DONNA REY NOLDS AND TIM Racer had never been so happy to end a vacation early. It was September 2, the Sunday of Labor Day weekend and just days after Michael Vick"s plea hearing, when Reynolds and Racer packed up their stuff and walked out of the house they"d rented in Stinson Beach, California. They would have loved to stay, but they were off to bigger things. Racer had never been so happy to end a vacation early. It was September 2, the Sunday of Labor Day weekend and just days after Michael Vick"s plea hearing, when Reynolds and Racer packed up their stuff and walked out of the house they"d rented in Stinson Beach, California. They would have loved to stay, but they were off to bigger things.
The next day they caught a flight to Richmond, where they would gather with seven other canine experts brought together to evaluate the Vick dogs. Six of the nine people on the panel worked for the ASPCA, and those who weren"t Ph.D.s were at the very least certified animal behaviorists. Reynolds and Racer came from a different place altogether.
They were artists by trade, and they dressed the part. Racer, thin and athletic, tended toward cargo shorts with work boots and loose T-shirts. With brown hair and a broad face centered by a flat nose, Racer spoke directly with plenty of eye contact and so fast that "pit bull" became not two distinct words but one hybrid: "pitble." Reynolds, by contrast, faced the world with a high wall of curly hair, full cheeks, and a big smile, but always seemed to be saying less than she was thinking, a sensation heightened by her arching eyebrows and deep, wary eyes. She accented her outfits with funky add-ons: a necklace made of red dice, laceless Chuck Taylors, or black military-looking boots.
Michigan natives, the pair met in 1980, during their first week of cla.s.ses at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. Upon graduation they moved to Chicago where they rented a small studio. Racer, a wood carver, began working on carousel-style animals, posed figures done in the seamless, high-gloss style of merry-go-round horses. Reynolds made her career as a found-art ill.u.s.trator, creating collages and pictures out of existing materials, which she sold to magazines.
They began rescuing dogs off the streets-bringing home strays, training them and then finding them homes. Over four years they established themselves as working artists, took in and found homes for dozens of dogs, and enjoyed the benefits of big-city life. But they grew weary of the cold weather, so in 1991 they packed up and headed for Berkeley, figuring the funky college town with a large arts community would be perfect for them. It was not. Somehow, they never felt comfortable there and migrated toward Oakland, which fit better. It was grittier and simpler, more diverse. It was like Detroit, but nicer.
Their self-employed status allowed them to set their own schedule-i. e., go in late and stay late-and they began using part of their days to work with a raptor rescue program at the Lindsay Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek, California. There they helped injured or lost owls, hawks, eagles, and falcons relearn how to fly or walk or hunt.
They continued to take in dogs, too, and in 1995 they got a call from a woman who knew they helped strays. She had been driving her car along the highway one night when she saw an injured dog on the side of the road. She pulled over and realized it was in even worse shape than she suspected. The animal clearly needed more help than she could give it and she wasn"t sure what to do. After a moment of thought she swung open the back door and said, "If it gets in the car, I"ll help it. If not . . ." The dog crawled into the backseat and collapsed.
She took it to a shelter and implored Reynolds and Racer to go get it. When they went to see it, they cringed as the shelter workers brought out a small male pit bull, maybe thirty-five pounds, black and covered with cuts and scars. Tubes and wires ran from the dog"s body and wherever it went someone had to walk behind it, rolling the IV stand that it was hooked up to. "It looks like someone wrapped him in barbed wire and rolled him down a hill," Reynolds said.
On one side, the dog"s lip was just sort of hanging off. "His face is like hamburger," added Racer. And yet, upon walking in, the dog seemed to smile at them. It went up to Racer and began rubbing against his legs.
"Race, we"re in trouble here," Reynolds said. The couple took the dog in. They called him Mr. B, and they worked hard to nurse him back to health. Reynolds. .h.i.t the Internet. On one pit bull message board she encountered a character called Old Dog. On the board he had always come off as a bit of an a.s.shole the way Reynolds saw it. But he knew his stuff and when Reynolds described her situation, he offered to help.
