Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 231, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1917 — DOGS ARE SUCCESS IN WAR [ARTICLE]

DOGS ARE SUCCESS IN WAR

Latest Use Is as Guides for Soldiers Who Have Lost Their Eyesight Washington.—The war Is about to provide another duty for dogs. These canine friends of man are already performing with ultra-satisfaction n great variety of tasks on the battlefields and in the trenches and training centers. It remained for an attendant at one of the training schools for the blind soldiers of France to discover that dogs might be used for guiding soldiers who have lost their eyesight. After a series of training experiments with dogs picked up on the streets of Paris, the results have been found to be truly astonishing. The natural habits of the dog have been successfully subordinated to its purposes In guiding the men. One of the dogs, selected at random, guided a blindfolded officer for a distance of two miles without accident. Coming to a fence under which the dog might easily pass, he would, instead, go around the obstruction. Boulders and holes plated in the path were negotiated by the dog turning abruptly with a tug on his leash as a sort of signal. The obstruction passed, he would again return to the path.