Letters to the Editor
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I often wonder what happened...
...to a "pit bull"-type dog that someone once abandoned by tying him to the water spigot of the apartment building in which I was living at the time. I'd been hearing barking for much of the day, but was in the middle of doing some deadline-intensive work, so I never checked to see the cause. Finally, when done with the work, I went outside to see what it was. A group of perhaps a half-dozen kids, ranging from maybe 7-11 years old, were standing around the dog throwing stones at him. I shooed them away, asking them if they'd like stones thrown at them, and approached the dog with caution, if not trepidation. My grilfriend had come over, and I asked her to cook up a couple hot dogs for the dog (in hopes of curbing potential aggression, natch). I slid the hot dogs on a plate to the dog and eventually approached him in a crouch, hand out, palm turned inwards, so he could smell me and see I meant him no harm. Eventually, I was hugging the poor guy (despite the fact that he'd soiled himself because of his confinement all day), but had to leave to umpire a baseball game. Regrettably, I lived in a dog-unfriendly building, and I could not take him in.
When I returned from the game, Animal Control and the Chicago cops had finally responded to my calls and the calls of others, and were on scene to remove "the beast." I offered to assist, given the rapport I'd developed with the dog, but the cops, both with their hands on their guns, practically threatened me with arrest if I interceded on the dog's behalf. Eventually, the Animal Control guy was able to use his lasso-type thingie to corral the dog, who put up one hell of a fight, slamming repeatedly into the nearby wall and door in an attempt to escape the noose, but never attempting to attack his captor. After the drama played out, I heard from someone that one of my fellow apartment dwellers on that block had seen me with the dog, saw that he was not aggressive, and had expressed interest in adopting him once he'd been captured, and I truly hope that's how it played out.
While I don't agree with Father Flanagan of Boys Town's maxim that "There's no such thing as a bad boy," I do genuinely and wholeheartedly believe that there's no such thing as a bad dog, just bad owners.