The Lost Dogs (17 page)

Reynolds and Racer also wanted to see each dog interact with not only a fake dog, but with other live dogs, one of each gender. Racer argued that testing with live dogs was more telling of how the Vick dogs would react in the real world. He also favored a “push test,” in which he would start out gently and playfully pushing a dog and build up to the point where he was giving it a good shove that sent it back a few feet to see how it would react. He felt it added a little more certainty about the dog’s demeanor.

In the end, the two approaches were not that far apart and a compromise was easily reached. They would use both live dogs and stuffed dogs in the evaluations. And outside the ASPCA tests, BAD RAP could do their own additional tests, including the blow test and the push test.

In the conference room they went over everything one last time and ran through the assessment sheets that they would use to score each dog. They split into two groups, but they would all go to the first evaluation together, so they could compare notes on their observations and make sure everyone was grading on a coordinated scale. Outside, they ducked into unmarked cars and U.S. marshals whisked them off into the afternoon heat. Dr. Z was hopeful that the good guys would win. After all, they only needed to rescue 10 percent of the victims to save the day.

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING
Tim Racer prepared to test the first dog. He was at the Hanover shelter and before him were the eleven dogs that had started out in Surry County before being transferred here. Racer approached a black dog with a white belly that was sitting in the back of an upper-level kennel. If the pup looked familiar to Racer it was because a week earlier the officer in charge of the facility had broken the court’s gag order and let the
New York Times
and New York
Daily News
in to see the dogs. The
Times
had run a large photo of this little fellow, with his soft eyes and uncertain stare, beneath a headline that read MENACING DOGS FROM VICK CASE AWAIT THEIR FATE.

The media lapse had angered everyone on the case and earned the officer, Kevin Kilgore, a USDA Grade A reaming from Jim Knorr, so on this day Kilgore was being especially helpful. When he saw Racer hesitate before the pen, trying to figure out how to climb up and gently coax the dog out, he offered to help. As Racer remembers, he grabbed a noose pole, a long rod with a retractable loop at the end. It’s usually used to corral animals that show signs of aggression, although it’s sometimes also used during routine operations as a matter of protocol.

No such protocol ruled this day and the dog was, if anything, rather timid, but Kilgore snared him around the neck and lifted him out of the kennel. Racer was horrified as the dog swung from the pole, gagging. He charged forward and caught the little guy in midair. “You know what,” he said, “I don’t need any more help. I’ll get the dogs myself.”

He carried the dog outside and placed him on the pavement. The heat was oppressive, 95 degrees and humid. The dog immediately pancaked flat on the ground. The evaluators ran through the first few tests. Nothing. The dog didn’t move. He absolutely was not aggressive toward people. In fact, he was nonresponsive. Racer continued the tests, as a matter of due diligence and because the team thought it might give them some sort of baseline from which to judge the other dogs.

Chew toys, play games, food—nothing roused the dog. Finally, Racer went back into the shelter. He approached another Vick dog that was friendly and eager to please but not too enthusiastic. He put that dog on a leash and took it outside. As soon as he did, the black dog lying on the ground perked up.

He rose to meet the other dog, his tail wagging. They sniffed each other’s faces and backsides; they began to play a bit. Racer took the test dog back inside and reappeared with a similarly well mannered female dog. The black-and-white dog responded to that one equally well. He was fully engaged now. The opportunity to interact with the other dogs had pulled him out of his shell.

The team reran all the tests, and this time the dog performed well. He wasn’t perfect—he looked at the pull toy like it was an alien ship and he didn’t quite know what to make of the shoving game—but he didn’t react violently. It was clear the dog had a lot to learn, but Racer felt sure that with some work he would make a great house pet and help change people’s minds about pit bulls. As Racer took up the leash and got ready to take the dog back into the shelter, he looked at Reynolds. “We’re one for one,” he said.