Reynolds was willing to take a.s.sistance from whoever would give it because there was more at stake than simply the survival of the dog. The woman who had picked him up off the road was in the midst of a battle against cancer, and she was coming to see the dog"s survival as a metaphor for her own struggle. It became very important to her that the dog make it, and she took a keen interest in his progress.
Eventually, Reynolds took Mr. B to see Old Dog, who turned out to be a legitimate dog breeder and a bit of a cowboy from central California. Old Dog agreed to take Mr. B in and give him a foster home until the dog could be adopted. Before long he"d adopted Mr. B himself, but even more important, he became a trusted resource.
Reynolds and Racer needed all the friends they could get, because the following year, 1996, they bought their first house. It became much easier for them to take in foster dogs until they could find a permanent keeper. Their experience with Mr. B had given them a taste of how desperate things were for pit bulls, which made up the majority of the shelter population nationally as well as in the Bay Area.
Through the years they had rescued whatever dogs they had stumbled upon, but now Racer proposed that they actually begin going to shelters to seek out adoption-worthy pit bulls. Reynolds had misgivings, but she agreed to take a look. At the first shelter they went to they found a beautiful brown and white pit bull. They were sure they could help her, so they brought her home and called her Sallie. She was an incredible dog-even-tempered, loving, and totally friendly with the other two dogs the couple already had.
Most people have been led to believe that pit bulls are mindless attack machines, and while they can have an inclination to be aggressive toward other dogs, the reality is that free of negative influences, they"re not much different from any other breed. Reynolds and Racer had come to see that, but that knowledge didn"t help them solve the problem they now faced: They could not find a home for Sallie. It was then that Reynolds and Racer realized how off-base and yet deeply ingrained the public perception of pit bulls remained. Racer and Reynolds suddenly understood why there were so many pit bulls languishing in shelters.
Before long they were part of a small community in the Bay Area dedicated to rescuing pit bulls. One night while a bunch of them were out together, they decided to start a Web site that would display available dogs and try to help change the pit bull"s image. So on April Fool"s Day 1999-"under the influence of many margaritas," as Reynolds says-they formed a rescue group called Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls or BAD RAP.
The site went up a few weeks later and within days Reynolds realized they had tapped into something much bigger than they"d ever imagined. They had hundreds of inquiries from all over the country; people were looking for information on pit bulls. How to train them, what to feed them, how much exercise they needed. There were people looking to place dogs and people looking to adopt dogs.
Reynolds and Racer gave up their work with birds of prey and focused on pit bulls. They were uniquely prepared for the task of taking shelter dogs, teaching them some manners, and then finding them homes. Over the years they had taken in, nursed, and trained dozens of dogs, culminating with Mr. B, who made all the others look easy. The raptor rescue had helped, too-anyone who can get a wild eagle to literally eat out of his hand can probably get a pit bull to walk nicely on a leash.
Their connection to Old Dog became more valuable than ever. He gave them key insights into the breed"s behavior, tendencies, history, and traits, and he answered their questions. Reynolds and Racer threw themselves into the work. "We never made a conscious decision not to have kids," Reynolds says. "We always sort of thought we would one day get the urge, but we never did, and I think we channeled a lot of that parenting energy into the dogs."
As part of the plan, BAD RAP took only the best dogs-amba.s.sador dogs-which they chose after a rigorous evaluation. They set up obedience cla.s.ses for pit bull owners and insisted that new adopters attend at least one cla.s.s with the dog they were hoping to take home beforehand and four more cla.s.ses afterward. Those adopters also had to submit to a home inspection and everyone was encouraged to come back for advanced cla.s.ses. Instead of being set up to fail, as they felt so many pit bulls were, these dogs would be hardwired to succeed. They would go into the world and prove how safe and reliable pit bulls could be.
