Sledge Dog Pals

"How dreary the frozen captivity of our life but for the dogs."

 - Frank Hurley, Argonauts of the South

Above all else, the men were diverted by the care and exercise of the sledging dogs. These were not huskies but a mixed collection of big dogs brought out from Canada, where they had shown that they were adapted to the cold. Although the men continued to put the dogs, now divided into six teams, through their paces, they came to think of the dogs as pets more than working animals.

After the Endurance was beset, the dogs were housed on the ice beside the ship in ice kennels, dubbed by the sailors "dogloos." Mrs. Chippy, the carpenter's cat, slept the winter away with the sailors in the fo'c's'le, the ship's forward quarters.