Dogs are truly amazing creatures. While there’s plenty of animals equally as intelligent as people, dogs can be trained to do things that even people can’t. From sniffing out IED’s (improvised explosive devices) to calming people with PTSD or sniffing out a heart attack, it seems these dogs are capable of anything. Not only that, but they are selfless, as this dog in Nigeria proved when he sacrificed himself to save others.

While no one knows whether this dog had received formal training, it is clear that he never needed to.

The dog was with his owner, Buba Abhmed, who was attending a wedding in Belbelo village in April 2017.

The small town lies not far from Maiduguri, a northeastern city. Many of the villagers were going to be in attendance that day. As everyone gathered for the ceremony, everything seemed just fine. All were there to celebrate the joy of a new union, after all.

Abhmed’s dog, though, had spotted something at the wedding that left him feeling unsettled. The watchful dog was acting suspicious of one of the women just on the outskirts of the assembly.

This was pretty unusual behavior for Abhmed’s dog, but since the dog wasn’t trying to run away, he carried on with the wedding celebration.

What wedding guests didn’t know, though, was what the dog had picked up on.

Beneath her dress, the mysterious woman was concealing the bomb that was strapped to her chest. She had been slowly coming nearer to the wedding assembly. It’s plain that her intention was to get as close as possible to the wedding guests before detonating her bomb, to take out as many innocent people as possible.

Acting purely on instinct, the wary dog lunged at the would-be suicide bomber. He pounced on her and wrestled her to the ground.

The dog continued to attack the wedding bomber until she was forced to detonate her bomb right where they were, away from the other villagers. The explosion took only two lives that day, the suicide bombers and the brave dogs.

According to Viktor Isuku, spokesman for the local police, people had the heroic actions of the dog to thank for their lives that day.

“This forced the suspect to detonate her explosive, while battling to wriggle herself from the claws and jaws of the dog,” he said.

Reports conclude that the bomber in question was only a teenaged girl.

They believe she was from the Boko Haram, an Isis-affiliated jihadist group who preys on young women, grooming them for suicide missions. Boko Haram is the party responsible for the 276 young women, aged 16-18, that were kidnapped from their dorms in 2014. Given the shocking uptick in suicide bombings shortly after, it’s believed many of these poor girls were sent to do the Haram’s dirty work.

“The dog stopped the teenage suicide bomber from detonating her strapped improvised explosive devices on the wedding crowd of people,” Isuku continued.

Since its rise in 2002, Boko Haram has killed tens of thousands of innocent people. In fact, around this same time, there were three other confirmed suicide bombings in two neighboring communities. Unfortunately, these had more casualties than this incident. Thanks to local militias, soldiers, brave civilians, and heroic dogs like Abhmed’s, however, there have been far fewer deaths than the Haram has hoped for.

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H/T: Animal Channel