Lila the dog at Charlie Hebdo’s office searched for her beloved cartoonist

Lila, the Cocker Spaniel, is the house dog and mascot of the Charlie Hebdo magazine where a massacre occurred earlier this year. The sweet little dog was in the office the day of the shootings when a dozen people were murdered. The pooch, who often stuck close to cartoonist, Jean Cabut, known as Cabu, played an unexpected and important role that day.

In an interview with Le Monde, Sigolene Vinson, a crime reporter with the satirical magazine, recalled how she stayed hidden as the gunmen carried out the killings.

“As I lay there, not sure if they were really gone, shots rang out in the distance, in the street. And then I heard Lila with her tiny steps,” she recalled.

She remembered the “click clack” of Lila’s paws. The dog was searching for Cabu, who died in the attack.

In an ode to Lila, Vinson later wrote in the magazine: “At Charlie Hebdo, we have a dog, a red Cocker Spaniel who signals to us that it really is OK, that we can get up now, that (the terrorists) have gone.”

“Lila was spared,” she added. “Maybe for the reason that she is a female.”