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.

Secret arrive during the 1st Gaon Chart K-POP Awards at Blue Square on February 22, 2012 in Seoul, South Korea. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

In this March, 2015 photo, a person sits at an upright piano that had been hauled up to Topanga Lookout in the Santa Monica Mountains in Calabasas, Calif. For a couple of days last week, a Southern California hilltop was alive with the sound of mystery. Hikers venturing to Topanga Lookout found a battered upright piano sitting on a graffiti-scrawled concrete slab with a panoramic view over the mountains between Calabasas and the Pacific Ocean. Turns out, the piano was used for a music video by Seattle-based artist Rachel Wong. The cinematographer, Michael Flotron, says he and four others used a dolly and rope to haul the 350-pound instrument a mile up the trail on Tuesday. After the shoot, it was too dark to get the piano back down. Flotron says people seem happy to leave it there. But if necessary, he'll haul the piano back down. (Photo by Michael Flotron/AP Photo)

A migrant tries to restrain her tent from strong winds in a makeshift camp for refugees and migrants at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni, Greece, March 24, 2016. (Photo by Alexandros Avramidis/Reuters)

A man transports passengers on an improvised motorized rickshaw during heavy rains in Agartala, India, April 20, 2018. (Photo by Jayanta Dey/Reuters)

Iraqi children play with a ball on a street blocked with burning tyres, amid a general strike in the southern city of Basra, on November 25, 2019. The demonstrations rocking the capital and Shiite-majority south since October 1 are the biggest grassroots movement the country has seen in decades. Sparked by outrage over rampant government corruption, poor services and lack of jobs, they have since gone straight to the source: calling out the ruling system as inherently flawed and in need of a total overhaul. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)

Models pose in designs from May Quant's collection on a street in London, England, on October 16, 1969. Grania, left, wears the "Shimmy Shimmy," a white rayon dress over matching pants with a shawl. Baba, center, wears "Razzamatazz," a jumpsuit featuring plastic sequins in blue, silver and red on nylon. Linda wears "Muffit," a pink minidress with an old English style floppy mobcap. (Photo by AP Photo)

An areal view of the lake in the form of a heart in Rodgau, near Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, May 24, 2024. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)