A bad day on the job

I've said previously that "when you're a cashier at Loblaws, [messing up] means a customer walks away with too much change in his pocket. When you're a soldier, it often means someone who shouldn't dies."

That goes for bomb-sniffing dogs, as well:

He focused his eyes once more on the suspicious area. He watched the dog approach the spot, and prepared for it to react. If it barked, he'd clear the site and call for the bomb-disposal unit, whose robots and heavily protected personnel are scarce assets in war.

He waited. The dog stepped closer, snuffling its way along the ground. Maybe it's a bluff, he thought. Maybe it's the innocent remains of a day's work for a local farmer. The dog took another step. It was right on top of it.

And then it blew.

The dog died. It had a bad day at the office, a bad day like all the rest of us do, except unlike us, the dog paid for an error at work with its life.

The explosion also seriously wounded the dog's handler, a private contractor working with the CF in Kandahar, and the Canadian sapper who was directing the team.

Despite having decent-sized chunks of his flesh removed in the blast, undergoing two separate operations to patch him up, and walking with a severe limp as he begins his recovery, Sgt Herritt wants to stay in Afghanistan while he recuperates. Like all good leaders - and our military is full of them from the CDS down to the MCpl leading a four-man stack - his first thought is to take care of his team.

Also, like all good leaders, when things go wrong he wonders what he could have done differently:

He said he still can't quite believe the bomb went off. Sniffing dogs are normally very reliable. But in this case, the dog triggered the explosive.

At first he lay awake at night, wondering if everything was done correctly. He's convinced he did everything he could, and his superiors have reassured him that he did. It came down to the dog, and the dog made a mistake, he said.

"The dog was doing his job, and for whatever reason he was having an off day. I don't know why he missed it but he did. It happened."

Best wishes for a speedy recovery to Sgt Herritt and the unnamed dog-handler wounded by the IED. And bless the dog who died doing a dangerous and vital job in the service of a cause it knew nothing about.

Update: Here are some photos of bomb-sniffing dogs in Afghanistan, and a link to the British Imperial War Museum's The Animals' War exhibit.

Upsy-Daisy-date: In a story about another bomb-sniffing dog named Daisy, Rosie DiManno gives us a different perspective on what happened to the ill-fated dog noted above:

The dog did its job and found the other bomb planted nearby. She had indicated the spot to her handler. But sniffer dogs are trained to detect the scent of the explosive, not the plate, which in this case was a few feet distant. The dog stepped on the plate just as a Canadian trooper was handing its leash to the handler. The handler was seriously injured but is expected to recover.