Loose the Dogs

by P. D. Workman

  Cassy joined in on the giggles. Brenda rolled her eyes.

  “Well, I don’t want him jumping up trying to eat your cookies. Eww, dog germs.”

  In his cage, Jake whined, the noise becoming more and more high-pitched and hard to ignore.

  “Jake! Shut up!” Brenda shouted.

  He stopped whining. Brenda gathered together the ingredients for the peanut butter cookies. The excited kids forgot all about poor Jake, eager to help to mix and form the balls to make the cookies. When they were done, the cookie sheet was covered with varying shapes and thicknesses of what would have to be called cookies. But they bore little resemblance to the ones she bought at the bakery or grocery store. Brenda slid them into the oven, looking at the clock.

  “Okay. It’s time for lunch. Let’s get some sandwiches, and when you’re done, the cookies will be ready to eat!”

  They both cheered.

  After Brenda had dropped the kids off at preschool, she let Jake out of his kennel. She shook her head at his whining and yelping.

  “You’d think I was killing you! Dogs are supposed to like their kennels. They’re like nice warm caves. Didn’t you know that? Don’t you like your nice warm cave?”

  Jake nuzzled her hand. Brenda patted him and rubbed his ears, looking into his face.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked. “You get lots to eat. Lots of time to play and exercise. I can’t understand why you’d have to kill things.”

  But she did understand. She had just finished pointing out the dog’s resemblance to its ancestor, the wolf. Did a wolf stop killing if it was fed regularly? Somehow, it didn’t seem likely. And the dog was a wolf. He had genetic memory. Instinct. He did what wolves do.

  Darn the neighbors for letting their cat run outside free instead of keeping it indoors. Cats did just fine kept inside instead of being let out to wander. They should have taken care of it properly.

  Brenda went upstairs and looked in at Erin. The baby slept peacefully, looking like a little angel. Brenda stroked her hair very softly, careful not to wake her, and went back downstairs. She got out a garbage bag and headed out to the yard to clean up the mess. She attempted to pick up the body of the cat like she would Jake’s droppings, turning the bag partly inside out, grabbing it through the bag. The trouble was, the little corpse was torn up, not in one piece, but nearly decapitated, belly ripped open and bowels spilling out when she tried to lift it into the bag. Brenda gagged, her stomach heaved, dangerously close to losing her lunch. She steeled herself, giving herself a tough pep talk.

  You can do this. You’ve seen dead things before. It’s not your fault, but it is your dog, and you have to clean up your dog’s messes. Two minutes, and it will all be done.

  Just grab whatever you can through the bag. Just scoop it all in. Don’t look at it. Don’t smell.

  Just push it all into the bag, and tie the bag up.

  Brenda was just finishing up when Erin started screaming. Not just an ‘I woke up’ cry, but a horrifying shriek of pain. Brenda jumped up and ran into the house. Her feet barely touched the stairs. She raced up to the crib, but before she got to Erin’s room, she was confronted with a terrible sight. Jake was in the hallway. He had Erin. There was blood everywhere. Erin was no longer screaming or even moving; she was limp in his jaws.

  “Jake, drop her!” Brenda screamed.

  Jake didn’t. He crouched in front of her, growling. But no growl was going to stop Brenda today. Without hesitation, she charged him and hit him on the top of his skull hard with her closed fist.

  “Drop her! Drop her! Let go!”

  The dog snapped at her. Brenda hit him again.

  “No! No, no, no! Not my baby!”

  He let go of the baby to bite her. His jaws clamped over her arm, and with the other hand, Brenda grabbed Erin and cuddled her against her body, tears streaming down her face. She twisted and wrenched her arm away from Jake, kicking him, screaming and growling at him incoherently. She was an animal herself, beyond being able to reason or give him a command.

  “My baby, my baby,” Brenda wept, now holding Erin with both hands, searching for some sign of life. The dog’s teeth had lacerated Erin’s scalp, and must have pierced her belly as well. There was blood soaking through the sleeper and blood dripping down her face.

  Brenda kicked the horrible beast into Erin’s room and slammed the door. She put Erin on the floor and bent over, listening for her breath. There was no sign of life. Brenda swore and cried, her brain in a frenzy, unable to focus and decide what to do. Tears flowed down her face.

  Nine-one-one. Call nine-one-one.

  Brenda fumbled for her phone and flipped it open. With shaking fingers, she dialed. First, she got the cell provider emergency operator, asking her for her location and what service she wanted. Brenda sobbed, asking for an ambulance.

  “My baby was bit by a dog,” she explained.

  “Is she bleeding?”

  “Yes!”

  “Is she still conscious? Breathing?”

  “No. No, she’s not. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Do you know CPR?”

  “No… yes… I don’t know…”

  The operator walked her through performing CPR on the infant. In a daze, Brenda tried to obey, tried to get Erin breathing, to get her heart beating. All the while, hot tears ran down her face, and she sobbed, willing Erin to breathe.

  “Come on, baby, come on. Erin. Breathe. Breathe, baby, please…”

  She heard the ambulance pull in front of the house and stopped the CPR. She picked Erin up and raced downstairs to unlock the door and hand her to the paramedic.

