Bandit: The Heart-Warming True Story of One Dog's Rescue from Death Row by Hearne Vicki

Author:Hearne, Vicki [Hearne, Vicki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2011-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

There is no end to the topic of dog bites in the sense of an “epidemic” or other Things We Do Not Want in Society, largely because there is no dog-bite problem to speak of in this country. It is a nontopic and therefore endless.

There are real topics that entail an understanding of what happens when a dog’s mouth opens and then closes with something human between the teeth, but they are not topics that can be introduced here. Dog bites are real—I am not saying they are not—and it really is important to diminish the chances of dog bites, but the sort of thing that would genuinely help is not the sort of thing that occurs to bureaucrats or humane societies. This is partly because the language in question is confusing. The term “epidemic,” for example, suggests a causal model. AIDS is caused by a virus that can enter the body in certain ways. Flus and colds are caused by airborne viruses. Rabies can be prevented by a vaccine. Dog bites are caused by—

This is where the medical analogy leads us astray, because we expect a noun or noun phrase to appear after the preposition “by.” But dog bites are a social phenomenon, a function of complex interactions, agreements and disagreements between people and dogs. A dog bite may be a form of communication. It may also be a breakdown in communication. It is, in part, a grammatical problem, like divorce.

I could say that the cure for dog bites is community, social enrichment, flexibility, public trust, and I could mean something by it, but it would take a book or two to talk about what I mean by it, since the cure for dog bites is: happiness.

The topic of dog bites includes the topic of the happiness of police dogs, and this topic is related to the topic of guide dogs. Most of the German Shepherds on the state police in Connecticut are donated by Fidelco, a company that breeds and trains guide dogs. The same qualities that make a good guide dog make a good police dog. That is to say, judgment, and the kind of work in which judgment is expressed as the happiness of competence.

As for Puller, other search dogs, dogs of happiness and in fact devotion and in fact courage—all of that Lassie and Rin Tin Tin stuff—that is real, that is true, that actually exists. It is not in the ken of the state, at least not the state in the persons of anyone I have met at the State Office Building. Some of them know this.

There are people who are experts in the exact details of many rich landscapes of animal happiness. Dick Koehler, for instance, who flew from California to testify in late July 1988. Left his business and flew out here, and at one point had a small conversation with one of the state’s “experts.” Who said, after the conversation, “I’m sorry, I can’t help with this case. Koehler knows too much about dogs.

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