True Dog Stories for Young Readers

By Tom Bielavitz

When I was an infant my parents took a puppy in and named it Sugar. It was a small, terrier type. It loved my father greatly, and was very obedient. However, Sugar took to backing my mother into a corner, baring it's teeth and growling. Sugar became more aggressive, especially when I was the center of attention. My mother had to carry a small baseball bat to beat it off. Finally, she convinced my father to give it away, but they had a hard time doing so. It seems no one wanted a full grown pit bull.

Years later we got another dog, a pointer mutt we called Bronco. As Bronco aged, he had many health problems; arthritis, cancer lumps, and ears that would fill with fluid. The epilepsy was the worst, though. He was a large dog, and during the seizures his hind legs would stretch forward, past his nose. His tongue would hang out, salivating, and his eyes would glaze much like a human epileptic (except the part about his legs stretching forward). I was about ten years old and it was disturbing to watch: he would scoot around backwards, and then, suddenly, he would flip backwards, his hind legs acting like the spring on a mousetrap. Since we lived in a small apartment, and he was about three feet tall, furniture and stuff would be thrown about the room. Once he lost control of his bowels. The worst part was to look into his eyes and see the shame he felt after the seizures. It became obvious that his accumulation of health problems was paining him. My dad thought it was cruel to make an animal suffer, so we decided to put Bronco to sleep. I watched as the vet put the needle into his leg, as he stretched, closed his eyes, and died.

While riding my bike over a small bridge about 10 miles from home, I noticed a dog, a german shepherd, in an unusual position; he was hanging from a tree. Upon further inspection I decided he was hanging from a hook jammed into the roof of his mouth. Also, he had been gutted, kind of like a bear skin rug you might see in a cartoon, so that his head, back, and front paws were intact, but his hindquarters were removed. I wasn't allowed in that town at that age, so I didn't say anything.

In college, I visited a friend's home during winter break. He had a small toy dog that also had problems. It had lost an eye to a tumor, so all that remained was a hole with an open sore above it that collected lint, hair, and dirt in it, complete with oozing mucous. The dog's other eye was cataracted; it had a heart stutter, and asthma. When it would bark it would begin to wheeze, which would cause it to fart involuntarily. It would just wheeze, and fart, wheeze. and fart. Once, I saw it in the back yard barking at a neighbor's dog when it went into one of these fits and fell over sideways, rolling for a few revolutions down a small hill.

I was living in a boarding house with about sixteen other men, and I decided to take in an elkhound that was going to be put to sleep. His tail curved strangely, and he came with the name Clue. Although he was meant as a common house pet, he became very attached to me, and would sleep outside my door, and growl at visitors. When my girlfriend came over, he would nuzzle in between us.

A guy down the hall named Pete didn't like Clue, and would often taunt him. I think Clue knew I didn't like Pete either. One night Pete and another guy, Steve, ate some LSD, snorted some coke, and drank for many hours. I wasn't around that night. At some time, Pete began sticking his head out the door and yelling "Party on, Clue!" When the dog would lunge forward, Pete would slam the door on his head and he and Steve would laugh from the other side. The next day, I heard the stories. When I went back to my room, I was looking for Clue to give him a biscuit or two. I walked to the second floor porch door just in time to see Clue dart from around the side of the house and sink his teeth into Pete's leg. He locked in, and shook his body fiercely, tearing Pete's flesh. I turned around and walked back to my room to get Clue his biscuit, listening to Pete screaming as I walked.

Pete now has four half-dollar sized holes in his left calf. He moved to Florida, and I haven't heard from him. I hope more of his life went the way of his flesh when his town got hit by Hurricane Andrew.

I've heard that when a dog gets the taste of blood, he'll bite again, and I believe it. A few weeks after the Pete incident, one of the men in the house decided to do some woodwork with a circular saw. It was about 9:30 am, and I had just finished three MD 20/20's mixed with Andre champagne when I heard him screaming. When I got to the back porch I saw that he had severed the upper half of his forearm down to the bone. I could see the striations of the muscle, and white cord things; ligaments, I guess. Blood had splattered across the porch flying from the spinning saw wheel. The safety guard didn't slide back, and the dope had crossed the saw across his body to put it down. Ironically, there is a warning on this particular saw telling the user not to set the tool down in this manner. Pictures are included, if English isn't your language.

I grabbed a bath towel, wrapped it around his arm, and dropped him at the hospital. I took my towel with me because the blood had made a nice Rorshach image I intended to hang on my wall. I put it on the fire escape to dry. Unfortunately, Clue tore it to shreds while it was still moist. A week later, Clue bit me, barely breaking the skin, and also leapt at a mailman's throat, although held back by his chain. I took Clue to the pound's night drop off with a note that he's a biter.

Sometime later in the same house another guy brought in a huge Golden Retriever named Buster. He was a good dog, but hated Meathead, the Black Lab next door. The day after Buster got fixed, he was lying on the second floor balcony sleeping with me. Meathead came outside and began barking at Buster; Buster began barking back. I don't know what went on between the two dogs--maybe Meathead called Buster a ball-less faggot. I do know that Buster jumped over the balcony railing, dropping 25 feet down to the parking lot. He landed without even a wince, and ran over to Meathead, who looked pretty surprised, for a dog. Buster proceeded to bite Meathead's fat head, until the owner ran over and began beating Buster over the head with a large stick. It took about six good whacks before he let go. At first, the guy hit him pretty lightly, but by the end he was winding back for some good swings. No shit.

After a year or so Buster left with whoever brought him, and I was suckered into another puppy I named Bob (a Black Lab). Bob, like most puppies, would eat anything and so we all took great enjoyment in checking his shit for interesting things--you know, crap we'd lost, like maybe a ring, or whatever. Once, while playing volleyball in the side dirt lot, I went to throw some of his shit aside by picking it up with a stick, but it fell into two pieces, held together by a used rubber. He had eaten someone's jitbag. I flung it, and the two hunks of shit spun like a bola.

Another time, I saw that Bob's meal for the day had included a pool cue (blue goo), a few rubber bands, some broken glass, and a walnut sized rock.

During the summer of Bob's youth we had a party at the house, which was very old and in terrible condition. There was a bathroom on the first floor, and another on the third. Girls mostly used the third floor, for the privacy and because the guys had pissed all over the seats downstairs. Late into the shindig, the upstairs bowl became clogged, but the women continued to use it to shit, piss, and even change their rags in. I know this because we didn't call a plumber for a week or so, and all that crap just sat in that bowl. Also, for a day after the party we neglected to tell Dave, a blind man, who continued to use the bowl. It always smelled bad up their, so he thought nothing of it. After a couple days, however, you would have to hold your breath to move around the third floor. When we finally got a plumber in, he filled up a five gallon bucket more than half way with the various ass puddings, and left it in the bathroom, where it stayed for another couple days. I finally moved it onto the third floor fire escape. It sat there for at least a week in the summer sun, until someone kicked it down into the lot below. One evening I found Bob into the bucket up to his shoulders. I yelled, and he lifted his head out, toilet paper stuck to his face, and looking mighty proud. I chased him out, but he had eaten it all.