The next dog was the little female Racer had used to test the first dog. She looked a lot like the first dog, small and black with white highlights, and she performed even better. She breezed through the tests, and before long Racer was smiling up at Reynolds: “Two for two.”

The next few dogs performed similarly and before Racer even turned to Reynolds and said, “We got our five,” the whole atmosphere of the day had changed. At the start of the morning there had been a notable tension in the air. Everyone expected the worst, and even if they held out a glimmer of hope, they fought to suppress it.

They’d all put down dogs before. None of them liked the task, and it was that much harder if there was any sort of emotional attachment. Better to assume that things wouldn’t work out. Everything they’d heard made them think they had little reason to hope for anything better and that infused the proceedings with a certain “let’s get it over with” sense of resignation.

But as the first dogs went through the battery of tests, the mood lightened. As each dog was led out, the question in the air changed from “What now?” to “Hey, let’s see what we get this time.”

The highlight of the day-one evaluations came before the team left Hanover. Racer approached a large dog with deep scars across his chest. A big guy, he sat at the gate of his kennel, his tail beating a steady rhythm on the floor. As Racer approached, the dog alternately lifted his front feet, as if he were a dancing horse. He stood up and then sat back down. Finally, Racer knelt before his gate. He spoke in a flowing singsong and put his fingers up against the chain link. The scarred dog sniffed and then licked the fingers.

Racer blew in the dog’s face, and he vacuumed up the scent, twitching his nose and moving his snout to and fro as he followed the aroma. He pressed his snout against the gate and tried to lick Racer’s face. As Racer took the dog from the kennel and started walking him across the floor, the scarred dog showed no fear or trepidation, pulling ahead, not even looking at the other dogs that barked and whined around him. He moved straight toward the door at the far side of the room.

Outside, the scarred dog tried to greet the other people that stood there, but the leash held him back. Instead he followed Racer to the center of the courtyard and stood there panting from the heat, tail working back and forth like a windshield wiper. He waited.

What came next was petting and playing and eating. This dog didn’t care if someone put a hand in his bowl, and he didn’t care if someone tried to pull his rawhide away. He wasn’t giving it up, but he wasn’t mad about it, either.

He perked up when other dogs came out. He circled to one side as he approached them, sniffing the ground first and then sniffing up the dog’s front leg and down his body. He was happy to be with the other dogs and happy to joust as Racer pushed him. He bounded back toward Racer and waited for the next shove, giving a little play bark.

When they showed him the baby doll, he approached slowly and sniffed it up and down. His tail wagged. He raised his head and licked it. Right on the face.

Racer and the others examined the network of deep scars that crisscrossed his chest and front legs. They knew so little about him. What he’d seen and done, where he’d been. It was possible those marks came from something other than fighting. Perhaps he’d tried to climb a barbed wire fence or been dragged by a vehicle. But considering where he’d come from, it was a safe bet that he had been through some serious battles. But for whatever reason, the remnants were strictly physical. Emotionally and psychologically he had remained unscarred. Even through the months of confinement, he’d kept it together. That was probably not a coincidence. He was a little older than many of the other remaining dogs and he clearly had a lot of experiences. He must have had numerous encounters with people. He must have been trained and handled a lot.

If he was still alive he must have been successful in the pit, which meant he’d received a lot of positive reinforcement. He probably lived in the kennels closer to the house where he heard and saw people more frequently. His personality would have been fully developed and he would’ve had a good idea of who he was.

Still, it was mindboggling. He clearly had to have been a fighter, but here he was now, playful and gentle as a poodle. He liked people. He liked other dogs. He responded appropriately to each in a variety of situations. Would that hold up in the real world? Could he live with people and other dogs without a problem, without something causing him to snap, as PETA contended would happen? Dr. Z’s team of experts thought he would do fine. They thought the scarred dog was a rock star.

They led him back to his pen. After the gate closed he stood with his face against it and watched them walk away. He barked at them.