The trouble with pitbulls

In spring of 1995 I was living in a rental room on an alley west of my university. The room was attached to a sprawling home that had once been a sorority house. I had a bathroom, a twin bed, a microwave and a nosy landlady. Between 18 credits of classes, working a part-time job, and writing articles for the student newspaper I was rarely home.

One Sunday, I was sitting hunched over my Macintosh finishing a term paper. My north window, which held a view of an 8-foot wooden fence, was open and birds were chirping. I had my front door open to let in the light breeze. The fraternity house across the alley was waking up from a kegger the night before. One of the frat boy's girlfriends was in the sunlit alley loading stuff into her Volkswagen Jetta. I heard her talking to her boyfriend. She had a miniature schnauzer sniffing at the ground near the car. She went back into the frat house for a few minutes and the schnauzer stayed in the alley doing what small dogs do, sniffing everything.

The schnauzer wandered over to my side of the alley and stood in the dappled shade under the elm trees staring up at the intimidating 8-foot fence just north of my rental. Somehow the schnauzer wiggled under the fence and into the backyard.

                                             (Similar to what my neighbor's dog looked like).

I'd never met the couple that lived in the big house just north of me but I'd seen them once or twice: married, blondish and in their forties. They had a big dog which they never walked or took anywhere. I'd overheard the frat guys talking about it. It was a pitbull-St Bernard mix, big as a truck. It had gotten out once a few years back and chased one of the frats for several blocks while he was riding his mountain bike. He'd barely escaped.

The unspoken rule was: don't bang on the wooden fence, don't lean against the fence and don't throw anything in the yard, like a Frisbee. 

I heard the big dog bark, more of a rolling growl that echoed. The schnauzer barked back but it was a quick, surprised Oh shit, I gotta go! bark. Then I heard frantic scratching noises as the schnauzer tried to find the gap he'd shimmied under and get back out to the alley.

Next, the screaming started.

First the girl ran out of the back of the frat house and leaped at the 8-foot fence pulling herself up and paddling against the wood screaming, "Toby! Oh my God, TOBY!"

And the schnauzer was screaming. Not barking, not growling, not howling but screaming like a small child in agony. For a brief moment, the schnauzer got free and bolted for the back patio which had a table and a red umbrella I could just see over the top of the fence. There was the crashing of patio furniture as the pitbull-St Bernard barreled through it intent on his prey.

More screaming. It went on … and on. By now at least two frat guys had joined the girl clinging to the 8-foot fence. One grabbed an empty garbage can and balanced on it.

"Shit, TOBY!"

The girl was sobbing, pacing the alley in her flip flops and tight pink shorts. She screamed and bent over clutching her waist like she was going to be literally sick with grief.

Then the other noises started. There was a wet pop and then greedy chewing noises. The pitbull-St Bernard was eating the schnauzer and he was still slightly alive, making a soft noise halfway between a wheeze and a wail.

One of the frat guys came jogging back down the alley. He'd been around to the front of the house and tried knocking on the door but the couple weren't home. It was a Sunday, they probably had errands.

Another of the frats bent over the crumpled girl sobbing in the alley. I heard him say "We can ask for the body when they get home."

"What body, Joey?!" she screamed up at him. And then softly: "It's eating him."

About an hour later -- or maybe it was a hundred hours later -- the couple came home. One of the frat guys walked around to the west side and talked to the blonde man.

A few minutes later the couple's back door slid open and I heard the wife gasp, "Oh my God."

I heard the husband say, "Take him into the garage."

"But he's covered in blood." 

"Just do it."

With the pitbull-St Bernard secured in the garage, the husband opened the tall wooden back gate which had a padlock on it. He was a medium-build man with callused hands in a T-shirt and cargo shorts. He had a buzz haircut and a cigarette tucked behind one ear. He looked like he worked outside with circular saws and hammers.

"You want in?" He asked one of the frat guys.

The frat, whose girlfriend had owned the schnauzer, stepped into the backyard and said, "Fuck me". He turned to one of his fraternity brothers and said, "Looks like someone was murdered."

Apparently the bottom of the wooden fence, nearly all the way around was painted in the schnauzer's blood.

The man asked the frat if he wanted the schnauzer's collar to give to the girl. He said 'no' and backed out of the yard.

"Yeah," the blonde man said lighting a cigarette, "He's a mean one. That's why I always say don't throw nuthin' in here or set him off."

He looked at the girl who was sitting in her Jetta sobbing. "Sorry, hon." The blonde man turned and went back into his yard carefully shutting and locking the gate behind him.

The noises that dying schnauzer made that day have haunted me for 25 years. It's the soundtrack for every nightmare I've had since then.

I would not have traded places with that girl and those two frat boys for a million dollars. Seriously, if you put a million dollars at my feet and told me all I had to do to earn it was travel back in time to 1995 and peak over that fence, I would say no thanks. 

And I'm someone who has helped skin deer and assisted with the butchering of a steer on a ranch.

I grew up around big dogs. We had 110-pound golden retrievers when I was little. My oldest brother had a constant herd of Airedales, Dobermans, Vizslas, Rhodesian ridgebacks, Labradors, huskies -- you name it. 

I would no more own a pitbull-St Bernard mix than I would an African crocodile. That’s like keeping a .357 magnum in your room at the retirement home because you’re worried someone will steal your Ensure.

About six years after this, I was walking down from that same neighborhood -- different apartment -- toward downtown Reno. A Hispanic kid, about 18-years-old, was strolling up Ralston Street toward me. He had a pitbull, it was maybe 98 pounds. Of course, it was an un-neutered male. Of course, it had only a collar on, no muzzle, and the kid was letting it tow him up the sidewalk on a rope. I altered my course and walked out into the street putting parked cars between myself and the punk with the super-sized pit. The pit lunged and snapped, the foot-wide jaws opening and closing like a bear trap. The kid laughed and kept going. Of course. 

You could say the girl should never have left her little dog alone for a minute. 

You could say the blonde guy and his wife had every right to own a dangerous dog to deter crime and they were thoughtful enough to keep said monster restrained behind an 8-foot fence. I'm 100-percent sure no tweakers ever tried to break into their house otherwise I would have seen it on the evening news. There would have been a body bag.

Close your eyes. Try to imagine what I heard that day. Try to imagine what a small dog sounds like when it screams because it's dying, because it's being dismembered.

Now imagine it's a child, a random 4-year-old kid in a dirty T-shirt, on a tricycle who just came around the wrong corner on the wrong day in the wrong neighborhood and ran into the macho kid with the 98-pound pitbull.

Imagine what that would sound like.