But the BAD RAP crowd knew from experience that more than placing individual dogs, the best way to save the breed was to fight back against the negative perceptions. Education and advocacy became as important as rescue. They began consulting with shelters and other pit bull rescue groups about how to evaluate dogs, screen adopters, set up training programs, and best maintain kenneled dogs. Their Web site became a database, including articles on pit bulls, news about fight busts around the country, and a message board that hosted lively discussions about pit bull-related issues.
In time the group grew to forty volunteers and had a permanent presence in the Oakland animal shelter. The arrangement included a separate room in the corner of the facility where they could house the dogs they"d accepted into their program. It let them better control the atmosphere, providing a saner, quieter place that allowed the dogs to keep it together longer in the shelter. They also set up a wood chip- filled exercise and play area out back and an office in an old trailer they picked up off Craigslist from a parachuting company that had gone bust. Every day BAD RAP volunteers came to the shelter to work with the dogs, getting them out for exercise, training, and playtime. Donna and Tim did evaluations, home inspections, ran the training cla.s.ses, and set up adoptions and foster care.
The couple had remortgaged their house three times to keep the operation running when donations ran low, but by 2006 BAD RAP"s finances were solid. Donna was spending eighty hours a week doing BAD RAP work, which had caused her art career to all but disappear, so she finally began taking a salary. Tim maintained a successful business carving wooden replicas of people"s family pets, but he was slowed by the forty hours a week he spent on BAD RAP, so the following year he too accepted a small salary for his efforts.
From the beginning they had followed the Vick case closely, trying to figure out a way to help. In early June, about six weeks after the initial raid at Moonlight Road, Reynolds heard that the Humane Society was stepping in to handle the animals. She was ecstatic. She had a relationship with HSUS and had recently worked with them in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. BAD RAP had come in to help rescue some of the hundreds of dogs that were abandoned or lost during the storm. Tim and Donna had brought their typical approach, saving the best and putting down those that were suffering or unable to present the breed in a positive light. Reynolds felt this practical approach had won them some favor with HSUS and the federal government; it proved they weren"t weak-kneed apologists incapable of making hard decisions.
As soon as she heard the HSUS news, Reynolds raced to her computer and started typing a proposal. Nine pages later she had outlined her group"s history, its success adopting out household pets, and its track record providing candidates for law enforcement work. Finally, the proposal laid out a plan to individually evaluate each of the Vick dogs. She was certain at least a few of them would be worthy of saving if only they were given a chance-and if they didn"t linger too long in the shelters. She finished writing at 5:00 A.M., walked the envelope to the mailbox, and dropped it in.
Nothing. She got no response. But she stuck with it. When the federal government took over the case she poked around the legal filings until she came across Mike Gill"s name. She printed out another copy of her proposal and mailed it to him. It landed on Gill"s desk about the same time he was consulting Dr. Z about what would become of the dogs. Gill was struck by the similarity of the approach advocated by BAD RAP, so he pa.s.sed the proposal on to Zawistowski. Dr. Z had never met Donna and Tim but he was familiar with their work, so when he sat down to put together his team of expert evaluators, he included them on the list.
Now, eight years and more than four hundred rescued pit bulls after they began, Donna Reynolds and Tim Racer were on their way to a secure government meeting where they would take their places on a secret committee of experts a.s.sembled to a.s.sess the victims of what was already the most notable and important dogfighting case in history.
17.
AS STEV E ZAW ISTOWSKI CALLED to order the first meeting of his hand-picked pit bull evaluation team, he felt like a character in a movie. Although the meeting was taking place in the nondescript conference room of a suburban Radisson, the s.p.a.ce contained armed federal agents. Gag orders had been signed, and U.S. marshals waited outside to secret the team off on its mission. to order the first meeting of his hand-picked pit bull evaluation team, he felt like a character in a movie. Although the meeting was taking place in the nondescript conference room of a suburban Radisson, the s.p.a.ce contained armed federal agents. Gag orders had been signed, and U.S. marshals waited outside to secret the team off on its mission.
Dr. Z hadn"t expected any of that. In fact, he"d been working hard to keep his expectations in check. The number he had in his head was 10 percent. He believed in animals. He"d studied their abilities and tested their limits. He"d seen them overcome incredible things. He thought, as the meeting began, if they could save 10 percent of the remaining dogs, it would be a noteworthy achievement.
