The Lost Dogs

by Jim Gorant

  By 2000, pit bull fear and hype had reached such proportions that the breed was banned in more than two hundred cities and counties around the United States. Lost in all the legislation was the fact that for decades the pit bull had been considered one of the most loyal, loving, and people-friendly dogs on the planet.

  Huss and Racer could not undo that tortured history, but they could impact the future of at least forty-eight pit bulls and hope to set an example that would help turn the tide for the rest. That’s why they spent two and a half days communing with the dogs, reviewing previous evaluations, and interviewing shelter attendants. But the most radical thing they did occurred at lunch on the final day. At a small pizza place Racer pulled out a piece of paper that listed each dog by its shelter I.D. number, color, and gender. Then he and Huss went down the list and gave each dog a name.

  Suddenly these were no longer the Bad Newz dogs or those pit bulls from Vick’s place. They were Oscar and Rose, and Ernie and Charlie and Ray and Curly and forty-two others. They were no longer a story or a group or a commodity, they were forty-eight individual dogs in the same situation.

  Despite how far they’d come, their destiny was not yet certain—any proposal still had to be approved by the court. But no one names a thing that doesn’t have hope. No one names a thing that doesn’t have a future. No one names a lost dog.

  The Vick dogs had been found. Could they be saved?

  22

  THE GUY BEHIND THE rental counter made small talk—“What brings you to this part of the country?” sort of talk. Donna Reynolds and Nicole Rattay did their best to deflect the questions, and when necessary, they outright lied. They told the man they had been visiting in the area and decided they wanted to see more of the country.

  They couldn’t tell the truth, couldn’t say they were renting an RV from him so that they could transfer thirteen pit bulls seized from the most highly publicized dogfight bust ever from southern Virginia to northern California. Especially since the dogs were still legally government property and the two women were operating under a strict federal gag order. That was, however, precisely the situation.

  If Rebecca Huss’s first days on the job indicated that she was moving quickly, the week that followed did nothing to dispel the notion. By the time Huss and Racer were wrapping up their evaluations on Thursday, October 18, Reynolds, Rattay, and her husband, Steve Smith, were flying into town. Rattay was one of BAD RAP’s most enthusiastic volunteers and Smith was her willing partner. Among the powers granted to Huss was the ability to transfer the dogs to interim housing if she felt it was in their best interest. BAD RAP had lined up enough foster homes in California for thirteen dogs and the plan was to get them out of the shelters and into houses as quickly as possible.

  So on Friday, Reynolds and Rattay rented the RV, bought thirteen portable dog pens, food, leashes, and other supplies. On Saturday, they drove around to the shelters picking up the dogs, and sometime just after dark Nicole and Steve shoved off for Oakland while Reynolds stayed behind.

  Like so many others who came in contact with the dogs, Steve and Nicole didn’t know quite what to expect. They’d heard the horror stories and yet they’d also heard much more positive things from the evaluation team. Not wanting to take any chances, they secured the pens throughout the RV with bungee cords and put cardboard barriers in between so the dogs would not be able to see one another.

  The trip’s start provided hope. The dogs had been so happy to get out of the shelters that they offered little resistance when it came to loading onto the RV. Some of them didn’t quite know how to do it, but with a little prodding and some gentle direction every dog got where it needed to go. They settled in quickly.

  Nicole was surprised at how little they barked, and once the RV got on the highway, the gentle rocking of the cabin and the steady hum of the road put most of the dogs right to sleep. It was as if, finally removed from the stress and noise of the shelter, the dogs were taking the opportunity to simply relax.

  It helped that most of the dogs on board were designated as foster-home dogs, which meant they were among those that showed the most promise. Still, that didn’t mean the ride would be easy. Steve and Nicole took turns, one driving while the other slept in the passenger seat, and continued straight through the night.

