A day trip to a crowded State Department office full of unfamiliar faces and smells might have upset some dogs, but then Astra's day job is itself pretty terrifying.
The seven-year-old German Shepherd mine-clearance expert ignored the defused weaponry arrayed on the conference table, but perked up when box of donuts was opened.
Over the past five years she and her handler, Lebanese army sergeant Ahmad Solh, have scoured the battlefields of Lebanon for land-mines and unexploded bombs. Named by sniffer dog charitable foundation the Marshall Legacy Institute as the champion mine-clearers of the year, they came to the US capital to promote their work.
