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.

“It doesn’t look like a relaxing swim in the warm waters of the Bahamas. But for Vincent Canabal it is all in a days work when it comes to feeding his favourite a 16-foot long Tiger shark Emma. The 34-year-old qualified doctor has been diving with sharks since he was just. His passion has taken him around the world”. Barcroft Media via The Daily Mirror. Photo: Sharks fed by Vincent Canabal near Tiger Beach. (Photo by Vincent Canabal/Barcroft Media)

A competitor reacts as she emerges from the water during the Tough Guy event in Perton, central England, January 26, 2014. The annual Tough Guy race – “the toughest race in the world” – at Perton in Staffordshire. Tough Guy claims to be the world’s most demanding one-day survival ordeal. First staged in 1987, the Tough Guy Challenge has been widely described as one of the hardest races of it’s type with up to one-third of the starters failing to finish in a typical year. (Photo by Darren Staples/Reuters)

In the remote Argentine Pampas you can find an incredible forest formed in the shape of a guitar. More than 35 years ago, Pedro Ureta unexpectedly lost his wife to a brain aneurysm. Devastated by the loss of his love, he decided to create a shrine to her memory in their field that could only be seen above-head from an airplane. Ureta chose a guitar because it was his late wife’s most loved instrument.

What makes a watch the most valuable in the world? It’s supercomplicated – literally. In 1925 banker Henry Graves Jr. (considered the greatest watch collector of the 20th century) commissioned Patek Philippe to create a unique gold pocket watch. When Graves finally received it – eight years later – it was the most complex timepiece ever created by human hands... (Photo by Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters)

Dancers attend a dress rehearsal for the new grand show “THE WYLD” at Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin October 2, 2014. Ten choreographers are working with 60 dancers from the world's largest show ballet company to create the flamboyant stage spectacle. The show's name, “THE WYLD”, represents human nature in its diversity and the wilderness of the big city – in this case, Berlin. The premiere of the 10.6 million euro ($13.5 million) show, the largest production budget in the 95-year history of Friedrichstadt-Palast, is on October 23, 2014. (Photo by Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters)

The Atlantic Puffin is definitely a curious-looking bird. The special coloring that this bird develops for the breeding season in the spring is very reminiscent of tropical birds. The bright colors of the beak and the markings around the eyes serve no particular advantage and have evolved as a result of sexual selection. However, Puffins don’t look that pretty all year round. They shed all these festive colors in partial moult after the breeding season is over. They lose the ornaments around their eyes, their face becomes darker, and their beak becomes very different. The natural habitat of these birds is the cold waters of the North Atlantic Ocean.

At the end of a six-year relationship, photographer Laura Stevens needed to find a creative, external outlet for all the complicated feelings she was processing internally. “Another November” is the end product, a photo series that aims to mirror those agonizing emotions that Stevens felt at the time of the breakup – and the subsequent healing process. Here: “Jessica” is photographed at her Paris home in this scene staged by photographer Laura Stevens. (Photo by Laura Stevens)