We found Sausage, the black and white spaniel type dog, lying in a mud puddle in the street on a stormy day in Kabul last winter. when we tried to approach him, he started dragging himself away through the mud and we realized one of his legs was broken. We finally caught him, put him in a crate and took him to the shelter. It turned out that his leg had been broken a long time ago and then healed. It is permanently damaged and unusable but totally healed, and he is now in very good health. At first he hid in a corner and growled at everyone, but within a few weeks he had relaxed and become very happy with the staff and the other dogs. He has been living with us now for about nine months. He would make an excellent companion for someone who is at home a lot and wants a dog that does not need a lot of exercise. Sausage is basically a couch potato, but it is amazing how agile he is on three legs. He is healthy, vaccinated, friendly and sociable.

Blackie is a sweet little female hound who was brought to our shelter from the streets in May. Her ears had been cut off and her hind leg was badly mangled and infected from being hit by a car. We thought she would not survive, but a good friend of ours who is a surgeon volunteered to operate on her leg. He successfuly amputated it with the entire staff watching, all the infection was removed, and Blackie recovered quickly. The leg healed very well, and within several weeks she was running and hopping around like a puppy. After an appeal went out, a number of friends helped raise the money to bring Blackie to the USA, especially Cora and Brian and Maria. She made the journey in September. Blackie, now renamed Gracie, is so full of joy and energy that she needs lots of space to romp around and express herself.

Digger, the brown and white hound with the sweet eyes behind the wire fence, is a bouncy and affectionate girl we found curled up in an alley all by herself. She was about three months old at the time, covered with fleas and very skinny. Now she is about nine months old, very well fed and very healthy. She is full of beans and loves to play catch and roll in the grass. She would be happiest spending every single moment with people. She is a perfect dog-park dog, and perfect for families with kids who can run and play with her.

Beanie is a small and compact molasses colored hound. She is not beautiful or graceful or dignified, but she is full of beans and lots of fun. We found her in the street in Pakistan after she had been used for student surgical training and then put back out to fend for herself. She had just been spayed and was sleeping on a burlap sack in a market. We fed her there for a few nights, and finally decided to take her in. She slept like a log for 24 hours, then blossomed into a playful and mischievous sprite who wants to dance and race and run rings around all the time. She is very healthy and spayed, and she would make a wonderful pet for a family with kids and a yard and lots of energy. She could even learn to play frisbee.

A British Marine named Pen Farthing, who is also an animal lover, was sent to fight there, and Jena was one of several dogs who lived near his base camp in the desert. The base in rural Helmand Province was under constant Taliban attack, and the dogs also faced danger from Afghan soldiers and other men who goaded them to fight for sport. Jena gave birth to eight puppies, and Pen sheltered them the best he could, along with the other camp dogs. When the time came for Pen's unit to be evacuated, he was frantic to save her and the others, but had no way to do so, since he would be evacuated by military helicopter.

We learned about this situation from Pen's wife Lisa, who was in London and found out about our work in Kabul through the Mayhew Animal Home and the Humane Society International. She explained Pen's urgent need to save the dogs. I arranged with a local contact to send an Afghan cargo truck and driver to the area of Pen's camp in hopes of rescuing the dogs. There was no phone communication with the camp, and we did not even know exactly where it was, but Pen sent Lisa the best directions he could, and she and I spoke repeatedly by phone. We made a complicated plan to have the driver approach the base with a white sign bearing Pen's name, fearing every moment that Pen would be suddenly evacuated or that there would be another Taliban attack.

The cargo driver returned to Kandahar several days later with no dogs, saying he had been stopped at a Taliban checkpost in the desert and forced to turn back. We despaired of saving them, but Pen was finally able to move Jena and the other dogs to a larger, safer base near a town. A week later, we arranged to send another cargo truck to approach the second base, and after two tries, the driver and Pen found each other. Jena and the other dogs were loaded into the truck and driven to Kandahar, then to Kabul - a long, expensive and dangerous trip that took many hours.

When Jena finally reached Kabul, she was emaciated and trembling, and many of her puppies were missing. We do not know what became of them. She and several other dogs from Helmand remained at the shelter for several months, growing fatter and healthier, but Jena was very shy and still trembled a lot. She shared a large pen with another Helmand dog named Tali, and her two remaining puppies. Meanwhile Pen's unit was evacuated from Afghanistan and he returned to London, where he began raising money to bring the dogs out of the country. Tali and another dog named Nawzad were to go to London, which required a huge amount of paperwork, complex medical procedures and six months in quarantine. I was worried that this would be too much for Jena, so I said I wanted to bring her to the States instead and find her a home there.

After many delays, Jena flew to the US in mid-June. She was fostered at first by Mike and Melinda Beard in Washington, D.C., where she enjoyed the company of Snowball, a rambunctious labrador-type puppy who also came from the Kabul shelter. She stopped trembling and became extremely affectionate, following people around and waiting for the chance to rest her head on their laps. I think she was making up for so many months of fear and hardship. After a short July vacation on the eastern shore of Virginia, Jena was adopted by a very nice couple in Washington, and she immediately curled up in an armchair by the fire place. A well-deserved home-coming for a very sweet dog.