of his worship; yet a God to him, one whom he can look up to, can serve and love.
How empty the door mat would be without him. How silent the premises without his occasional cheerful bark.
Do cares oppress you and is the burden of life heavy, are you cast down and unable to see a sunbeam through the shadows? Look over in the corner. Your own anxious mood is reflected upon the face of your dog. He is the very picture of misery, uneasy and longing to comfort you.
Presently he will come over to you unable to stand it any longer and put his nose into your hand, or fall to licking it frantically. He is not forward or aggressive, but full of humility and abasement. He knows he is only a dog, while you are a dog’s God, but he wants to comfort you, to take your load upon his own shoulders and help you bear it.