The tied-up ones lay under the
lee of a line of cases, each in his own hole. They curled up quite snugly
buried in the snowdrift when blizzards were blowing, and lay exactly in
the same way when sledging on the Barrier, the first duty of the
dog-driver after pitching his own tent being to dig holes for each of his
dogs. It may be that these conditions are more natural to them than any
other, and that they are warmer when covered by the drifted snow than
they would be in any unwarmed shelter: but this I doubt. At any rate they
throve exceedingly under these rigorous conditions, soon becoming fat and
healthy after the hardest sledge journeys, and their sledging record is a
very fine one. We could not have built them a hut; as it was, we left our
magnetic hut, a far smaller affair, in New Zealand, for there was no room
to stow it on the ship. I would not advise housing dogs in a hut built
with a lean-to roof as an annexe to the main living-hut, but this would
be one way of doing it if you are prepared to stand the noise and smell.
The dog-biscuits, provided by Spratt, weighed 8 oz. each, and their
sledging ration was 11/2 lbs. a day, given to them after they reached the
night camp. We made seal pemmican for them and tried this when sledging,
as an occasional variation on biscuit, but they did not thrive on this
diet.
Pages:
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773