DOGS OF THE BATTLEFIELD.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2662, 2 June 1908, Page 7

DOGS OF THE BATTLEFIELD.

- TO RETRIEVE THE WOUNDED

Since dogs have proved to be such able assistants to the Paris police corps why shouldn't they be trained to re-enforce the hospital and ambulance service of the French Army? The advantages of this innovation have been set forth at some length by Or. Bicbelonnc and Captain Tolet in a volume which has just been published. It is entitled "Dog as an Aid to the Hospital Corps." That dogs should be taught to seekout the wounded on the battlefield is no new idea. The experiment was tried with success at the time of the Boer War, and at the battle of ChaHo, in the conflict in the Far East, three dogs sent out by the German Alliance discovered twenty-three soldiers who had been given up for lost. In 1890, by order of the German War Minister, two dogs were added to the sanitary corps of one of the crack regiments. Since then clubs for the training of dogs in war time have been formed in Dresden, Cologne, Cotourg, Aix-la-chapelle and Neuwied. Similar societies have been organised in Holland, Sweden, and Italy.

It is an undisputed fact that after an engagement there are many wounded and dying who are overlooked by the nurses and litter carriers. A case in point is quoted. At the battle of Rezonville-Gravc-lotlc in 1870. two injured soldiers lay for three days in a ravine. The ground had been gone over many limes by the ambulance service and yet they had not been found. In instances like this the usefulness of do ,r s as scouts is unquestioned.— Paris Letter.