The Dog Line in Eaglehawk Neck, Australia

In nineteenth-century Australia, authorities at Port Arthur convict settlement devised an unusual escape deterrent: a line of chained dogs. According to Atlas Obscura, the dog line ran across a narrow hundred-meter strip called Eaglehawk Neck and eventually numbered eighteen mixed-breed animals—some bloodhounds—positioned so they could almost touch snouts but never attack each other. Oil lamps and scattered cockle shells added psychological pressure: the shells crunched underfoot and reflected the lamps' light. A soldier who attempted to cross reportedly suffered severe bites. During the forty-five years the system was in place, from eighteen thirty-two to eighteen seventy-seven, very few convicts ever managed to escape across the neck, making it one of history's most effective security measures.

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