Wardogs

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

This is a crucial part of being a top handler. An average handler doesn't put in the extra 5 per cent to forge man and dog into an unbreakable team. Out here in Afghanistan, if Hunter doesn't get regularly groomed his hair will get matted. He'll keep l*****g himself to try to free it, which will give him hairballs. Dogs tend to pick up burrs in the bush, which can work their way into the skin and cause infections, and I need to remove them before they can do him any harm.

Grooming is part of keeping your dog at peak performance. As opposed to all the fun stuff we do with our dogs, grooming is the more mundane side, but it's one that keeps your animal in top form. Grooming Hunter is the equivalent of one of the Bravo lads maintaining his assault rifle. He's taught to care for his weapon, and to check for any damage and to remove any dirt. Likewise, Hunter's weapons are his senses: his nose, ears and eyes plus, on occasion - as with the Lieutenant who locked him into that Viking his teeth. A dog like Hunter is perhaps the most - highly trained animal on the planet, and he's cost tens of thou sands of pounds to bring to the stage he's at now.

As I run the brush repeatedly across Hunter's glossy flank, I think back over the last time that my dog chewed someone out. It was Belfast, 2007, and Hunter and I were out on those mean, rain lashed streets preparing to do yet another gruelling search. We had a Royal Engineers Search Advisor (RESA) with us, and he was guiding us as to where exactly he needed us to look.

We were just about to start the search when I realised I had forgotten a crucial piece of kit. I tied Hunter to a convenient lamp post and prepared to make the short jog back to our truck to fetch it. It was then that the RESA bloke asked me if he could stroke my dog.

'Please don't, sir, I told him. 'He'll bite you.'

'Would he really?' he queried. He sounded like he didn't believe me.

'Oh yes, he would. So please, sir, don't go near him. I jogged back to the wagon and I was just reaching inside when I heard this almighty scream. I knew instantly what had happened. I ran back to where I'd left Hunter, and there was a shocked RESA officer clutching his hand. He had blood dripping between his fingers, and I fancied I could see Hunter l*****g his lips.

'Your dog bit me!' he exclaimed.

'I can see that, I said. "What happened?' 'Well, I kind of went to stroke him..?

'And?'

'Well, he growled.

'And?'

'I went forwards to stroke him.'

'And?'

'He showed me his teeth.

'So what did you do?'

'Well, I tried to stroke him. I mean, I thought he was joking! 'Well, I guess he showed you he wasn't. That's Hunter. He'll only tell you twice. Two strikes and you're out.

I took him over to the truck and bandaged up his hand. I was completely with my dog on this one. I'd warned that RESA guy. Hunter had warned him repeatedly. He only had himself to blame. Whether in Northern Ireland or here in Afghanistan, Hunter's a one-man dog. No one comes between us.

After those two patrols in the burning Afghan heat and dust, Major Cheeseman decides the Bravo Company lads need a couple of days' down time. The men need some space in which to chill and to sort their kit. It's time in which I can address my number one priority right now, which is making Hunter a decent and safe kennel.

Whilst out on patrol I've realised just what a wild and murderous place it is here. On both occasions the enemy hit us big time, and on the second mission I was convinced they were targeting my dog. I'm certain I made the right decision getting Hunter and me posted to Sangin, for who else amongst our young handler and dog teams could handle it here? But I'd sure like another dog team to deploy alongside us.

Rockets and mortar rounds keep slamming into the base. Late afternoon the previous day I'd dropped off to sleep, only to be jerked awake by the sound of a 107 mm Chinese-made rocket screaming over the top of us. The warhead ploughed into the desert some fifty metres beyond the base, throwing out a deaf ening blast and a cloud of dirt, and punching an angry mush room cloud of smoke high above our heads.

A second rocket zoomed over our kennel, slamming into the dirt next to a steel shipping container. A Bravo Company lad was tanning himself on the roof. He was off it like a greased weasel, as big lumps of hot metal exploded in all directions. Hunter and I dived for cover, and it served as a powerful reminder of how I needed to make my dog a safe, sandbagged kennel as an absolute priority.

At one time there had been a patrol dog team based here in Sangin, and I get one of the Bravo Company lads to show me their old quarters. They housed themselves in this little, tradi tional mud-domed building, one that is just about big enough for me to split into two. It's one of the few buildings on the base that remains unoccupied and I figure with a bit of work it'll do for Hunter and me.

I beg, borrow and steal the materials that I need: a pile of breeze blocks, some sheets of HESCO walling, and some cage wire. I build a wall down the centre of the room, constructed from an inner layer of breeze blocks, covered in a layer of HESCO mesh. That divides the room into two, in case we do get sent the second dog team that I've asked for. I roof over both runs with wire mesh, and I provide each with a wire-mesh door.

I build a wire-mesh enclosure out the front, where I can let Hunter run free. That way he can choose: he can opt either to have a doze in the shade of the hut, or he can sun himself out in the open. That completes our K9 fortress-come-home. Hunter and I can sleep inside that walled and roofed semi-bunker in some degree of security. It won't survive a direct hit from an enemy mortar, but it should stop most shrapnel.