  They made their first stop early the next morning. As they wiped their eyes and stretched they devised a simple plan: Each would walk one dog, letting it stretch and relieve itself, then give it some water and get it back in its pen with food. That done, they’d move on to the next two dogs. Nicole figured it would take about an hour to get all thirteen dogs done.

  It took two. Two hours of walking and watering and feeding. Lifting out of the pens and placing into the pens. It was exhausting and time-consuming, but there was no choice.

  The process also drew its share of funny looks. It’s one thing to climb out of an RV with a few dogs. But to keep going in and coming out with yet another set of dogs looked like a circus act and people noticed. At one park in northern Arkansas a groundskeeper kept staring at them. Nicole started to get a little annoyed—they were cleaning up after the dogs and no one was being bothered. Why couldn’t the guy chill out?

  Finally, he approached. “You can’t be here with those dogs,” he said. “There’s a few places just up the road where you’re not allowed to keep ’em, and if someone complains or if they see ’em, they’ll take ’em from you. No questions asked.” Nicole was taken aback. The man was not a pit bull hater, he was a pit bull helper. She thanked him, and she and Steve quickly got the dogs back on the RV and got out of the area.

  Whatever difficulties they encountered did not come from the dogs. They were great. On the second day Nicole removed the cardboard from between the cages. Taking the dogs in and out for walks had made it clear that there was no animosity between them, as they were almost always happy to see and greet one another as they passed by. With the cardboard out of their way, the dogs were even happier and some of them even licked each other’s faces through the grating of their pens.

  One dog, a little black male named Dutch, lay in a pen that sat next to a window. He had come from a shelter where the dogs had been given little or no outdoor time. Each morning when Nicole opened the shade next to Dutch’s pen he rolled onto his back and stretched his face to the sun. It had been a long time since the little guy had gotten so much light and he was soaking up every ray he could. When she wasn’t sleeping, Nicole took to holding him on her lap and petting him.

  The hardest part of the trip was that it did not guarantee anything. The court could still rule that many or even all of the dogs be put down. The dogs were still government property and all they were being granted was a better place to live while they waited for their fate to be decided. One day, the dogs might have to travel all the way back across the country, either to be housed elsewhere or to be destroyed.

  Nicole thought about that as she sat feeling the warmth of Dutch in her lap, watching the trees rush by.

  The Washington Animal Rescue League (WARL) is on the cutting edge of animal housing. A $4 million-dollar facility in northwest Washington, D.C., it has padded floors with radiant heat, sound-absorbing materials, skylights, and cascading waterfalls that create a backdrop of Zenlike peacefulness. The multipart kennels are separated by sliding doors that allow workers to easily transfer dogs and to open up two back-to-back pens to create a large run for each dog.

  Yet in late October 2007 the place was undergoing some changes: One area was being isolated with locking doors and the kennels in that section were getting new locks, reinforced doors, and double bolts on the sliding gates. The Washington Animal Rescue League was preparing for some new visitors.

  The thirteen dogs road-tripping to Oakland were not the only Vick dogs on the move. Three other dogs were being moved into foster homes on the East Coast that same day. About a week later another eleven dogs were moved from the shelter in Sussex to WARL.

  Conditions in Sussex
had always been difficult and now the head animal control officer had been in a car accident that would keep him out of work for a long time. There was concern that the dogs would suffer in his absence, so they were shipped from one of the most basic and difficult shelters to the canine equivalent of the Ritz-Carlton.

  For the dogs it would be a stressful transition but one that would ultimately lead to a better life. It was the WARL staff that suffered. Their expectations had been shaded by their interactions with the shelter workers who had cared for the dogs for the previous five months. When two people from WARL had gone to pick up the dogs, they had gone from pen to pen asking the shelter workers some general questions about each dog. The responses ranged from “not too bad” on the positive end to “wouldn’t turn my back to him” on the more ominous side.

  Internally, WARL staffers started referring to the Vick dogs as the unicorns, because the federal gag order required such secrecy that it was almost as if the dogs didn’t really exist. They felt as though they were preparing the facility for eleven invisible dogs.

