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They have this story posted outside our door at work:
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CANINES, CATS, AND CANADIANS
In Kandahar, local dogs and cats are jumping into Canada's war effort with all four paws
Ethan Baron, Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, November 18, 2008

KANDAHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan - Let slip the pets of war.

Canadian soldiers can't always count on the civilian population for support in this battle-ravaged province, but local dogs and cats are jumping into Canada's war effort with all four paws.

At major military bases and remote combat-zone outposts, animals are helping keep Canadian soldiers healthy, happy - and safe.

Mushe the dog showed up as a puppy at a tiny fortified Canadian training post for Afghan National Police in Panjwaii District, where many of Canada's combat deaths have occurred. She started off as a morale-building pet living within the confines of the outpost, but has become indispensable in the Taliban-ridden fields and villages that surround it

"All of a sudden she got out one day, and there she was on patrol," said Master-Cpl. Gary O'Brien, of New Glasgow, N.S. "She checks all the intersections for us before we get there, and if she barks, something's up.

"She'll go into a compound, she goes all the way around. If she barks, somebody's in the compound. If she doesn't bark, it's clear."

The young white dog helps keep Afghan men of fighting age - always an unknown quantity here - a safe distance from Canadian soldiers.

"She doesn't let any locals too close, unless they're little kids," O'Brien said.

In Kandahar City, at the Canadian provincial reconstruction team base, a clan of cats keeps the mouse population down. It's not that the heavily armed troops are afraid of mice. It's what comes with the rodents: vipers.

In recent weeks, two of the venomous snakes have slithered through the fortifications, posing a deadly threat to the soldiers inside. The snake incursion turned the presence of the cats and kittens on the base from an emotional comfort to a true security blanket.

"We're not supposed to feed them, because they're supposed to eat the mice," said one female soldier, who didn't want to be identified because she doesn't always follow that rule.

"That orange tom, I've been feeding him chicken wings," she confessed.

Deep in the heart of Taliban country, Ghost the dog spends his days sleeping on a warm patch of sand in a dusty Canadian forward-operating base in Panjwaii District, and spends his nights fighting jackals and barking at anyone who approaches the razor wire-topped fortifications.

"He's on the prowl all night," said Petty Officer Shawn Coates, who runs the Joint District Co-ordination Centre, or JDCC, a unit charged with helping Afghan civilians, in the district. "He's our best warning. He's better than any radar you could have when it comes to personnel movements."

And the jackals that used to come sniffing around the base don't get anywhere near the JDCC, thanks to Ghost, Coates said, petting the elderly dog as mushroom clouds from 500-pound bombs detonating three kilometres away marked the site of a battle between Canadian troops and Taliban.

"The grey hairs are coming through, but the old fella can still fight," said Coates.

That base also has a complement of cats, with eight or nine adults, and an uncounted number of kittens.

"Even the small ones are starting to hunt," said Master Warrant Officer Marc Cloutier of 2 Service Battalion in Petawawa, Ont.

Mice caught in traps are tossed to the kittens, to whet their appetites for the hunt.

"They go hog-wild over them," Cloutier said. "They've got the taste."

Having the animals around in the tense atmosphere of a combat zone provides another service to the troops.

"It's good for morale, eh?" Cloutier said. "Especially the kittens. It kind of gives a little touch of home."

Outside the police-training post, Taliban fighters set up a firing position a couple hundred metres away, and sentries frequently catch glimpses of the insurgents among the mud walls and irrigation trenches in the fields surrounding the outpost. But when O'Brien first caught sight of Mushe the dog, he became immediately concerned about a different threat to the soldiers under his command.

"I was worried about disease, if she bit somebody," O'Brien said. "I was going to put a bullet in her."

Fortunately for Mushe and the troops she would come to protect, the other soldiers persuaded him to hold off on the execution, and he saw the light.

"I was wrong," O'Brien said. "They were right."

Mushe, too, provides a morale boost, said Cpl. Nikki Bucci of 2 Military Police unit in Petawawa.

"She's been amazing - keeps you sane, too," said Bucci, who has taught Mushe to shake hands, and is working on teaching her to lie down.

Now, Cpl. Gordon Martin of 2 Military Police unit in Petawawa is looking into bringing Mushe home to his farm when his tour is over.

"If we could get her back to Canada, and have her running around on the farm all the time, I think she'd be happy," Martin said. "I'd hate to leave her and have something happen to her. She's just unreal."

Vancouver Province 2008

And I followed up by searching for this story (photo included):
clicky with photo

Afghan war dog coming to Canada

PASAB, Afghanistan - An Afghan war dog that has protected NATO soldiers fighting here is moving on to a more peaceful life in Canada.

The friendly white dog named Mushe, whose furry mug was splashed across Canadian newspapers in mid-November, will go to live on an Ontario farm next spring when the two military police soldiers who have adopted her finish their tours.

Mushe has become a life-protecting companion for those soldiers, their comrades, and an Afghan police detachment at their small outpost in one of the most violent areas of southern Afghanistan. She goes on patrol, entering compounds before the soldiers and police, barking if anyone is there. She keeps Afghan men of fighting age at bay, letting only small children near the soldiers and police.

After Mushe’s story was published in Canwest newspapers across Canada in a story on pets at Canadian bases, Canada’s military brass decided to grant approval for the dog to be flown to Canada, where she’ll live in Chatham, Ont.

“Family friends have a large farm back home," said Cpl. Gordon Martin of 2 Military Police unit in Petawawa, Ont., who, with Cpl. Nikki Bucci of the same unit, first proposed bringing their wartime companion to Canada. “They have a few hundred acres so they have all the space and the room for her. She can’t be penned up - she’s not a dog used to being in close quarters. Having her run around on the farm - I think she’ll feel right at home.”

In early December, Bucci had travelled from their outpost in war-ravaged Zhari district to the NATO base at Kandahar Airfield, and while there, made initial inquiries about Mushe’s prospects of moving to Ontario.

“A couple of days later we got the phone call from HQ which said it was approved,” Martin said.

The veterinary contingent at the airfield base, who are responsible for dogs used in bomb-sniffing and security operations, have agreed to provide Mushe with the shots she’ll need for clearance to live in Canada, Martin said.

The born-and-raised Afghan dog’s street smarts exceed those of at least one specially trained import. On an operation last week, an American bomb-sniffing German shepherd on its first mission away from the NATO base found a container holding liquid residue from insurgents’ homemade explosive. The animal promptly began lapping it up, a few hours later suffering an uncomfortable bout of diarrhea.

Copyright Canwest News Service

One of the little trouble-makers from the city:



This one prefers fishing out left-overs from the garbage bin to chasing mice but she's still kitten-sized and with the energy of a kitten too. She (he?) had an even smaller friend who looked very similar but was smaller and had less white, and the two of them would tumble around and provide us with endless hours of entertainment.

A shame that they were completely feral and probably full of fleas and other problems but it is better for us that they don't like people. They would play close-by but would flee as soon as we got close.

There's a huge orange tabby near where I work and his care-takers have got him fixed and get his vaccines too, which is great. I suspect that he keeps the place free of mice! Even better for me... he's a complete sucker for a scratch on the head!