This article tells the story of the dog teams of the British Antarctic Expedition 1910–13. Its purpose is to establish an accurate record of sledge dog involvement in the expedition. It is not concerned with hypotheses about how a better outcome for the expedition might have been achieved, aiming simply to assemble and analyse verifiable evidence in chronological order. A substantial amount of research has been undertaken. Straightforward details about procurement of the dogs and their main Antarctic journeys have been summarised in tabular form as an accessible reference source for future work. A literature review has been undertaken, finding that none of the reviewed works accurately traces the evolving plans and instructions for the expedition’s dog teams. The story starts with Scott’s September 1909 public fundraising prospectus and goes on to the procurement and training of Huskies from Siberia. It traces the challenges, achievements, attitudes and management decisions that shaped the dogs’ main journeys. It finishes with Terra Nova leaving the Antarctic, with the last 13 dogs in January 1913. The dog teams and their handlers performed well in the Antarctic and successfully completed three of their four main journeys. They made a substantial contribution to the expedition.

This article updates Karen May’s earlier 2012 hypothesis (Could Captain Scott have been saved? Revisiting Scott’s last expedition). In this revised hypothesis, Cecil Meares, not Surgeon E. L. Atkinson, originated the unsubstantiated statement that “Strict injunctions had been given by Scott that the dogs should not be risked in any way.” This hypothesis incorporates new information uncovered since 2012, specifically Meares’ misrepresentations during the Terra Nova expedition; Atkinson’s 1911 journal entries; Atkinson’s 1919 allegation that Meares had “disobeyed orders”; and Tryggve Gran’s “The Race for the South Pole between Scott and Amundsen”, a 1945/post-1945 document that appears to have been Roland Huntford’s source for anecdotes in Huntford’s 1979 Scott–Amundsen biography. The article gives a proposed chronology for how Meares’ early misrepresentations and Gran’s later misunderstandings influenced the decisions, and later presentations, of the Terra Nova expedition.