Buster -- a Good Dog Gone Bad ?

There's been a run of bad luck in my building. First one of my neighbors lost her Bernese Mountain Dog to cancer at only five years old. Then another neighbor lost her Great Pyrenees, also to cancer. With the dog being thirteen my neighbor thought she was prepared for her dog to go, as that is old for the breed. But of course you never are prepared.

Although she was really a good dog she was not popular in the building because she was large and territorial with a deep basso bark, as you would expect from a dog bred to protect cattle and property from large predators in the mountains. She loved cats, but hated the interloper Hamilton. She was possibly an odd choice for a pet given the apartment living lifestyle of
Manhattan. But then on one of my walks with Hamilton I came across another Great Pyrenees and this dog was quiet and welcoming, issuing no threats to either Hamilton or myself. What differentiated the two dogs?

Recently someone mentioned to me that he would never have a dog. He had put down two dogs, a Rottweiler and a German Shepherd, because both had attacked his wife and children. These breeds are known to be intelligent and very protective of their pack and territory. Why would they turn on people their instincts would tell them to protect?

I had had my own experience with a dog that I thought was friendly and playful. Buster was a Fox Terrier mix. My father adopted him to give my mother some comfort around the house. We lived a block from the old Union Stockyards in Chicago. When I was a child Chicago still was hog butcher to the world. With that claim came all the attendant collateral damage, primarily rodents... rats actually, often as big as cats. They would wander from the stockyards down the alley and make their way into yards and often burrow under foundations and get inside homes, at least in between the walls.

My mother gave up on hanging her laundry outside because of the odors from the packing plants. Instead she hung them up in the attic, which worked fine until a rat poked itself out from between the eaves. The discussion with my father about that experience lead to Buster becoming part of our family.

My mother went nowhere in the house or attic without him. He had a sixth sense about rats. He anticipated a rat's appearance and before the rat knew it he was on it, his jaws locked around its neck, jerking his head until the vertebrae snapped. Once, out in the yard, he followed a rat down a hole under the garage, enlarging it furiously with his front paws until only his tail showed above the grass. He finally pulled back and reappeared with the luckless vermin in his jaw. He pranced around the yard with the rat jerking in his teeth. After his victory lap he abruptly jerked his head back and forth and the rat slumped quietly in his mouth.

My father must have thought it harmless to let me think that Buster was my dog. I was five years old and learning about life from Golden Books and comics. On television were Lassie and Rin Tin Tin. And wherever there was a dog there was a little boy just like me beside him. Of course those boys were portrayed as feeding, training and working with their dogs. I was doing none of this.

If Buster was not guarding my mother he was out on the back porch where his food and water bowl were kept. Although the porch was enclosed, my mother usually kept the door closed between it and our kitchen. If she needed Buster she would open the door and call him or go out and get him on her way to the attic. My interaction with Buster was close to zero. With my father's supervision maybe I would lightly pet him. But my mother did not share my father's indulgence of a boy and his dog. To her, Buster had one purpose, which he performed admirably.

Came the fateful day. I was on the porch unsupervised. A very rare occurrence by my memory. I was always with my mother. If she went shopping I went with her. If I was playing, she was in the room, cleaning, reading or just watching me. When she went to the attic with Buster I was left with my aunt who lived above us. How I came to be on the porch with Buster unsupervised I can't imagine.

He was eating. Maybe my mother had just finished feeding him and forgot momentarily that I was out on the porch or she became otherwise distracted, possibly by something cooking on the stove. In any case I decided this would be a good time to pet Buster like I always did with my father. Buster had other ideas. He was eating. Sharing his food with a stranger, and surely he saw me as that, was not a Fox Terrier's protocol, or any dog's for that matter.

He moved as quickly towards me as he did the rats. He lept and caught my lip with his teeth. I still have the scar. I yelled out and began to cry. Buster went back to his food. My mother rushed out ashen faced.

I was rushed to the hospital where I was given a tetanus shot. My father arrived from work. He and my mother had one of their quiet conversations. The next day I asked where Buster was. My father told me he had run away. A five year old believes his father. I did not miss Buster. I know he did not miss me. Some how my mother adjusted to the rats without him. It may have helped that the stockyards were winding down in Chicago and taking the rats with them to their new location out west.

I hope Buster was happy in his new home. He only did what his upbringing and instincts led him to do. After my conversation about the two dogs that had been put down I thought about Buster and wondered if my father had brought him to the pound. If so, he would have been put down too. It would be blood on my hands.