The Marines side of the story (so far......) When we first arrived in the town of Nowzad we came across the dogs "Nowzad", "RPG" and "Jena" which we began to look after, as they were very under nourished and not dealing with the cold too well. However, we soon gained "Tali" who crept in under the gate carrying 6 little puppies followed by an injured "AK" bringing up the rear. And then to complicate matters "Jena" had 8 puppies - life was just a little busy at the best of times in our little compound deep in the Afghan desert! In a quiet corner of the base we built the dogs a modest run each and built a shelter for them to hide in, which provided some warmth during the winter nights - they all instantly took to the left over military rations. Jena and Tali were kept separate with their collection of puppies as we were not sure how the bigger dogs Nowzad and RPG would react to them. I would often catch the hardest of Marines sat in amongst the puppies, claiming to be helping me out or was it being a soft touch?

Time was an issue though as I knew we would be moving to a different location at the beginning of February and I needed to make sure we had the ability to get them rescued. Being stuck in the small town of Nowzad we had very limited communications with the outside world. Luckily we managed to get in touch with an animal rescue centre in the far north of the country, which would be happy to take the dogs but we had to get them there. Slightly difficult when we couldn't leave the camp unless we were an organised and well armed patrol. So the difficult task of persuading a local Afghanistan driver to take the dogs all the way to the rescue in the north - a journey of several days began. Eventually we found a taxi that would take the dogs some of the way to Lashkar Gar and then they would be exchanged with another driver for the journey to Kandahar and then swapped again into another vehicle for the drive to the rescue. We had a few issues with this as we knew that the vehicles would be stopped by the Taliban at road blocks and for that reason the driver wouldn't let us put the dogs in cages, (a very British thing to do - definitely not a Afghan method of transporting dogs), so we had to tie the dogs up with rope and put the puppies into small crates, (Jena's puppies went into an old bird cage!), not something we were entirely comfortable with. I knew if the vehicle doors were opened without the driver paying attention then there was a chance one or two of the dogs would escape......you know what I am going to say next. The vehicle left for the epic journey carrying our new four legged friends with it. Not knowing what would happen next was only slightly comforted by the fact that if we left the dogs in Nowzad they would die sooner rather than later from starvation or the cold or even during one of the frequent Taliban attacks. For the next few days time went by slowly as we waited for news to arrive - any news in fact of the dogs and their journey. Finally it did via a phone call from back home. Tali, Jena and Nowzad and 11 of the 14 puppies had made the animal rescue. RPG and AK had escaped when the car door was left open. 3 of the puppies had been stolen. Our celebrations were tainted with sadness. We have no idea where RPG and AK escaped and there was no way we could go looking for them. We just hope they are together -everytime I think about them I am absolutely gutted. Nowzad, Tali and Jena are all doing fine in the rescue and we are hoping to raise enough money to get the three of them back to the UK, (as long as they clear quarantine rules and regulations)- I promised them I wouldn't leave them there and I like to keep my promises! The puppies are getting bigger each day and we hope to find them new homes with the help of the rescue. I haven't seen them now for 2 months - we do miss them. The original Dog Wardens of Nowzad, as the rest of our lads liked to call us, can't thank everyone enough who has supported and donated towards the Nowzad Dogs. Without their help we wouldn't have got as far as we have. Nowzad Dogs has changed our lives and we intend to continue fund raising until we know the Nowzad Dogs are safe and then we are going to find some more dogs that need that bit of extra special help. I'll keep you posted as we get more news! April 07

Nowzad Dogs is a registered charity number 1119185 Mission Statement: To relieve the suffering of animals, predominantly stray and abandoned dogs, in need of care, attention and to provide and maintain rescue facilities for the care and treatment of such animals, especially the dogs of Afghanistan.
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