A woman takes a picture of a sculpture depicting servant Puck from Shakespeare's comedy “A Midsummer Night's Dream” during a flower festival in Pakruojis, Lithuania on August 14, 2021. (Photo by Ints Kalnins/Reuters)

In this July 23, 2013 photo, sand fills an abandoned house in Kolmanskop, Namibia. Kolmanskop, was a diamond mining town south of Namibia, build in 1908 and deserted in 1956. SInce then, the desert slowly reclaims its territory, with sand invading the buildings where 350 German colonists and more than 800 local workers lived during its hay-days of the 1920s. (Photo by Jerome Delay/AP Photo)

Lali carries balloons to sell on a beach in Mumbai, India, Sunday, October 11, 2015. The United Nations General Assembly marks October 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child, to recognize girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world. (Photo by Rafiq Maqbool/AP 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.

Robin Schwartz loves her daughter Amelia very much and besides she’s fond of animals. She has been an animal photographer since she was ten.

An Army Sikorsky R-5 helicopter, undergoing record trials, demonstrates its lifting power by carrying 17 persons and pilot aloft as female onlookers wave in Bridgeport, Conn., January 10, 1946. During the tests records were claimed for altitude speed and both altitude and speed with payload. (Photo by Anthony Camerano/AP Photo)

A boy listens to a prayer before he and other relatives visit the grave of their loved ones, all minors, who were killed a year ago during the government's war on drugs campaign, at the Tala Cemetery in Caloocan, east of Manila on December 28, 2017, as the world commemorates Holy Innocents' Day. Catholics celebrate the biblical passage when King Herodes the great ordered to kill all newborn babies to kill Jesus Christ. (Photo by Noel Celis/AFP Photo)

A child reacts as a family takes a break next to a cooling mist at the Sensoji temple as Japanese government issued heat stroke alerts in 39 of the country's 47 prefectures in Tokyo, Japan on July 22, 2024. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)