In advance of Fleet Week performances, the U.S. Navy Blue Angels and Team Oracle aerobatics pilot Sean D. Tucker fly over the San Francisco Bay during a photo flight on Thursday, October 5, 2017. (Photo by Noah Berger/AP Photo)

Firefighters and emergency personnel climb the stairs during the Melbourne Firefighter Stair Climb at the Crown Metropol Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia, 10 September 2022. The Melbourne Firefighter Stair Climb features firefighters and emergency personnel climbing 28 flights of stairs wearing 25kgs of turnout gear to raise money for mental health. (Photo by Con Chronis/EPA/EFE)

Flamingos preparing to take flight are reflected on Lake Tuz, which hosts thousands of flamingos every year, in Ankara, Turkiye, on June 24, 2025. This year, the lake has seen a decline in flamingo numbers due to drought, prompting the birds to shift their migration route to other wetlands across Turkiye. (Photo by Harun Ozalp/Anadolu via Getty Images)

This view shows giant hot air balloons of various shapes being lifted to begin flights from the Metropolitan Park over the city of Leon during the 2025 International Balloon Festival (FIG) in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico on November 15, 2025. (Photo by Mario Armas/AFP Photo)

This photo taken on May 17, 2019 shows rough rubies displayed at the gems market in Mogok town, north of Mandalay. Burrowing deep underground, thousands of informal miners risk their lives to find gleaming red gems as a law change spurs opportunity in Myanmar's “land of rubies”. (Photo by Ye Aung Thu/AFP Photo)

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.

A man speaks on his mobile phone on May 31, 2011 in New York City. In a new report by 31 scientists meeting at the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (WHO/IARC) it was found that using a mobile phone may increase your risk for certain kinds of brain cancers. While further scientific work will be conducted, the group of scientists from 14 countries classified cell phones in the carcinogenic category 2B, which is similar to the pesticide DDT and gasoline engine exhaust. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

In this September 11, 2014 photo, villagers climb down the side of a hill used earlier as a dumping ground of asbestos waste on Roro hills in Roro, India. An asbestos mine, abandoned nearly three decades ago still affects the people around it and 18 along with Jema were diagnosed with asbestosis in 2012. Tens of thousands more, some former mine workers, remain untested and at risk. (Photo by Saurabh Das/AP Photo)