They were down to forty-nine. In the original raid fifty-one pit bulls were seized. Since then, two had died while in custody, although little was known about how or why and likely never would be. But 10 percent of forty-nine was five dogs, and Dr. Z held out hope for that many.
He was not alone. On the plane ride to Richmond, Reynolds and Racer had set a goal of five. They thought they would be able to find five workable, adoptable dogs. Almost no one in the room dreamed of a number higher, and some wondered if there would be any. The words of HSUS president and CEO Wayne Pacelle kept ringing in their ears: "Our people have evaluated these dogs, and they"re some of the most viciously trained dogs in the country. . . ."
The high-profile nature of the situation intensified the meaning. There could be no accidents, no oops moments. These dogs would be cheered, feared, written about, spied on, and watched for years. They would set precedents and establish boundaries for what was and was not possible, not only for pit bulls rescued from fight operations but for pit bulls as a breed.
Public outcry had helped get the Vick dogs this far, but now public perception would work against them. The simple truth was that most people were afraid of pit bulls. The breed had been portrayed as uncontrollable and bloodthirsty, liable to go off at any time, on anyone, for any reason-or for no reason at all.
The pit bull"s history suggested the opposite. The breed descended from a type of dog developed centuries ago to take on large game-deer, boar, bear-and evolved into working dogs on English farms and in butcher shops called bull dogs. (They were different from what we know today as the English bulldog.) They earned their keep at slaughter time by latching on to the nose of a hog or a cow or a loose bull and hanging on for all they were worth until the farmer could move in and make the kill. The dogs that were the best at this task had a strong neck and jaw, a wide mouth with a slight underbite, and a nose that allowed them to breathe while they were holding on. As farmers and butchers bred the more successful dogs, these traits became more prominent.
Before long, showmen set up exhibitions pitting the dogs against bulls or bears. Could these fierce little dogs take down bigger, stronger opponents simply by latching onto their snouts and refusing to let go? The public was charged admission and betting was encouraged. The stubborn bull dogs won as much as they lost, and the spectacle became quite popular. But bull baiting and bear baiting were banned in 1835.
For some, the show had to go on, so the dogs were pitted against one another, but they were not built for the task. They lacked the aggressive impulse to go after one another. So terrier blood was introduced. Small dogs bred to catch rats and other vermin, terriers are known for their speed, energy, and heightened inclination to chase and attack other animals.
The result was the Staffordshire bull terrier, a muscular and agile athlete dog that had an especially strong jaw and neck, an indefatigable will, and a strong chase instinct. They were apt fighters, but they were more than fighting dogs. They still worked the farm alongside the farmer, still guarded the house, still played with the kids in the yard.
As dogfighting grew in popularity, the dogs were further refined for the purpose. The best fighters-the most aggressive and skilled-were bred to one another to enhance those traits in future generations. But as much as the dog men wanted the animals to be aggressive toward one another, they wanted them to be amenable to people. Dogfighters stay in the ring during the fight and occasionally have to separate or handle the combatants, so the dogs had to be sensitive enough to people that even during the heat of battle they would not turn on the men in the ring. Any dog that did so was put down immediately, and if not, it certainly was not bred.
So even as they became better fighters, these dogs became friendlier and more responsive to people. There are few breeds in the world that thrive more on human attention. The desire to please, to get the pat on the head, is part of what drives them to persist in the pit.
It is also why they were always known as great family pets. In the 1800s the breed had a nickname in Great Britain: nanny dogs, because they were so great with children. Petey of The Little Rascals The Little Rascals, a Staffordshire terrier, was said to have been chosen specifically because the producers wanted a dog that would be good around the kids. Buster Brown"s dog, Tige, was also a pit bull, as was World War I hero Stubby, who helped sniff out German spies and find wounded soldiers as part of the 102nd Infantry.
