Kabul -- At the guest house where I live, there are plenty of interesting characters who have had their share of dangerous encounters. Reporters who hung with the Marines down south as they battled the Taliban. Security specialists who lived through the riots in this part of Kabul in 2006.

But in terms of risks, no one I've met has a life that could compare to that of Anton, a skinny, somewhat scruffy German shepherd born into the comforts of an American kennel. After the 9/11 attacks, when still a young puppy, Anton was shipped to Afghanistan where he was trained to sniff out unexploded land mines.

Somehow the smell of the mines was transferred to a play toy, and Anton was trained to search out the toy. Once the object was taken away, the dogs would just track the smell.

Not every dog passes muster during the training. But Anton did. He survived five years of sniffing his way thorugh the killing fields of Afghanistan, where generations of unexploded mines pose a constant risk.

Anton finally retired. It's customary for someone to adopt these dogs who have performed so many years of treacherous service. But Anton was so skinny that he put some people off. He eventually got adopted by a German contractor who later passed him on to an Austrian contractor. That's how he wound up at our guest house.

Anton is now nine-years-old, a spry, gentle presence who trots about the garden courtyard and loiters in the hallways. Most of the time he has a white spikey plastic toy in his mouth. He doesn't ever want to let to go of the toy.

The fixation is a reflection of his early training when he was taught to associate the toy with the scent of mines.

I like having Anton at the guest house. Just a few minutes before filing this blog item, I went to the dining room to grab some hot water for tea. Passing through the garden, I saw Anton curled up quietly under a tree. I gave his bony body a few strokes, then returned to my room to finish this post.

From kabul