Male and female bodybuilders prepare backstage to compete during the Asia Pacific Bodybuilding Championships 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand, 17 August 2019. Hundreds of bodybuilders from Asia Pacific countries are set to flex their muscles to compete in the contest. (Photo by Rungroj Yongrit/EPA/EFE)

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 hot air balloon “Hopper T Frog” from Park City, Utah, peeks over the red rock cliffs during the 23nd Annual Red Rock Balloon Rally at Red Rock State Park December 6, 2003 near Gallup, New Mexico. (Photo By Douglas Tesner/Getty Images)

A young farmer harvests water lilies from a canal in Barisal, Bangladesh on October 12, 2019, where the flowers cover the 10,000-acre waterway, to take to nearby markets. (Photo by Azim Khan Ronnie/Caters News Agency)

Afghan women and a boy make their way in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, November 15, 2015. (Photo by Rahmat Gul/AP Photo)

White House Press Secretary James Brady and District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahanty lie wounded on the ground after John Hinckley Jr. fired six shots at President Reagan outside the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC, on March 30, 1981. (Photo by Courtesy Reagan Library via Reuters)

Young Ian Archibald ponders the consequences of a complex critical study of beauty contestants during the Miss TV Times finals in London. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images). 30 July 1971

Two boys in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, UK on January 31, 1948. The Gorbals tenements were built quickly and cheaply in the 1840s, providing housing for Glasgow's burgeoning population of industrial workers. Conditions were appalling; overcrowding was standard and sewage and water facilities inadequate. The tenements housed about 40,000 people with up to eight family members sharing a single room, 30 residents sharing a toilet and 40 sharing a tap. By the time this photograph was taken 850 tenements had been demolished since 1920. Redevelopment of the area began in the late 1950s and the tenements were replaced with a modern tower block complex in the sixties. (Photo by Bert Hardy/Getty Images)