When Staffordshire terriers came to the United States, they were inevitably crossbred with local dogs, and eventually developed into a distinct breed that became known as the American pit bull terrier, a dog that was nearly identical but slightly less stocky than its British cousin. The Staffordshire bull terrier was originally another name for the pit bull, but it has now evolved into a closely related breed of its own.
In any of those iterations, this dog"s once-friendly reputation has been largely forgotten in the last thirty years. In the 1980s the number of pit bulls grew and as it did so did the number of pit bull incidents. Combined with their fighting past, the dogs quickly earned a bad reputation, and when a few savage maulings took place, they became outright pariahs. Suddenly, any pit bull incident became the equivalent of a shark attack, guaranteeing a flush of screaming headlines and creating an urban mythology.
Now, the nine members of the Z team would have to single out-from a pack of dogs raised in a fighting operation and locked up in kennels for four months-dogs that would disprove the public"s basic beliefs about the breed. Maybe the idea of saving four or five dogs was asking too much.
Before any of them even landed in Virginia, the evaluation team had used a series of conference calls to arrive at certain conclusions. For starters, pit bulls, and fighting dogs in particular, were always at risk of being stolen by other dogfighters. In the early days of the Vick dogs" incarceration, deputies stood guard outside the various shelters each night. If the evaluation team was going to consider putting any of those dogs back into the general population, it had to account for the possibility of the dogs falling into the wrong hands. To reduce any temptation, the team decided that any dog not put down at the end of the process would have to be spayed or neutered, which would make them less appealing to fighters in two ways. First, there would be no chance to make money breeding them, and second, a fixed dog can be less likely to fight. They also agreed that each dog would have a microchip implanted between its shoulders, making it instantly and permanently identifiable.
As far as the actual evaluations, the team had hammered out the series of temperament tests they would perform on the dogs to determine which ones had the potential to become family pets. It was not always a comfortable discussion. The ASPCA team members took more of an academic-scientific approach that was based on years of study and supplemented by field work. They proposed a bank of ten tests.
First was a simple observation of the dog"s overall demeanor. As each dog was brought into the testing area, the team would note if it was calm, happy, nervous, sad, aggressive, or anything else. In the second step an evaluator would approach the dog in a neutral way and gauge its reaction. Then the tester would begin petting the dog, first gently and then in more heavy-handed way. If all that went well, they would try something more invasive. Maybe a light pinch between toes would get a reaction?
The tester would approach the dog with a playful and excited voice to see if the dog would comprehend the opportunity and respond accordingly. Whether or not it did, the tester would then break out a tug toy, a ring or a rope, and let the dog latch on to one end and engage in a playful tug of war. The key moments came at the beginning and end of the game. Would the dog play and, if it did, would it let go when the game was over?
Then the really tricky part of the evaluation came. First a dog would be given food, and while it ate, someone would approach. They"d pet its body, then its head, and eventually would touch the bowl to see if the dog protected its food in an aggressive way. This was such a common problem for any dog that testers usually used a rubber prosthetic hand to carry it out. Oddly, though, food protection was seldom an issue for fighting dogs. Still, the fake hand would be used.
Next, they"d give the dog something it would really love, a treat or a tasty chewable item, such as a pig"s ear or a piece of rawhide, and try to take that away, all the while observing the dog"s reaction. After that, it would be presented with a very lifelike stuffed dog to test if it was animal aggressive. Finally, the dog would be shown a doll that resembled a human child. Obviously, any sort of aggressive reaction would mean certain death for the dog.
Donna Reynolds and Tim Racer liked most of what the ASPCA members proposed but they had their own evaluation system, developed during their ten years working with the breed, especially a four-year period when they were paid to a.s.sess all the pit bulls that came through the city shelter in Berkeley, California. It was a hands-on system supplemented by research.
BAD RAP preferred to begin the evaluation at the side of the pen, where they observed the dog"s behavior as it was approached. Did it cower in the corner, approach the gate and sit, wag its tail? Did it jump up and down, did it growl and show teeth? They also liked the "blow test," which involved lightly blowing in the dog"s face. For whatever reason, they"d found that most pit bulls loved this and took it as an invitation for face-to-face contact, but a more negative or neutral reaction could indicate a dog that was less people-friendly.
