Page 46 - Dog

Helper dogs

To catch a thief
Dogs have been indispensable throughout history as helpers
in human societies. Besides being used to herd other animals, and
for companionship, their principal function has been to guard the
home and the farm. Today the job of the guard dog has broadened DOGS OF WAR
The intense loyalty of dogs to people
and includes protecting factories and industrial estates. To shut up a means that they can be trained to carry out
dog on its own in an empty building or other enclosed space and missions under conditions of great danger.
expect it to live by itself, and to ward off intruders, goes against all
the social behavioral patterns of the dog, and is cruel. Dogs that are
trained by the police for protection and for detection of drugs and
explosives are seldom alone and usually live well-balanced lives.
Certain breeds are more naturally aggressive than others, but nearly
all dogs have to be specially trained to be aggressive to strangers and
not to their handlers. Today there are innumerable ways in which
dogs help the sick, the disabled, and the lonely – and by insisting on
a daily walk they help keep their owners healthy.

Strong teeth and a sturdy
jaw – with the lower jaw
projecting above the upper –
help the boxer to keep
strangers at bay

Boxers have great
strength and energy
– the powerful
forequarters are
inherited from
the bulldog

Thick black and BERNESE MOUNTAIN DOG
tan coat is long In the old days the large mastiff-type dogs in Switzerland
and wavy and were used for protecting merchants, cattle traders,
provides perfect drovers, and their herds as they traveled through the
protection mountain passes. Until the early 1900s they were all
against the known simply as Swiss mountain dogs, but today there DOGS IN SPACE
intense cold of are four separate breeds – the Bernese (pp. 56–57) Sending dogs into
the Swiss from the province, or canton, of Berne; the space may have
mountains Appenzell from the canton of the contributed greatly to
same name; the Entlebuch human knowledge, but
from the canton of Lucerne; for the dogs it must have
and the Greater Swiss. been a terrifying experience –
no different from any other
laboratory experiment. The first
dog to be sent into space was the
St. Bernard to Russian dog Laika in 1957.
the rescue

RESCUE DOGS
For several hundred
years, dogs bred at
the monastery of the A DOG WITH THREE HEADS
Great St. Bernard Pass In ancient mythology, Cerberus
in Switzerland were was a three-headed dog that
trained to rescue stood at the gates of hell, to
travelers lost in prevent the living from entering
the mountains. and the dead from leaving.

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