The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King [69]
I’ve done it all. I’ve bitten letter carriers and chased cars and tractors and bicycles and tanks. I’ve worried more sheep than a shepherd can count. I’ve chewed on everything, from homework to framework to the family cat. I’ve even fought and killed my own.
Back in 1958, I was a Pit Bull Terrier bred by an alcoholic ex-con who called himself “The Master.” He was one of those in-and-out-of-prison guys who came to crave the systematic abuse he’d been a victim of his whole life.
When the Master brought me home to his rundown wood-shingled house, I was nine weeks old. He threw me into a filthy coop where the only other occupant was an aggressive Jack Russell who was always injured. A few times per week, the Jack was pulled from the cage and taken to the barn for an hour, and then deposited back in the cage, bleeding, missing lumps of skin and hair, and soaked with urine. Once he had healed and felt a little better he’d nip at me, and that made me mad. It made me mad enough that at two months old, I nipped back and took the little twerp’s ear off.
The Master began “training me” then—starving me, beating me, chaining me, and teasing me. Twice he stood me on a concrete pad an inch deep in water and ran electricity through it, making me jump and howl. Sometimes he would shoot me with his BB gun all afternoon and then spray me with salt water. And other times, he would throw me, hungry, into a ring with a drugged rabbit or cat and I’d tear it to pieces.
One week when I was still a pup, I was brought to watch some older dogs fight at a neighbor’s barn. The Master invited a bunch of his friends because they liked to drink beer, bet, and watch dogs kill each other. Before the real action started, they had a “warm up.” It took two minutes for my sire, a two-year-old Pit Bull Terrier champion, to kill my old cage mate, the Jack. They’d muzzled the Jack with a few strips of duct tape and he never had a chance. This was my destiny, the Master said. I was to follow in the footsteps of my father and make him lots and lots of money, which is exactly what happened.
I kept winning and winning, and he kept betting and betting, until I’d killed at least a hundred dogs. Some had their snouts tied shut or their teeth pulled out. Some were already so injured by the time they got to me that I couldn’t figure out how they could call it a fight, but I fought anyway.
Fact was, I knew it was wrong. But once my canine-self got accustomed to life as a killer, I just couldn’t stop. When they busted the Master two years later, they found me—crazy with rage—tied with a short tow chain, ribs showing, and they couldn’t get near me without landing two tranquilizer darts in me first. Then, they put me to sleep on the spot.
Your dog doesn’t have to be a killer to be dangerous. A nip leads to a bite. And regrettably, biters are rarely cured. You need to be responsible for what your dog does, and this requires serious consideration. As hard as it is to face the act of euthanizing a pet, think about how much doggie prisons would cost. Aren’t we feeding enough incurable scoundrels already?
What great things would you attempt
if you knew you could not fail?
Robert H. Schuller
As the Vera Cruz neared a port on the westernmost island of the Bahamas, Emer’s crew didn’t notice the three men standing on the dock with loaded pistols. The ship was in need of serious repair—her sails perforated by Spanish chain shot and her hull covered in thick sea growth that made her move too slowly through the calm water. The men worked to steer the ship in, secure it, and then reported to David that they had landed successfully.
David crept silently from the cabin, leaving Emer to catch up on rest she surely had missed the night before. When he approached the gangplank, the three men began to walk toward him. He could sense they were trouble.
“Who are you?” David asked.
“I am the new governor here. This is my friend Mr. Thomson.” The third man stood behind the other two,