ANIMALS: Smoke Eater

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In his five years of service as a fire dog, a black & white Dalmatian named Whiskers lent Hook & Ladder Company No. 10f Newark a flash and luster which made it the envy of the whole department. Whiskers slept in the big truck and never missed an alarm—even though he often had to gallop back from nearby meat shops when the gong began to clang. When he got to the fire, Whiskers would climb ladders and dash eagerly into burning buildings.

Two-and three-story climbs were nothing to him. Once he made it all the way to the top of a 100-ft. extension ladder. Whiskers fell into a drum of ink at a printing-plant fire and came up black. Once, he left a blazing paint factory glittering with gilt. He was unruffled.

This year Whiskers grew sick and feeble. Last week a veterinarian discovered that he had a brain tumor and put him out of his misery with a lethal injection of a barbiturate. In their sorrow, the men of Hook & Ladder Company No. 1 experienced something almost like relief. Whiskers had never learned to get back down ladders. He had answered 3,000 alarms, had climbed on an average of twice at each fire, had been cornered in the smoke, rescued against his will, and had been lugged back down to the street—all 60 wriggling pounds of him—on each & every occasion.