A Canadian soldier in Afghanistan suffered "non-life-threatening injuries" Tuesday when an explosives-detection dog set off a roadside bomb, said the Canadian Forces.
The dog was killed by the blast, Canadian Forces spokesperson Lt. (Navy) John Nethercott told reporters, and the dog's handler was "very seriously injured."
Nethercott would not disclose the handler's nationality, but he said the dog team is from a foreign company -- American Canine -- subcontracted by the Canadian Forces to support Joint Task Force Afghanistan operations.
The soldier and handler were transported by helicopter to hospital at the Kandahar Airfield military base for treatment. "The next of kin of both the soldier and the dog handler have been notified," Nethercott said.
The chain of events began earlier in the day when a Canadian Coyote reconnaissance, while on a routine patrol near Ahmadkhan -- a village west of Kandahar City -- struck and detonated an IED (improvised explosive device).
"It was an armoured vehicle but the explosion was big enough to disable the vehicle," reported CTV's Paul Workman in Kandahar.
No one was injured in that explosion. But the team of bomb-sniffing dogs was brought in to search for other explosives on the road while they readied to return the vehicle to the Kandahar base. During the course of that search, one of the dogs detonated another bomb.
The Canadian soldier has not been identified but is from the Second Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment.
Workman reports that dog teams are used every day to assist soldiers, to search for hidden bombs.
Nethercott said the team today was "conducting dismounted route clearance to get to the location of this earlier strike'' when the second explosion happened."
With a report from the Canadian Press
