Brigadier Hemant Mahajan in his blog writes: “We had our share of local dogs who were excellent sentries at gun positions”. The local dogs were ideal guides in white out conditions too. In Drass area with 8 feet of snow off the road the dogs would mark the route by peeing every 50 metres. Extremely well trained and dependable, they would wait for troops at the road head and take them to the gun position and back. I have of course been guided by them often when you can’t see a thing.

We had ‘Dixit’ a veteran with a few medals to his credit. We had pressed him into service for an avalanche rescue mission. A black labrador, he used go around in a cheetah with his trainer and kit.