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Hunting Dog
Hunting may be the job that comes most naturally to dogs, as all dogs descend
from that great hunter of the animal world, the wolf. Since our first
association with dogs in the Stone Age, humans have trained dogs big and small
to hunt nearly every animal on Earth. These range from Rhodesian ridgebacks
bred to challenge lions in Africa, to dachshunds engineered to go after badgers
in their narrow dens. Today, hunting with dogs is mostly a sport. Here, a
spaniel stands beside recently retrieved pheasants in England.
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Land Mine Dog
A member of Thailand's Humanitarian Mine Action Unit uses a mine-detecting
dog to search for land mines in a village east of Bangkok. Mine-detecting dogs
are trained—against their instincts—to walk in straight lines while
searching. They can usually smell things situated four inches underground, but
they can be taught to smell objects at even greater depths. With their
ultra-sensitive noses, dogs have proven among the most effective tools for mine
detection and have helped to prevent thousands of injuries and deaths in
war-torn countries around the world.
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Rescue Dog
A mountain patrol officer and a German shepherd practice rescue techniques
in the French Alps. Officers here often conduct search-and-rescue operations
in avalanche situations. Search-and-rescue
dogs are trained to search out the odor given off by humans trapped
beneath collapsed structures or natural debris. They alert their handlers by
barking at the site where a victim lies, and, depending on how the
dogs react to what they've found, handlers know from a distance whether the
victim is alive or dead, even whether he or she is uninjured or severely
injured.
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Sled Dog
Huskies tearing through the streets of Anchorage mark the annual start of
the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, a 1,049-mile trek across the Alaskan
wilderness that combines human and canine athletic abilities. Although some
native Alaskans in remote areas still drive sled-dog teams for transportation,
most sled dogs are now used purely for sport. Mushers largely choose huskies to
pull their sleds as they are the best pullers, having been bred to do so for
thousands of years in the arctic.
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Truffle Dog
Trained hounds like this one in the Tuscany region of Italy have excellent
noses for truffles. Today, hunters seeking the gourmet fungi usually use dogs
to help locate their quarry, despite a long tradition of truffle pigs. Since
truffles can bring over $600 per pound, dogs are a better bet than
truffle-sniffing pigs, which tend to eat what they find.
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Acting Dog
As with human actors, fame among the canine variety can beget book deals. Here,
Moose, the Jack Russell terrier who plays Eddie on the hit T.V. series
"Frasier," promotes his book, My Life as a Dog. Trainers, hoping to
groom the next Lassie or Rin Tin Tin, pluck at least half of all the dogs in
the entertainment business (although not Moose) from animal shelters.
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Assistance Dog
Dogs who serve people in their everyday lives are called assistance dogs.
Over just the past 75 years, people have trained dogs to perform numerous tasks
to help people who are blind, deaf, or mobility-impaired. Guide dogs for the
blind and service dogs for the mobility-impaired are usually golden retrievers,
Labs, or German shepherds because of their strength, size, and receptiveness to
training. Hearing dogs serving the deaf can be any kind of dog when given
special training, even a tiny Yorkshire terrier.
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Herding Dog
Herding is a centuries-old canine occupation that has a long tradition in Great
Britain, home to this collie and its herd of sheep. As with all working dogs,
yet even more so with herders, these dogs must not only be good at their task,
but they must easily develop a close collaborative friendship with their human
bosses. They must also be undaunted by much larger animals that might kick or
trample them if they're not vigilant. Bred for stamina, herding dogs work with
their masters all day in the fields and take verbal orders from a distance.
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Drug Dog
No dog is genetically programmed to recognize the scent of narcotics, but any
dog trained for detection work can learn to sniff for drugs. Dogs have at least
200,000 more olfactory receptors than humans do, so even substances we consider
odorless can waft a powerful whiff toward a dog's nostrils. In the U.S., the
Transportation Security Agency, the Federal Aviation Administration, the F.B.I,
and Customs officials all depend on dogs to locate an ever-increasing selection
of illegal narcotics quickly and without bias.
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Termite Dog
Scent dogs trained from puppyhood can detect termites with their
sensitive noses, as the insects give off telltale methane gas produced by
microorganisms in their digestive tracts. This beagle is seeking pests in a
house's insulated crawl space. Exterminators often credit their termite-hunting
beagles and Labrador retrievers with locating infestations in areas of a house
or building where there are no apparent signs of termites, a testament to the
dogs' unique skill.
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