Giraffes at sunrise at the Loisaba Conservancy in Laikipia, Kenya in the first decade of December 2025. (Photo by Andrew Mason/Solent News & Photo Agency)

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.

Kieron Connolly’s new book of photographs of more than 100 once-busy and often elegant buildings gives an idea of how the world might look if humankind disappeared. Here: Bodie, Mono County, California. Gold was discovered at Bodie in 1859 (just after the initial California gold rush) and it went from mining camp to boomtown. Its decline began in 1880, when word spread of new boomtowns elsewhere. The Standard Consolidated Mine closed in 1913, and four years later the Bodie Railway was abandoned. By 1940 the population was down to 40. Today, Bodie is maintained in a state of arrested decay as a visitor attraction. (Photo by Alamy Stock Photo)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un smiles as he attends a flight training session by female fighter pilots Jo Kum Hyang and Rim Sol in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on June 22, 2015. (Photo by Reuters/KCNA/Antara Foto)

This photo take on December 16, 2016 shows macaques monkeys playing on a motorbike in the grounds of a temple in Jaipur in the Indian state of Rajasthan. (Photo by Dominique Faget/AFP Photo)

A boy rides on a snow wagon towed by a robot dressed as a Teddy bear, which only moves forward by moving its legs, during the Ice and snow carnival at Taoranting park in Beijing February 9, 2015. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

Emily Ratajkowski, left, a cast member in “We Are Your Friends”, walks the red carpet at the premiere of the film at the TCL Chinese Theatre on Thursday, August 20, 2015, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Photo)

Angele Blank, right, and Virginia Promeyrat wait for the start of the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, Saturday October 31, 2015, in New York. (Photo by Tina Fineberg/AP Photo)