Reynolds and Racer also wanted to see each dog interact with not only a fake dog, but with other live dogs, one of each gender. Racer argued that testing with live dogs was more telling of how the Vick dogs would react in the real world. He also favored a "push test," in which he would start out gently and playfully pushing a dog and build up to the point where he was giving it a good shove that sent it back a few feet to see how it would react. He felt it added a little more certainty about the dog"s demeanor.
In the end, the two approaches were not that far apart and a compromise was easily reached. They would use both live dogs and stuffed dogs in the evaluations. And outside the ASPCA tests, BAD RAP could do their own additional tests, including the blow test and the push test.
In the conference room they went over everything one last time and ran through the a.s.sessment sheets that they would use to score each dog. They split into two groups, but they would all go to the first evaluation together, so they could compare notes on their observations and make sure everyone was grading on a coordinated scale. Outside, they ducked into unmarked cars and U.S. marshals whisked them off into the afternoon heat. Dr. Z was hopeful that the good guys would win. After all, they only needed to rescue 10 percent of the victims to save the day.
18.
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING Tim Racer prepared to test the first dog. He was at the Hanover shelter and before him were the eleven dogs that had started out in Surry County before being transferred here. Racer approached a black dog with a white belly that was sitting in the back of an upper-level kennel. If the pup looked familiar to Racer it was because a week earlier the officer in charge of the facility had broken the court"s gag order and let the Tim Racer prepared to test the first dog. He was at the Hanover shelter and before him were the eleven dogs that had started out in Surry County before being transferred here. Racer approached a black dog with a white belly that was sitting in the back of an upper-level kennel. If the pup looked familiar to Racer it was because a week earlier the officer in charge of the facility had broken the court"s gag order and let the New York Times New York Times and New York and New York Daily News Daily News in to see the dogs. The in to see the dogs. The Times Times had run a large photo of this little fellow, with his soft eyes and uncertain stare, beneath a headline that read MENACING DOGS FROM VICK CASE AWAIT THEIR FATE. had run a large photo of this little fellow, with his soft eyes and uncertain stare, beneath a headline that read MENACING DOGS FROM VICK CASE AWAIT THEIR FATE.
The media lapse had angered everyone on the case and earned the officer, Kevin Kilgore, a USDA Grade A reaming from Jim Knorr, so on this day Kilgore was being especially helpful. When he saw Racer hesitate before the pen, trying to figure out how to climb up and gently coax the dog out, he offered to help. As Racer remembers, he grabbed a noose pole, a long rod with a retractable loop at the end. It"s usually used to corral animals that show signs of aggression, although it"s sometimes also used during routine operations as a matter of protocol.
No such protocol ruled this day and the dog was, if anything, rather timid, but Kilgore snared him around the neck and lifted him out of the kennel. Racer was horrified as the dog swung from the pole, gagging. He charged forward and caught the little guy in midair. "You know what," he said, "I don"t need any more help. I"ll get the dogs myself."
He carried the dog outside and placed him on the pavement. The heat was oppressive, 95 degrees and humid. The dog immediately pancaked flat on the ground. The evaluators ran through the first few tests. Nothing. The dog didn"t move. He absolutely was not aggressive toward people. In fact, he was nonresponsive. Racer continued the tests, as a matter of due diligence and because the team thought it might give them some sort of baseline from which to judge the other dogs.
Chew toys, play games, food-nothing roused the dog. Finally, Racer went back into the shelter. He approached another Vick dog that was friendly and eager to please but not too enthusiastic. He put that dog on a leash and took it outside. As soon as he did, the black dog lying on the ground perked up.
He rose to meet the other dog, his tail wagging. They sniffed each other"s faces and backsides; they began to play a bit. Racer took the test dog back inside and reappeared with a similarly well mannered female dog. The black-and-white dog responded to that one equally well. He was fully engaged now. The opportunity to interact with the other dogs had pulled him out of his sh.e.l.l.
