A Man's Best Friend
- Emily
- Dec 30, 2021
- 2 min read
I came across an article this morning based on mercy dogs. As many know the first use of these comforting mammals was through the German Army on No Mans Land in World War One. They were used to help find wounded soldiers on the battlefield to comfort them during their last moments.
Most of these dogs actually wore strapped backpacks with supplies like gas masks, medical supplies and etc to aid in the soldier's help. It's quite unique if you think of it as they can easily go unnoticed with how tiny they were compared to as if it were a human's job, not to mention how fast and intelligent they are.
Reading the article it states that, humans have been using dogs in wars for thousands of years. Murals in ancient Egypt depict dogs in battle, and accounts written by ancient Greeks mention dogs “protected with coats of mail.”
Major Edwin Richardson
"The idea for santiätshunde — or medical dogs — leaped to Britain five years later. In 1895, Major Edwin Richardson encountered a man buying English dogs to ship back to Germany."
Pictured below is Richardson with his medical dogs
“I took notice of a ‘foreigner’ buying a sheepdog from a shepherd and learned that the man was a German, sent over by his government to purchase large quantities of collie dogs for the German Army,” Richardson recounted.
“I was told that these dogs were found to be excellent for the work required and that they had nothing in Germany, which could compare with them.”
The main breed for these medical dogs was a German Shephard or Border Collies. So he began to experiment with them doing such things as using them to carry sandbags to help soldiers build protection in trenches and furthermore. He began seeing what they were capable of doing with a wounded soldier, and it surprised him.
When World War I broke out, dogs from Britain, France, and Germany were sent to the front. These mercy dogs would save thousands of lives.
More than 50,000 dogs were used on both sides during the war. One 1916 German publication estimated that 600 dogs saved more than 3,000 lives in the grim zone between opposing forces.
Incredible stories began and here's one:
“It was a pitch-dark night with heavy fog,” starts one 1915 account of German santiätshunde in the New York Times.
“At the command, ‘Hunt the wounded!’ the dogs dashed ahead into the woods, we following them as rapidly as possible … it wasn’t long before we heard barking… the dogs came running back to meet us and guided us until we came upon one poor devil who lay on the ground groaning, his eyes fixed on the dog…
“And so it went all night long, till we had thoroughly searched the battlefield. Fourteen wounded were found in the dark woods by our dogs who could never have been found by our ambulance men and would have been left to their fate. You cannot picture the horror of it.”
“They sometimes lead us to the bodies we think have no life in them, but when we bring them back to the doctors… they always find a spark,” wrote one surgeon “It is purely a matter of their instinct, [which] is far more effective than man’s reasoning powers.”
A British dog calling for help
"Sergeant Stubby, a rare American dog, learned to alert soldiers about incoming mustard gas and helped search for the wounded. And a German shepherd puppy bred to be a mercy dog but nearly killed in a bombing grew up to become the American movie star, Rin Tin Tin," says the article.
A photo of Sergeant Stubby below. Note all of his medals!
Sadly by the end of 1918, around 7,000 dogs had been killed. All remembered for their glorious duties. They went ahead and used the tactic of medical dogs in World War Two aswell.
Not to mention propaganda was a tool, as many know, used during the wars to not only create enlistment but also support.
That concludes this blog. Thank you.
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