Philippines hero dog Kabang can look forward to better days out of shanty

Manila:The Zamboanga City government plans to relocate Kabang, the celebrated dog who saved two children from a road accident in December 2011, to an area in the city that have their home.

Reports reaching Manila from the South, quoted Zamboanga City Mayor Celso Lobregat as saying that Kabang and his master, Rudy Buggal’s family could be given an area at a resettlement site in the city.

Currently Bunggal is staying at a shanty, reports said while Kabang is living in a donated dog house.

“Actually Zamboanga City has a resettlement site where Mang Rudy can set up a home. We will look if he is qualified for this and I will be taking to him in the next few days,” Lobregat was quoted by GMA News as saying.

Providing a permanent shelter for Kabang and the family that took him in is the least that the city could do for the dog that saved two of its citizens from a potential accident and showed that even non-humans are capable of acts of heroism.

Kabang, a mix shepherd breed dog, saved the lives of Rudy Bunggal’s daughter Dina and her cousin Princess Diansing in December 2011.

According to accounts, the two girls where about to cross the road in Zamboanga City when a motor tricycle suddenly appeared and was about to run over the two children when Kabang dashed and placed her body between the two girls and the onrushing vehicle.

Her act to save the two children came at a cost of Kabang losing the upper part of her snout leaving her with gruesome appearance.

The dog’s plight and her act of heroism received attention from the local and national press, setting off a chain of events that saw an international effort to raise funds for her treatment.

Last week, Kabang arrived in the Philippines, seven months after receiving treatment from veterinary doctors from the University of California-Davis in the United States.

Upon her arrival in Zamboanga City from Manila last Tuesday, Kabang was welcomed by the city’s grateful residents and was treated to a motorcade. Lobregat and the city council issued an executive order recognising the dog as the city’s “Ambassador of Dog Will.”

“Kabang is very friendly dog, anybody can just hold her and dogs are also approaching her” GMA News quoted the mayor as saying.

Officials said if there is something to be learned from the whole the experience, it is that the impulse to do good and make sacrifice is present in every one, and that if non-humans can Kabang can do it, so much so could humans.

Kabang, in committing her sacrifice, had literally lost half her face but had etched a lasting impression of her heroism in the consciousness of those who had read her story.