An elephant enjoys its back being scrubbed by the keeper on March 1, 1950. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

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.

“The 2008 Sichuan earthquake or the Great Sichuan Earthquake was a deadly earthquake that measured at 8.0 Ms and 7.9 Mw occurred at 14:28:01 CST (06:28 UTC) on Monday, May 12, 2008 in Sichuan province of China, killing an estimated 68,000 people”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A woman cries as she cannot find her 4-year-old daughter and husband on the top of the ruins of a destroyed school in earthquake-hit Beichuan county, Sichuan province, May 17, 2008. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)

Old Heidelberg, Dog with Pipe, 1905. (Photo by Detroit Publishing Company)

Desmond Boylan, a photographer who covered war and conflict across the world before dedicating his life to documenting the daily joys and tribulations of life in Cuba for Reuters and The Associated Press, died suddenly while on assignment on Saturday, December 29, 2018 afternoon in Havana. Here: Cuban President takes a glass during a ceremony in the Oporto Bourse where he and other Ibero-American leaders were made members of the Port Wine Brotherhood in Portugal, October 1998. (Photo by Desmond Boylan/Reuters)

Iraqi security forces ride in vehicles travelling to Mosul to fight against militants of Islamic State at an Iraqi army base in Camp Taji in Baghdad, February 21, 2016. (Photo by Ahmed Saad/Reuters)

Frida, a rescue dog belonging to the Mexican Navy, with her handler Israel Arauz Salinas, takes a break while participating in the effort to look for people trapped at the Rebsamen school in Mexico City, on September 22, 2017, three days after the devastating earthquake that hit central Mexico. (Photo by Omar Torres/AFP Photo)

An Iraqi camel herder poses in the desert of Samawa in Iraq's southern province of al-Muthanna on January 27, 2024. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)