Legendary land-mine sniffer fox-terrier Snowy retires

South Africa's most famous fox-terrier, Snowy, has for years earned his honorary title of "landmine killer" during his tours of duties in the minefields of Croatia, Sudan, Eritrea, Iraq and others. His nose never failed him. But now he's done.

But now Snowy's retiring - his boss Allister Gibbons of Mechem's doggy personnel department says he's not keeping up as well as he used to. Nothing wrong with that world famous nose - it's those little legs which are letting him down, and the snout hairs are greying too. "Landmine dogs have to sniff around some 1,500 m² of land surface a day, and those old bones aren't taking him around as fast as they used to do,' said Gibbons. Mechem company's trained dog packs have detected many tens of thousands of landmines all over the world, from Croatia, Eritrea, Iraq, Mozambique, Angola to Sudan - which was Snowy's last and also his most infamous posting. That's where he lost half his manhood to a wild dog twice his size - but walked away from this fight proudly, head held high. He's also the only fox terrier ever trained for such a job, as far as Gibbons is aware. "Snowy showed up here as a young pup one day. Nobody knows exactly where he came from, he was just there one day. see "The average dog takes at least three months to learn the basics, but Snowy got his job down pat well within six weeks, and he's never had his equal since,' says Gibbons. His first job was in war-torn Croatia in 2000. He was moved to South Africa four years later to help clean up the police training areas at Maleoskop in Mpumalanga. Then romance entered his life albeit very briefly -- his liaison with a handsome fox-terrier girl produced a litter of fine puppies. Shortly afterwards, he winged his way to Sudan to join Mechem's 24 sniffer dogs working for the United Nations' landmine cleanup operations. And this is where Snowy built his reputation as a fiercely independent, epic defender, who fears neither dog nor landmine. He was mauled by a wild dog and lost half his manhood but is dignity remained intact: the mine clearing teams still call him by his honorary title of Landmine Killer. Mechem always tries to find happy retirement homes for their gutsy, hard-working dogs. Snowy is going home with Gibbons -- now the hairs around his grumpy snout are turning grey, it's high time. He still won't let anyone take his tennis ball away from him -- and anybody daring to stick a finger into a car window when he's inside, they might well lose it. He might be long in the tooth, but still as fearless as ever. Snowy loves to work though, and would mourn if he were to be taken away from his life-saving job overnight. He;s smart: he would die if he couldn't work, says Gibbons. So they are phasing him out slowly, putting him to work for light-sniffling tasks at the airport. "But when he gets tired of that, he can spend the rest of his life just sleeping on my bed from now on,' Gibbons told Afrikaans-language newspaper Beeld. See