"WAR-DOGS"

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2664, 8 January 1916, Page 11

"WAR-DOGS"

< ' i LIFE-SAVERS OF THE BATTLEFIELD (By J.M., jn the "Daily Mail.")' I met him in a little Italian lestaur- " ant on tho Rive Gauche; he made mo feel at home at once, and showed by every mute evidence in his power that ho was glad I had chosen his restaurant for dinner. . Soon, after seeing me to my table, he went off and brought back the man he owned—to help mo feel more the hospitality of the house; as I looked into the depths of his great brown eyps that met mine so fearlessly, and Btroked the sleek brown head. I wondered what made him so kind to mo— a:i utter stranger. _ '.'Of what race is he?" I asked the' - cheery, fat Italian who was waiting, pad in hand, to take my order. - "Of what breed, monsieur? I can't Jell you! They don't'have breeds much 3i- France; they Just have dogs, and the life-long amusement: of their own- ■ srs is to guess 'what/race they are. "But tlioy havo histories, monsieur, tome of them, like this boy. He is a refugee, a real refugee from Reims; lie followed'some soldiers back from the trenchcs to their 'cantonnement,' Mid he must have drifted a good deal ■ before he landed at the railroad station, where the good' vicar, who looks for stray dogs, found him. Ho gave him to me." "The good vicarl What vicar?" I asked, completely forgetting dinner. ' " Way, Monsieur Evans, at Versailles, pour sure," the what-you-call chaplain of the English Church. He wrote a book about' The Soul of the Dog.' He loves dogs, and he had the idea, to' gather in all these poor four-footed refugees. He is a good man, and monsieur, being , English also, should know him and hear about the dogs."

This logic seemed absolute, so I Jotted down the address.'at Versailles and ordered dinner. The "boy" had curled up on my overcoat in the window-sill and fixed me with one unblinking dye as I commenced my soup. The Dogs' Chaplain. As a result of' this chanbe meeting with a; dog, whose personality I shall liot soon forget, I trudged one-glorious,, sun-mottled day up the path of the vicar's house. " i chorus of barking lvad warned me that I had found tbe right place before { was told that Monsieur Evans would receive me. The ohapiaiu is a .type of that fine class of English clergymen whb preach tho truth iu the straightforward, homely way that, reaches the heart. His 'breadth pf vision brings with . it the cool, clean air of God's out-of-doors, and I was not surprised when be told me. that lie had been. Army chaplain during the Boer War. He must have been a great favourite among the soldiers with his warm hand-grasp and his sympathetic,; ruddy.. faue. -He was telling me of his church in Brussels, where ho was five years ago, when Fifi, a relic from the flood times, in Paris, burst upon the Rno'ne' and "switched our conversation into dogdom. . Dogs have always appealed to the vicar, with that pathos that the true Christian feels foi our dumb children. Mr. Evans conceived -the .idea -of gathering in all the strays that ho could find along the roads as far as he was allowed to go,' in the ruined villages, in railroad stations, and' after caring for them found them homes among the kind-hearted when he could, end in the caso of the larger dogs sending them to be trained'as "chiens eanitaires" (Red Cross dogs), to be of use in: their country's, service. His work has grown until now many of his "children are serving at the front, and many are proving the joy of. their, adopted parents. • A short' time ago ;Mr. Evans' wtoto of the work of the Red Cross dogs ah follows: "My opinion of the magnificent work done by the 'chien sanitaire' cannot be too highly expressed ; many s» wounded soldier who has'fallen among dense underwDod, in a hidden ditch, or in some out-of-the-way spot owes his life to those four-footed friends, of the human race.

.430 Red cross Dogs at tho Front. "When tho engagement is over they scour the field, bringing back in their mouths a hat, a musket, or-any article of the wounded man's accoutrement they can find or detach from him. Some times, however, it happens-that the man has fallen on his rifle, and has lost his cap during the engagement, -and'there is nothing the dog can bring back as evidence of his 'find.' In' such cases he silently (for he has been taught not to bark) tells the 'ambulancier' to follow him. When- a dog returns 'information' he is put on leash and told to search,. 'cherchez' being the word of command always used; he then starts off at top speed, dragging the 'ambulancier' after him to. the spot where the

wounded man lies. At present there are 400 'ohiens sanitaires' at the front. "At Resonville, to every one man killed and ten wounded, five were reported missing; and at St. Privat the figures were four missing to every ono killed and six wojmdod. No doubt some of the 'disparus' (missing) fell into the hands of the enemy; but dead are frequently found in secluded spots, the bodies bearing wounds quite insufficient, if attended to in time, to cause death. Suoh cases, however, become impossible when the 'chien sanitaire' is used to search the field. "The training of the Red Cross dog requires great kindness and much patience, for it must be borne in mind that what he is trained to do is in no way a theatrical performance^—with a bow to the footlights at the end of his 'turn.' The whip and sugar play 110 part in Ir's sohooling. "It only takes about two months to train a dog to go to the front; the instinct, although it is moro than fhat, which leads a dog to dash into the water to save a drowning man is what has to be fostered and nourished. 'j •The Good Old Mongrel. "He must bo taught as a duty to 1 seek out men who arc in trouble. It is not merely an affair of carrying a cap 1 or gun, for a well-trained dog will lead you to a fallen man whether he be in uniform or not: and he'will enter into the work of collecting the wounded as thoroughly as the 'ambulanciers' themselves. ... "At the .present time, "when many of the dogs in the training kennels aro strays_ taken from the street, tho work of training them is much more difSoulfc. It takes some time before their military training can be put in hand, because there is an abject fear of men common to many of them, and this has to be overcome by kindness. _ The dog must feel that man is his friend or months of wear}' training will be wasted in a useless endeavour to induce him to succour him. "The kennels of which'l write are just outside Versailles,,on the road-to St. Cyre-— the old 'faisanderie' (pheasantry) where Louis XIV reared his pheasants. It is an ideal' spot for the purpose, standing upon open ground in which trenches have been dng, adjoining a dense copse and a stretch of forest land, affording many lonely and out-of-the-way spots for the 'model' eoldier to lie down and hide himself." ■ ' So wrote the vicar of Versailles about this-interesting work , which he has so near at heart. I asked him if he had to ohoose four breeds of dogs for this work what they would be, and after a .moment's thought he answered: : "The Belgian dogs are good, the Baa Rouge and the Groenendael. The Aire, dale also is good, and the bloodhound, but, do you. know? the good old mongrel is a fine chap for the work; he's intelligent and goes about his business with no other thought in his mind than his duty—like the soldier he is ;he has none of tho vagaries of thp hunting dog, who will forget his mission to go •- off and hunt rabbits.". I wonder if all the strays of London could not be gathered in and put into the general scheme of usefulness in these days of extreme need.