Wylie, the Afghan mutt, was rescued in February by a convoy of British soldiers on patrol in a Kandahar bazaar, where a dog-fighting crowd was beating the smaller dog with lumps of wood to force the last fight out of him.

That beating turned out to be the least horrific brutality this resilient canine would suffer over the following weeks, and months:

Remarkably he did but his torments were far from over.

Two weeks later Jensz received another call. Local dog fighters had cut off Wylie’s ears and had scalped him in the process, before using the same homemade knife to cut his muzzle wide open from his nose to under his eye. He was patched up again by Jensz and a team of Australian Defence Force doctors only to return from his perilous forays outside the base with new injuries — a stab wound to the chest and a savagely docked tail.

Then, horrifically, one day he limped back to the camp after Kandahar locals — many of whom despise dogs only marginally less than they do coalition soldiers — had tried to sever his penis. Three times Jensz and ADF doctors had to restitch the wound. “Once we stitched for 90 minutes without anaesthetic,” she said. “I can’t fathom how much pain he must have been in but he just lay there motionless, looking up at us. He didn’t bite or growl once.”

Wylie’s refusal to submit became legendary around the Kandahar base.

But when he was grabbed again by local thugs and thrown under a passing car it seemed his luck had finally run out. “It was the first time I felt defeated because Wylie had become a symbol of Kandahar,” Jensz said. “So many soldiers identified with him but I just couldn’t work out how to keep this dog alive. That was the day I decided I had to take him with me.”

Much more, if you can stomach it, at the link.