One Dog at a Time Read Online Free PDF

so I can rip your head off’ snarls.
    Straight away I noticed that the dog had been relieved of its ears. I had read about this practice. It was a sign that the dog was used for one of Afghanistan’s most popular sports – dogfighting.
    I had Googled Afghanistan and its culture prior to the deployment. Dogfighting had been one of the more distressing aspects that I had found. It was a centuries-old tradition, commonplace among the tribal clans. Owning a victorious dog could bring an owner a great deal of money and respect among his peers.
    The images on the Internet had not been pleasant. It wasn’t anything a pet owner would want to be involved with. The large-breed dogs had no choice but to attack each other – resulting in a bloody frenzy. It was fight or, potentially, die. The dogs would have their ears and tail removed with a knife – without any anaesthetic – so that no superficial wounds would be inflicted as the result of a torn ear or tail and the fights could then last longer. Dogs were in abundant supply in Afghanistan and extremely far down on the welfare list. (Although to be fair, human life wasn’t exactly that far up it.)
    The irony of all this was that when the Taliban came to power, not only had women been banned from all forms of education, but they also banned dogfighting as they deemed it un-Islamic. With the Coalition Forces removing the Taliban from power in Kabul in 2001, the void in Government had allowed the back-street spectator sport to flourish once more. One step forward, two steps back.
    As I watched the dog, its frustration at being tied up was plain to see. Looking at it with no ears was just too much. I’d been ready to free the dog before, but I was even more determined to do so now.
    The young police were having a hard time trying to hold on to the dog, which was bucking like a bronco at a rodeo. They had braided together some narrow-gauge wire to form a long dog leash, which had been wrapped around the dog’s neck and back legs. This meant that the dog couldn’t move either forwards or back, and the more it struggled to break free the tighter the strands of wire twisted around themselves, which only made the dog even angrier.
    I wasn’t quite sure what I’d do if the dog actually got free. I didn’t think it would understand I was here to help it, so I took a step back as casually as I could.
    ‘
Salaamu alaikum
,’ I said, directing my greeting towards the commander. We had been told during our pre-deployment training that it was customary to speak to the Elder first during any conversation.
    Appreciating this, he replied in kind then nodded at the youngest lad who was the only one of the police detachment who spoke any English.
    ‘Why are you out here?’ he asked me, casually thumbing the trigger on his Kalashnikov fully automated rifle, something our lads wouldn’t even consider doing. The rifle looked way too big for him to handle properly in the first place, but life was very different here.
    ‘Tell the commander he needs to come back into the compound,’ I said. ‘You left the compound without permission and the lads on the hill nearly confused you with the Taliban.’
    The last bit was a lie but I thought it might bring a swift solution to the situation.
    After a brief exchange in Pashtu the young lad explained that the commander wanted to enter the Regional Dogfighting Championships to be held in Lashkar Gar in a few weeks’ time.
    ‘He wants this dog to be his champion,’ he said, nodding at the big beast, which was getting even more agitated as we stood there.
    OK, no quick solution then.
    ‘And where does the commander think he is going to keep the dog until then?’ I asked.
    As the boy translated my words back to his boss, I was conscious of the fact that we were out in the open. Our movements were clearly visible to anybody looking this way from within Taliban Central. As if to remind me of the potential danger, I could hear the hill relaying our