Dog watch

Dog guard and dog guard is the term for a specific station ( work shift ) on board ship: A ship's crew is usually divided into two or three working groups ( " guards " ) who work on the ship in shifts, with the individual shift times (usually 6 or 7 per day ), also called " guards ".

Which one is the dog-watch, plus there are different views:

• According to various sources, it is " the guard from midnight to four clock in the morning " ( then synonymous middle watch ), for both the time the evening before and the morning after too short for a regular night 's sleep. It is particularly unpopular and is therefore called in the German Navy "dog guard ".
• Sometimes even two-hour guards from 16:00 clock to 20:00 clock be so designated; this " unbalanced " handling should avoid that always invariably get on ships with two or three layers of wax in the 4-hour Cycle every waking the same service times. ( "The next two watches are divided into, dog watches ' ​​- the first dog watch is from 16:00 until 18:00 and the last dog in watch is from 18:00 until 20:00. " )
• Several older sources call this the "third watch of the night ".
• After Palmatier it was formerly the name given to the third work shift in factories 23.00 bis 07.00 clock have been if at this time otherwise only watchdogs "awake" are.

Derivations

• In the German language, the derivation results from the fact that is considered in this case the dog as a life companion inferior rank, which one could confidently an inconvenience, in this case the most unpopular guard expect.
• One explanation states, both in English and in German, that the name refers to the " dog star" Sirius, who appeared at the time of the first half of the dogs guard the sky. This is offset by that time the Sirius Aufgangs varies within the year, whereby the Sirius is not always seen to " guard dogs ". In summer and autumn - so times, was that formerly went to sea rather than in the stormy winter - the Sirius shows, however, very much in advanced night, but not in the spring, when it is already set at the time.
• One explanation for the English-speaking states that the shortened guards were originally designated 16-20 clock dodge as watch, with dodge in terms of " bypass " or " trick " described the purpose of the guard with the displacement of the group sequences. Later this name was shortened to watch dog.
• It is also the designation of dog watch is most likely already in English, a corruption of docked watch, where to dock was used in the sense of cropping or " shortening ".