Throughout the course of the long war in Afghanistan, Coalition troops have relied on thousands of military working dogs to help keep them safe, and make their jobs easier. The dogs are trained to detect explosives, to find illegal drugs, to search for missing comrades, or target enemy combatants. Not only are they active on the front lines, but behind the lines they serve as therapy dogs, service dogs, and loyal companions. They also share the same risks as the ground troops, suffering injuries and sometimes death on the battlefields. Gathered here are images of these dogs and their handlers in Afghanistan and back home, from over the past several years, part of the ongoing series here on Afghanistan.

Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pug, Rachel Weisz and David Harbour star in the action spy thriller “Black Widow”. Pictured: English actress Florence Pugh as Yelena. (Photo by Splash News and Pictures)

American television personality Dolores Catania in the first decade of February 2024 gets the “hot gossip” in a staged photo. (Photo by dolorescatania/Instagram)

Revelers run through the festival grounds to see the next show at the Governors Ball music festival at Corona Park in the Queens borough of New York City, U.S., June 9, 2024. (Photo by Cheney Orr/Reuters)

Tarah Kayne and Daniel O'Shea of the U.S. perform during the Pairs short program at the Skate America figure skating competition in Milwaukee, Wisconsin October 23, 2015. Fifty-six Olympic and world championship athletes are competing in the event, which is the first of six stops on the International Skating Union (ISU) Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series. (Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

People look at a man, who residents said was killed by al Qaeda militants, hanging on a bridge in Yemen's southeastern city of Mukalla June 17, 2015. Al Qaeda militants in Yemen killed two alleged Saudi spies, residents said, accusing them of planting tracking devices which enabled the assassination of the group's leader in a suspected U.S. drone strike. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

A four-day old African spurred tortoise, Geochelone sulcata, one of eight babies, was place on the head of its mother in their enclosure in Nyiregyhaza Animal Park in Nyiregyhaza, 226 km east of Budapest, Hungary, 27 September 2011. This was the first time that offspring of an African spurred tortoise were born in this zoo. The eight babies hatched after 115 days, they are 5.5 cms long and weigh 25 grams. Spurred tortoise is the largest species of land tortoises in Africa, the weight of an adult animal may reach 80 kgs. (Photo by Attila Balazs/EPA)

Boats moored in the middle of Dal lake are silhouetted against the setting sun on January 15, 2018 in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian administered Kashmir, India. Kashmir, the Muslim majority state, known as the “Paradise on Earth” has for centuries captured the imagination of many writers, poets and film makers and is integral to the tourist trade. Kashmir has been a contested land between nuclear neighbors India and Pakistan since 1947, the year both the countries attained freedom from the British rule. (Photo by Yawar Nazir/Getty Images)