Sarbi- Recieves A Purple Cross

[~Rumour~]

Bomb-sniffing dog's award a cross to bear Dan Oakes

April 6, 2011

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Just for licks ... Sarbi, an explosives detection dog with the Australian Army, shows her affection to a dog trainer, Corporal Adam Exelby, after receiving her Purple Cross. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

SARBI, the bomb-sniffing dog who was missing for more than a year in the wilds of Afghanistan, has joined Simpson's donkey as the recipient of the RSPCA's highest award for animal bravery.

At a ceremony at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra yesterday, the 10-year-old Labrador-Newfoundland cross had the Purple Cross pinned to her coat and was then mobbed by primary school children.

She is the ninth animal to win the award, and the second after Murphy, one of John Simpson Kirkpatrick's Gallipoli donkeys, to win it for wartime service.

Sarbi, an explosives detection dog with the Australian Army, after receiving her Purple Cross. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Sarbi went missing in September 2008 when a convoy of Australian and Afghan soldiers was attacked by insurgents in Oruzgan province.

Nine Australian soldiers were wounded in the engagement, and it was discovered in the aftermath that Sarbi had disappeared.

Soldiers searched for her, and the Australian defence force even considered offering a reward for her return, but to no avail.

Thirteen months later, an American special forces soldier in a remote part of the province saw Sarbi with some Afghan locals and remembered that the bomb-sniffing dog had disappeared the previous year.

The American arranged for her to be returned to the Australian base at Tarin Kowt and, to the joy of her handler - identified only as Sergeant D - a scan of her microchip confirmed that she was the missing dog.

Sarbi then spent months in quarantine in Dubai before returning to Australia and being reunited with Sergeant D.

''We will never know what Sarbi endured and saw during her time in the desert, but if she could speak, I'm sure she would have some stories to tell us,'' the RSPCA's national president, Lynne Bradshaw, said.

There is some suggestion that she spent her time dining well, with an army dog handler, Corporal Adam Exelby, admitting yesterday that Sarbi had returned from her exile overweight.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/...0405-1d2zi.html