  For safety purposes, the WARL staff decided to give the Vick dogs their own section of the facility, where no other dogs and only a limited number of people could enter. On the day they arrived the attendants worked in tense silence. A binder that fell off a counter caused everyone to jump. Taking each of the Vick dogs out for a walk in the small yard next to the facility was a three-person operation. Two leashes were clipped to the collar, each held by a different attendant. A third person stood by with a noose pole and pepper spray. On that first day, as the dogs were led down the hall, attendants pressed themselves against the wall to let the animals pass.

  Getting outside proved uneventful, but what would happen once they got out there? There was a six-foot-high fence but how high could these dogs jump? How aggressive were they? Could they be let off the leash? The fence was see-through and no one knew if the sight of other dogs walking through the parking lot or birds and squirrels flickering in the trees across the street would set them off. To prevent such problems the staff had put screening around the outside of the fence to limit the visual stimuli. Still, that first time out, it was a “hold on and hope for the best” situation.

  The best turned out to be what they got. Before long the staff realized the dogs might be much less of a problem than they were led to believe.

  Dr. Janet Rosen, WARL’s staff veterinarian, was able to give the dogs their first serious medical attention in months, which included spaying or neutering all of them. She was surprised to find that three of them had von Willebrand disease, an anemia-like bleeding disorder. How could anyone have a fighting dog with a bleeding disorder?

  More than anything, Rosen found that the dogs needed dental attention. This was especially true of Georgia, the grand champion formerly known as Jane, who liked to destroy metal food bowls. Georgia had only a few teeth remaining and no one knew why. She had been bred multiple times, and there had been some speculation that the Bad Newz crew had pulled her teeth so that she couldn’t injure the male dogs that were being foisted on her.

  But when Rosen went to clean Georgia’s remaining teeth, she discovered the true reason. Something was wrong with the dog’s jaw; the bone was very soft. She prodded the teeth and they lifted right out. This process caused the dog no pain and required almost no effort. Within minutes, the grand champion was literally toothless. To show how unbothered she was by this, Georgia went back to her pen and began playing air hockey with her metal bowl before gumming it into a new twisted shape.

  Like the dogs in the RV, the ones brought from Sussex to WARL had been living under high-stress circumstances for months, and although they were still in a kennel, these were far more pleasant and nurturing surroundings. They seemed to spend the first few days shaking off the effects of their recent past. The staff too was settling in. They continued to take the utmost precautions, but they also began to see the dogs for what they were rather than what they were reputed to be. They began to get more comfortable as well.

  Two weeks had passed since Rebecca Huss had been appointed guardian and already sixteen of the dogs were in or on their way to foster homes while another eleven had been moved to one of the cushiest and most attentive shelters in the country. The application for rescue groups, including all the government’s terms and conditions, had been posted online and completed forms were beginning to come in. Evaluations were being updated and the dogs constantly reassessed. Still, Huss felt as though she needed to do something about the other twenty-one dogs. They couldn’t simply be left to linger in county shelters until the court ruled on a final disposition.

  23

  NICOLE RATTAY WAS CRYING. This was not terribly surprising. Every night for the last two weeks, she’d found herself in tears as she drove home. But tonight felt different.

  After her long drive back to Oakland, Rattay received another call. Rebecca Huss was looking for someone to go to southern Virginia and spend the four weeks leading up to Vick’s sentencing caring for the dogs that remained in the shelters.

  Rattay consulted her husband. It would be a large burden on him. As the operations manager for a small hotel and restaurant company, he had a busy job, and with his wife away he’d have to come home and take care of five dogs—the couple’s three and the two Vick dogs they were fostering. It was a lot to ask, especially from someone who wasn’t really a “dog person,” but he agreed to do it.