The team reran all the tests, and this time the dog performed well. He wasn"t perfect-he looked at the pull toy like it was an alien ship and he didn"t quite know what to make of the shoving game-but he didn"t react violently. It was clear the dog had a lot to learn, but Racer felt sure that with some work he would make a great house pet and help change people"s minds about pit bulls. As Racer took up the leash and got ready to take the dog back into the shelter, he looked at Reynolds. "We"re one for one," he said.
The next dog was the little female Racer had used to test the first dog. She looked a lot like the first dog, small and black with white highlights, and she performed even better. She breezed through the tests, and before long Racer was smiling up at Reynolds: "Two for two."
The next few dogs performed similarly and before Racer even turned to Reynolds and said, "We got our five," the whole atmosphere of the day had changed. At the start of the morning there had been a notable tension in the air. Everyone expected the worst, and even if they held out a glimmer of hope, they fought to suppress it.
They"d all put down dogs before. None of them liked the task, and it was that much harder if there was any sort of emotional attachment. Better to a.s.sume that things wouldn"t work out. Everything they"d heard made them think they had little reason to hope for anything better and that infused the proceedings with a certain "let"s get it over with" sense of resignation.
But as the first dogs went through the battery of tests, the mood lightened. As each dog was led out, the question in the air changed from "What now?" to "Hey, let"s see what we get this time."
The highlight of the day-one evaluations came before the team left Hanover. Racer approached a large dog with deep scars across his chest. A big guy, he sat at the gate of his kennel, his tail beating a steady rhythm on the floor. As Racer approached, the dog alternately lifted his front feet, as if he were a dancing horse. He stood up and then sat back down. Finally, Racer knelt before his gate. He spoke in a flowing singsong and put his fingers up against the chain link. The scarred dog sniffed and then licked the fingers.
Racer blew in the dog"s face, and he vacuumed up the scent, twitching his nose and moving his snout to and fro as he followed the aroma. He pressed his snout against the gate and tried to lick Racer"s face. As Racer took the dog from the kennel and started walking him across the floor, the scarred dog showed no fear or trepidation, pulling ahead, not even looking at the other dogs that barked and whined around him. He moved straight toward the door at the far side of the room.
Outside, the scarred dog tried to greet the other people that stood there, but the leash held him back. Instead he followed Racer to the center of the courtyard and stood there panting from the heat, tail working back and forth like a windshield wiper. He waited.
What came next was petting and playing and eating. This dog didn"t care if someone put a hand in his bowl, and he didn"t care if someone tried to pull his rawhide away. He wasn"t giving it up, but he wasn"t mad about it, either.
He perked up when other dogs came out. He circled to one side as he approached them, sniffing the ground first and then sniffing up the dog"s front leg and down his body. He was happy to be with the other dogs and happy to joust as Racer pushed him. He bounded back toward Racer and waited for the next shove, giving a little play bark.
When they showed him the baby doll, he approached slowly and sniffed it up and down. His tail wagged. He raised his head and licked it. Right on the face.
Racer and the others examined the network of deep scars that crisscrossed his chest and front legs. They knew so little about him. What he"d seen and done, where he"d been. It was possible those marks came from something other than fighting. Perhaps he"d tried to climb a barbed wire fence or been dragged by a vehicle. But considering where he"d come from, it was a safe bet that he had been through some serious battles. But for whatever reason, the remnants were strictly physical. Emotionally and psychologically he had remained unscarred. Even through the months of confinement, he"d kept it together. That was probably not a coincidence. He was a little older than many of the other remaining dogs and he clearly had a lot of experiences. He must have had numerous encounters with people. He must have been trained and handled a lot.
If he was still alive he must have been successful in the pit, which meant he"d received a lot of positive reinforcement. He probably lived in the kennels closer to the house where he heard and saw people more frequently. His personality would have been fully developed and he would"ve had a good idea of who he was.