  “Please, do something,” she begged.

  The paramedic examined Erin. Placing her on the floor, he went to work. Brenda hung on every move. He was so slow. Erin made no movement or sound. The second paramedic asked her questions, and Brenda answered the best she could. But she was so confused and so worried about Erin. A second ambulance arrived. A police car. Another police car. Brenda didn’t understand why they were all there. One of the policemen took her by the arm and led her into the kitchen to talk to her.

  “No,” Brenda resisted being taken out of sight of Erin. “No, I have to stay with her.”

  “Let the medics do their job,” he told her, and firmly pulled her out of the room.

  Brenda wiped at the tears on her face. “She’s going to be okay,” she insisted. “Tell me she’s going to be okay.”

  “Mrs. Brooks. The baby is dead.”

  “No!” Brenda shrieked. “No, she can’t be dead!”

  “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  Brenda tried to describe the sequence of events. Her whole body was shaking. She looked down at her hands to see them covered with blood. Erin’s blood. But Brenda was injured too. Her arm was ripped and bleeding, savagely bitten. The policeman followed her eyes.

  “We’d better get that looked at,” he said. “You’re going to need stitches and maybe shots. Where is the dog now?”

  “He’s… upstairs. I shut him in Erin’s room.”

  The cop took a moment to talk to someone on his radio to direct animal control upstairs to get Jake.

  Brenda sat down on one of the kitchen stools, tears coursing down her cheeks, trying to regain control.

  “What am I going to do?” she sobbed. “I don’t know what to do!”

  “Just try to settle down. Has the dog ever bitten anyone before?”

  “We haven’t had him for very long. We got him at the pound.”

  “We’ll follow up with them to check his previous history. Did you ask about his previous history?”

  “They said he had lived with a retired couple. That he was just fine. They said he’d be okay with kids!”

  “Uh-huh. And he hadn’t bitten anyone while you had him?”

  “No—just—no.”

  There was a pause.

  “Just what?” the cop asked, studying her shrewdly.

  “He snapped at Bubba th
e other day. Bubba ran in when Jake was eating. He was just too close to his food. But Jake didn’t bite Bubba. He just snapped and growled.”

  The officer wrote something down in his notepad, slowly, painstakingly, with a tiny pencil pinched between his fingers so awkwardly it must have been painful to write.

  “Uh-huh,” the officer acknowledged. “And he hasn’t bitten or threatened to bite anyone else?”

  “No. Never. He’s been very shy and quiet. He likes me to scratch his belly. I don’t understand what happened. He was down here; the baby was all the way upstairs in her crib. Why would he even go up there?”

  “He’s never shown any interest in the baby before?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Not really?”

  “Well, we introduced them, you know. Showed her to him. He was fine with it. Didn’t growl or anything.”

  “I see. What were you doing when the attack occurred? Where were you?”

  “I was outside, cleaning up the—the garden.”

  She looked toward the garden. The officer glanced at the back yard through the sliding doors and nodded.

  “So how long was he alone with the baby?”

  “He wasn’t with the baby. He was in a completely different part of the house.”

  “How long was he in the house with her while you were outside?”

  “I don’t know. Just a few minutes. It wasn’t long.”

  “You have other kids, Mrs. Brooks?” he asked, looking around the kitchen.

  “Yes, a boy and a girl. They are four and two.”

  “And where are they right now?”

  “At preschool. I need to pick them up soon.”

  “We’ll have to arrange for someone else to pick them up. Is there a friend you can call?”

  “Umm—we’re new to the neighborhood. I don’t know a lot of people yet. I should call Darren. He can pick them up.”

  “We don’t want Mr. Brooks driving after hearing his baby has been killed,” the cop said sensibly. “He can meet them here. If you don’t have anyone who can pick them up, we can send an officer over.”

  Brenda nodded. “Okay. Yes, I guess so.”

  “Have you had a dog before, Mrs. Brooks?”

  “Yes. I grew up around dogs. I never even heard of a dog doing something like this! Could he be rabid? I can’t understand it!”

  “We’ll do a rabies test to be sure. You’ll need shots if he is. You’ve never had another dog that showed violent tendencies?”

  “No. Never. Our dogs were always very gentle. It doesn’t make any sense. He was such a wuss; I can’t understand him doing something like this. Why would he go into Erin’s room? Why would he take her out of the bed?”

  “Some dogs are predatory,” the officer said. “It is in their natures. Some dogs just never shake the instinct to hunt.”

  Brenda shuddered. The cop went over to the pegs on the wall and pulled off one of her coats.

  “Just put that around you,” he suggested, draping it around her shoulders. “You can’t put it all the way on until your arm has been looked at, but for now, it will keep you a bit warmer.”

  “I’m not cold,” Brenda objected.

  “You’re in shock.”

  “Where is Erin?” Brenda asked, making a move to go back out to the living room. “I need to see her.”

  “Not right now. The medics will look after the body until the coroner gets a chance to get here. Your family will get her body back after the investigation.”

  “Investigation,” Brenda repeated blankly. “What investigation?”

