Jay
Kukur Tihar, a part of the five-day Tihar festival, the second biggest festival of the Nepali Hindus. Kukur Tihar is a festival dedicated to the dog.
Kukur in Nepali language means the dog. It is the day on which the dog is worshipped and fed delicacies.
The dog is worshipped on the second day of the five-day period also known as Yamapanchaka.
The Nepali Army has been including trained dogs in its peace-keeping missions abroad for the last 18 years.
They are used for crime investigation and security. The Nepali Army’s peace keeping forces have been using dogs to find out arms and ammunition, and explosives in the conflict zones they are working in.
It is not only the Nepali Army that has been employing dogs for security purpose. Nepal Police has been using dogs in crime investigation for many years now. It has been 18 years since the Nepali Army has started taking dogs in its peace keeping missions abroad.
So far, 13 dogs have been taken for supporting the Nepali peacekeeping forces mobilised in Liberia and Libya. The Army mobilized the dogs in Libya after excellent results were achieved in tracking arms and ammunition, and explosives by employing dogs in the Liberia mission.
There are 23 German Shepherd, 54 Labrador, five Cocker Spaniel and three pups of Malinois breed dogs at the kennel maintained at Nepali Army’s the Bhairava Vahan Company at Gaththaghar in Bhaktapur, Company Commander Sanjeev Singh Sijapati said.
