Thus, by the help of these faithful friends, the lives of many hundreds of men have been saved. Over one hundred were rescued in one night after a battle. A big Newfoundland, named Napoleon, had the credit of saving as many as twenty. One of the men, in speaking of him, said, "Part of his tail has been blown away, and once he was left for dead in No Man's Land, but he is still on the job, working for civilization."
When not fighting or on watch, the men in the trenches enjoy the company of the dogs and teach them to perform all sorts of tricks, the fox terriers proving especially intelligent. They also do good work in keeping the trenches free from rats.
At night, a French sentinel sometimes crawls through the entanglements on his way to a "listening post" out in No Man's Land. With him goes a sentinel dog. The sentinel's purpose is to discover if the enemy are getting ready for a surprise attack. Lying flat on the earth, or crouching in a shell hole, he listens with bated breath for any telltale noises. The dog, listening too, creeps along beside him, or slinks silently out into the darkness. He can tell, when his master cannot, if an enemy is abroad. Making no sound, giving no betraying bark, as soon as he discovers the enemy the dog draws near to his master, stands at attention, his ears pricked up, his hair bristling, his tail wagging as he silently paws the ground or growls so low that only his master can hear him. If the German soldier attempts to fight, the dog springs at him and throws him to the ground.
A group of soldiers were on watch one night in one of the front trenches, when all of the dogs suddenly became uneasy, growling low, and growing more and more excited. The soldiers knew their dogs and trusted their warnings, so they telephoned back to the main trenches for help. In less than half an hour, an attack was made from the German trenches opposite. Meanwhile, however, reënforcements had arrived for the Allies, which sent the enemy back to his own lines again. How the dogs knew so long before that the attack was coming, whether they could have heard the first faint signs of preparation in the enemy trenches, the soldiers could not tell.
When a front line trench of the enemy is captured, it is the faithful dogs who draw up the many cartloads of ammunition and supplies, and some of the smaller guns. For this, the Belgian dogs are especially well fitted.
Happy as long as they can help in the fighting, restless and uneasy whenever sent back to the hospitals for treatment or rest, these dogs have shown the worth of all the training they have received, as well as a great amount of natural intelligence.
While Zip, Napoleon, Spot, Stop, Mignon, and Bouée have been doing their bit on the firing line, still others have been taking their training in readiness to go to the front. And very hard training it is. Sheep dogs, fox terriers, bulldogs, collies, St. Bernards, Newfoundlands, Alaskan wolf dogs, mongrels,—all must be carefully trained by expert dog trainers.
First they must learn to distinguish between the uniform of their country and that of the enemy. They must not bark, because then the enemy will be sure to shoot. In carrying letters from post to post, they must learn to recognize the posts by name.
