Text Two. Vocabulary: to train safely traffic a task suitable for to trace criminal an earthquake drugs to smuggle

«Man’s Best Friend»

Vocabulary: to train safely traffic a task suitable for to trace criminal an earthquake drugs to smuggle

Dogs are nice to play with and they are good company. You can also train them to be hunting-dogs, sheep dogs and many other things.

Most of us have seen guide dogs with blind people, who can move safely in the streets with their help. The dogs have learnt to stop for traffic, they know when it’s safe for their master to cross the street and they «tell» him about things in his way.

It takes a long time to train a dog for these tasks, and all dogs are not suitable for training. The dog must be intelligent, have a nice temperament and be willing to co-operate.

When the dog is one year old, the real training for its special task begins. Some dogs become police dogs. They learn to trace people who are lost, to stop criminals from running away from the police and to find people who are buried under the ruins of a house after an earthquake, for example. The dogs’ very fine sense of smell helps them to do this.

Other dogs learn to trace drugs. Nowadays these dogs are becoming more and more important, when the smuggling of drugs is increasing. Some people believe that the dogs learn to trace drugs because they are drug addicts themselves. This idea is quite wrong. The dogs could not do their important job for years if they were dependent on drugs.

The trainer hides the drugs in more and more difficult places, but the dogs find them every time. They can even «smell» drugs which people have hidden in metal containers.

These useful dogs are worth their weight in gold to the people who have trained them. But above all, dogs are good company for many people who like to have them to talk to.