  So on November 6, Nicole had flown across country, rented a shabby one-bedroom apartment centrally located between the two shelters where the dogs remained—Chesapeake and Virginia Beach—and begun her assignment. The job required her to spend time with the dogs every day, if possible, and provide them with some attention and enrichment. What that meant varied from dog to dog.

  For some of the more shut-down dogs it might be very simple—sitting with them in their pens, petting them, letting them relax. She might give them a blanket and let them snuggle and feel comfortable. The idea was to let them know that, contrary to what their pasts had taught them, the world was not out to do them harm.

  For more active dogs, enrichment might mean running around outside to help them blow off steam and get exercise, or playing with toys to help keep them engaged mentally and break up their boredom. As she did this, she was amazed to find that none of them knew what to do with the toys. The dogs would ignore them, fling them in the air, and hide them in the corners of their kennels. But slowly they caught on. Rattay also introduced the Kong, a small rubber toy in the shape of a barrel that’s open at either end. A treat is pressed into the middle of the barrel and the dog has to chew and claw at the hard rubber to try to get the treat. As simple as it sounds, it can keep dogs engaged for long periods, giving them something to focus on and work at, along with a reward for their efforts. With some of the more advanced dogs, Rattay even began basic training—teaching commands like sit, stay, etc.

  For the most part Rattay loved the assignment. She felt as though she’d gone to doggie heaven. Even when she was crammed into a small kennel, sitting on the cold wet concrete floor and playing with a dog, she was happy. The appreciation of dogs that inspired her sprung from her childhood in Southern California. Her family had taken in a long list of dogs, all of them rescued from shelters. One of them, Max, was defined by the kennel as a “terrier mix,” and it wasn’t until years later that Nicole realized Max had been a pit bull.

  Her husband, Steve, had been a cat person, but shortly after they were married she told him she needed to get a dog; she really missed having one. He capitulated, but when Nicole made it clear she wanted to rescue a pit bull, he had second thoughts. As fate would have it, a few days after that conversation, the couple came across a stray pit bull at the apartment complex in Las Vegas where they were living. Nicole took it in, and though they found the dog’s owner a few weeks later, Steve had seen enough. He was a pit bull convert.

  But before they could find a dog to adopt, the couple moved to the Bay Area. Once Nicole se
ttled in, she found BAD RAP. She adopted a dog through Donna and Tim and became a volunteer for the group. Even after she and Steve moved to San Diego, where they still lived, Nicole continued to foster dogs for BAD RAP. She’d never been a certified dog trainer—she was a culinary school grad—but she’d spent so much time around dogs that she was very comfortable with them and quite accomplished at working with them.

  It was no surprise that she had bonded quickly with many of the dogs, getting to know them, what they liked and disliked, and what they were capable of. Every night she would summarize her experiences and e-mail them to Donna Reynolds and Rebecca Huss. Huss came to rely on the updates, not only because they helped her get a sense of each dog and what would be best for it, but because they helped her stay connected to the dogs. In the fury of paperwork and legal proceedings that filled Huss’s day, it was easy to forget the reason for all the effort, and Rattay’s reports undercut all of that.

  But Rattay was quickly growing attached to the dogs and this caused her distress. They made her cry. Every night as she drove home thinking about all she’d done that day, all she’d seen and felt, about how resilient and loving the dogs were, she was overcome with sadness. How many of them would make it? Would any? There was still no way to know.

  Rose, a friendly and fun-loving white dog with a large tumor protruding from her abdomen, was the perfect example. One of Rattay’s first missions upon arriving was to spend time with Rose and assess her condition. How badly was she suffering? Was she in any shape for surgery?

  Rattay spent much of the first two days with Rose and the prospects were mixed at best. The dog wanted to run and play, but she could not do so for more than a minute or so. Huss decided that Rose would go to the Animal Farm Foundation, a sanctuary and rescue in Duchess County, New York, where she would be able to convalesce in very comfortable surroundings while getting almost around-the-clock care.