‘How my dog foiled suicide bomber at wedding’

The bereaved member of the civilian JTF admitted: “By God most high, I am severely pained by the death of my dog. I trained it thoroughly on detecting criminals, insurgents and other suspicious elements. Only God knows now how I can train any other dog to be so talented and committed.”

Hassan Alhaji Mustapha, Chairman of the Civilian JTF in the community, said the attack took everyone by surprise. “Before my members called me to the scene, the blast had already taken place,” he recalled. “Teacher was the only dog trained to perform that duty in this community; it knew every member of the community and it could identify everyone by his or her scent; and we all knew it and we were all in awe of it; it never allowed any stranger to enter the village. Teacher was our indefatigable protector; if it were alive, it would not have allowed even you to come into the village today,” the chairman said.

“We will train another dog to protect us like Teacher. We cannot live without a dog; we will not feel secure,” he said, recalling, “when Teacher was alive, whenever we heard it barking at whatever time of the night, we would immediately suspect the entrance of some undesirable elements into our community and we would all emerge from our houses, combat-ready, and we would certainly vindicate the dog by seeing something undesirable.”

Hassan announced their plan to train about five dogs to guard the community at all the cardinal points.

The arrival of a few more youths startled Sawab, who quickly reminded me: “End of interview. Let’s get out of here!” And so we did.

Dog owner interviewed by dailytrust.