Dogs of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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The dogs were in poor condition after their long voyage, so Wild planned for initial depot-laying sledging expedition to be man-hauled while the dogs built up their strength. Two men, Watson and Kennedy, stayed at the camp to feed and train the dogs and to fetch the remaining stores from the edge of the ice shelf. Wild and the other five men left the base on 13 March and returned on 6 April by which time Watson and Kennedy had trained five of the dogs to pull in harness, although Crippen had died on 28 March after being unwell for a few days.{{sfn|Riffenburgh|2014|p=134}}{{refn|The five dogs were probably Amundsen, Nansen, Sandow, Switzerland and Zip. Crippen had died soon after the sledging party had left and Wild later noted that Sweep and the two bitches, Tich and Tiger, would not pull in harness.|group=n}}

The two bitches, Tich and Tyger were small and did not pull well, so to preserve the party's small stock of dog food they were both shot in April. Sweep was also a poor sledge dog and it was planned that he would be killed too. On 1 May, Watson, Harrisson and [[Charles Hoadley]] took the four trained dogs on a short trip south to try them out. The sledge was lightly loaded and the dogs pulled it easily.{{cn|date=April 2020}}

On 20 May, Sweep and Zip disappeared during a blizzard. Zip was found by [[Charles Dovers]] and Hoadley on the floe the next day but, although his tracks were visible all over the floe, Sweep was never seen again.{{sfn|Moyes diary, 1912}} Zip disappeared again on 18 July, this time with Sandow, the lead dog. After two days, Zip reappeared at the camp, but there was no trace of Sandow. Wild thought it was likely he had been crushed by large block of frozen snow falling from the glacier edge.{{cn}

A further six-man depot-laying trip was planned for 20 August. There were now only three of the original nine dogs left alive: Zip, Switzerland, and the new lead dog, Amundsen. This meant that while one sledge could be pulled by the dogs, the other had to be man-hauled. A final depot-laying journey to the south – led by Jones – was scheduled for four weeks starting on 26 September with the dogs again employed to pull one of the sledges. Switzerland went missing in a blizzard during the trip and was presumed dead, but turned up after three days.{{sfn|Moyes diary, 1912}} When Jones's party did not return within the four weeks, Wild, Watson and Kennedy set out to look for them with additional rations, though Wild thought that they would eat the dogs if food ran low. Jones and his party were seen on the horizon when Wild's party was less than a day out.{{cn|date=April 2020}}

The dates for the main exploratory journeys were set as 28 October for Wild, Watson and Kennedy to travel eastwards, and 2 November for Jones, Dovers and Hoadley to go westwards. Wild's party would take the dogs. Harrisson eventually persuaded Wild to allow him to accompany the eastern party as far as the "Hippo" depot to look after the dogs and carry additional supplies. When the party reached the depot, the sledge that had been laid up was gone; with too much weight to carry on a single sledge even with the assistance of the dogs, Wild had no other choice but to include Harrisson and his sledge on the rest of the journey. The dogs were pulling well but were hungry:

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Mawson announced that any of the members of the expedition who wished to could adopt one of the dogs once their quarantine was completed.{{sfn|The Antarctic Expedition}} When the dogs were released from quarantine on 3 March,{{sfn|Dogs from the Antarctic}} Mawson took D'Urville and Madigan took two as presents: Hoyle for his wife and Amundsen for his sister.{{sfn|Riffenburgh|2014|p=136}}{{refn|Riffenburgh gives dates for the deaths of the two dogs taken by Madigan: Hoyle: 1916 and Amundsen: 1920.{{sfn|Riffenburgh|2014|p=136}}|group=n}} It seems that all but six of the remaining dogs were adopted by members of the expedition. On 7 March, four were donated to the Government Tourist Bureau; they were taken to Sydney and then on to Mount Kosciuszko where they joined Zip and dogs from the expeditions of Amundsen and Scott.{{sfn|Dr. Mawson's Dogs: Home on Mount Koscuisko}}{{sfn|For the Winter Holidays}} On the same day, Mawson presented two of the dogs to Adelaide Zoo; these may have been Fix and Peary.{{sfn|Tahan|2019|p=602}} The two dogs were still at the zoo in July 1914.{{sfn|For the Children}}

Colonel was among the four dogs destined for Mount Kosciuszko – his size and strength drew admiring comments from a visitor to the park in December 1914.{{sfn|Arctic Dogs at Koscuisko}} At the end of July 1916 a newspaper article mentioned that there was a dog team of sixteen pulling a sledge in the park and that eight of those dogs had seen "service in the Antarctic with Sir Douglas Mawson".{{sfn|Mount Koscuisko: Popular Winter Resort}}{{refn|

There was no mention of Mac, the spaniel of the Macquarie Island party, in any of the newspaper stories about the arrival of the expedition or about the dogs in quarantine. It is possible she was left behind with the sealers on Macquarie Island or was adopted by the three-man meteorological relief party that arrived as Ainsworth and the others were leaving.|group=n{{cn}}

On 2 August 2017, the [[Australian Antarctic Division]] Place Names Committee announced that it would be memorialising the dogs of Mawson's expedition by naming 26 locations in the Australian Antarctic and sub-Antarctic territories after them.{{sfn|Mawson’s huskies make it onto the map}} The dogs honoured included most members of the original groups at the main and western bases, as well as Lassesen from the Amundsen group, "The Devil" who was left behind on Macquarie Island, and Jefferies who died on board ''Aurora'' during the search for a suitable base site.{{sfn|AADC-Gazetter: Jeffries Rock}}