Still, it was mindboggling. He clearly had to have been a fighter, but here he was now, playful and gentle as a poodle. He liked people. He liked other dogs. He responded appropriately to each in a variety of situations. Would that hold up in the real world? Could he live with people and other dogs without a problem, without something causing him to snap, as PETA contended would happen? Dr. Z"s team of experts thought he would do fine. They thought the scarred dog was a rock star.
They led him back to his pen. After the gate closed he stood with his face against it and watched them walk away. He barked at them.
19.
DOGS HAVE BEEN COMING and going all morning. The brown dog-Suss.e.x 2602-lies flat in her pen watches them go by. Some prance by on leashes, some walk with uncertainty, some have to be carried. Now, it is her turn. A man squats outside her pen. He look at her through the gate and makes soft noises. He sticks a finger through the chain link and wiggles it slowly. and going all morning. The brown dog-Suss.e.x 2602-lies flat in her pen watches them go by. Some prance by on leashes, some walk with uncertainty, some have to be carried. Now, it is her turn. A man squats outside her pen. He look at her through the gate and makes soft noises. He sticks a finger through the chain link and wiggles it slowly.
The brown dog shifts back and forth, lifts her head, and sniffs the air; her tail lifts to the side and then flops back down. She settles, shrinking even farther into the corner of her pen so that her hind leg and one side press against the fencing.
She freezes and hopes that the man will leave. She"s done this many times, and she knows that when she simply ignores them they will often go away. Sometimes, they don"t. Sometimes, they will pull her out. This man is not going away. He is still there, still speaking softly.
He opens the gate. The brown dog"s heart begins to race. The man sits on one side and leans his head and shoulders into the pen, but he does not reach forward to grab her collar. He rests on an elbow and continues cooing. The sounds are gentle and flowing and for a moment the brown dog can block out the barking that fills the background like daylight and concentrate just on the sounds the man is making. There is peace in that.
She can catch whiffs of his breath, too, and the sweet moist scent provides further distraction. He slides a little farther forward, still talking. The brown dog shifts again. She raises and lowers her head. Her tail thumps the ground once. The man is very close now. Close enough to reach out and grab her if he wanted to. Her body begins to tremble.
He blows in her face. She sniffs then licks her snout and turns away. The man reaches toward her head, still talking. She ducks, pulls her neck in and presses her chin against the ground. His hand keeps coming. It touches her head. He strokes a few times. She lets out a little whine. He keeps at it for a minute or two, then reaches out with his other hand. He places one hand under each of her shoulders, then lifts and slides her out.
He is carrying her across the room, past the cages where the other dogs sit or stand and bark. He is heading-they are heading-for the rectangle of light cut into the far wall. The barking seemes to intensify as they near the door. The dogs at the end of line of kennels jump up and stand on their hind legs, pressing their front paws against the chain, barking and barking.
Finally, they duck through the door and the world changes. Smells rush up from the ground. The sky stretches above them. The barking recedes into the background. The brown dog sniffs enthusiastically, then blows a little air out through her nose.
The man puts her on the ground. She lies down flat. It is hard concrete like the floors inside and she can smell some of the other dogs that have been here, too. Other people stand around looking at her. Behind and around them are other fences like the ones that make up her cage. It is incredibly hot and the people gather in the sliver of shade near the building.
The brown dog feels the heat press down on her. She likes it, she feels like it hugs her and pushes her even farther down into the concrete. She looks at the trees in the distance.
The same man who came to her pen appears before her. He begins petting her. At first just a little, then more. She continues to look at the trees. She can smell them and she remembers the trees from the clearing. She remembers the squirrels and the rabbits and the heavy chain around her neck.
The man is in front of her now, bouncing a little, excitement in his voice. She lifts her head for the briefest instant. He claps and encourages but she puts her head back down. She moves it only a few times. When he puts a bowl of food in front of her, she sniffs but does not eat. When other dogs are brought out, she looks at them with both wariness and curiosity. Her tail swishes a few times and she shuffles forward on the pavement, craning her neck to get a sniff, but that is it.