  “A child has been killed, ma’am. We need to investigate.”

  “But it was the dog. You know it was the dog. What do you need to investigate?”

  “The circumstances surrounding the dog killing her,” he said obliquely.

  Brenda frowned and shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

  “Just let me take care of it. It’s all right.”

  “Well, what am I going to do? I can’t just sit here.”

  “No. First, let’s get one of the paramedics to take a look at your arm and get you stitched up.”

  He spoke to the unseen person on his radio again, and in a few minutes, one of the paramedics entered the kitchen with his equipment case.

  “Let’s have a look, shall we?” he offered, approaching Brenda.

  He put on a pair of blue gloves and took Brenda’s arms, looking at them closely.

  “Well, that’s nasty, isn’t it? We’ll need a doctor to suture it, but for now, let’s at least get it cleaned up and covered. Doesn’t look like it’s bleeding too badly anymore. Missed the arteries.”

  Brenda sat there numbly as he rifled through his kit to pull out wipes, antiseptic, and white bandages. She sat and watched him tape and bandage her up temporarily until they could get to the hospital for the doctor to look at her.

  After putting Brenda Brooks in a squad car headed for the hospital, Carter took a slow look around the house, mulling over the details. He went over to the dog control van and looked into the cage at the dog in question. It was a large dog, medium brown, with a muzzle too sharp for a pure retriever. A muzzle now covered with blood. When Carter peered into the cage, the dog put its head down, ears sagging, and rolled his eyes back.

  “Does he look like a killer?” Carter asked the dog control guy, with a name badge that said Pete.

  “You can never tell,” Pete said with an expressive shrug. “He’s a big dog, so he’s physically capable. You get a toy and they may bite, but they’re not going to kill anyone, even a baby. But he’s big enough. He may not act vicious, but you can never tell.”

  “He hasn’t growled or acted vicious with you?”

  “No, came quiet as a lamb.”

  “I would never have pegged that one as a killer. Anything I should be asking about with his history?”

  “Just about any bites in the past. I doubt if you’ll find anything, though. Any shelter will put down a dog with a biting history rather than put him out for adoption.”

  Carter nodded. “Okay.”

  He went back into the house and up the stairs to the scene of the crime. There was blood spatter everywhere in the hallway and the doorway of the baby’s bedroom. Between the baby and Mrs. Brooks, a lot of blood had been shed and sprayed around. There wasn’t much else he could tell from the scene. The crib was tipped over. She had been telling the truth about the baby having been in the crib. But what had driven the dog to go after the baby? It was such a bizarre situation.

  Back down the stairs, Carter looked around the kitchen, but there was nothing enlightening there. He gazed out the window at the back yard. Mrs. Brooks had been reticent about what she had been doing in the back yard. Carter slid open the porch doors and went for a look around.

  She had been pulling vegetables; there was a pile of carrots to the side. And some weeds had been pulled. The children’s sandbox was uncovered. There was a garbage bag over by the potato patch. He went over to look at the garbage bag. Pulling weeds there too? But no… the garbage bag held a surprise. Carter looked for a few minutes and then went back into the house. He walked through to the front of the house again and looked to see if Pete was still there. Pete was, hanging around to see if anyone needed him any further.

  “There’s a dead cat in the back yard,” Carter told him, without introduction.

  Pete chewed on his gum for a few minutes, considering.

  “Look like it was killed by a dog?” he asked.

  Carter nodded. “Torn up pretty thoroughly. Can’t tell how much he might have eaten, and how much was just the sport.”

  More chewing, more thinking. “Maybe,” Pete conceded. “Dogs that have been killing other animals… it might be a sign they are vicious… I know of dogs that have attacked humans, with a history of attacking or killing other dogs or animals. I don’t know what the psychology is, but the animal obviously doesn’t have the proper discipline.”

 
; Carter nodded. “Thanks. If you have any research to back that up, I’d appreciate you sending it my way, okay?”

  “Sure. I’ll look it up.”

  Carter went back into the house for a last look around. What he didn’t do was go back to look at the baby at rest in the ambulance. The sight was already impressed on his memory. The poor little thing, head lacerated, bites across the torso, hands, and legs. There was a lot of bleeding; the baby obviously hadn’t died immediately. The bites were savage. Not just an accidental bite; that dog had meant to kill her.

  Brenda had been pampered and cared for at the hospital by doctors and nurses with kind, gentle eyes. Everyone looked at her with sympathy, exclaimed at the vicious bites on her arm, and tried to comfort her. The tears had stopped and Brenda felt drained, squeezed out, emotionless. Eventually, the policeman who had kindly stayed with her was joined by Carter, the one who had first talked to her at the house.

  “How are you doing, Mrs. Brooks?” he asked.

  “I’m all taken care of, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Good. How are you feeling?”

  Brenda shook her head heavily. “How would you feel?” she asked. “I can’t believe this is happening. How could this happen?”

  “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  She just shook her head. “It’s crazy. I don’t understand why he would attack the baby. Is he rabid?”

  “We talked about that before. We will have him tested to find out. You haven’t noticed any violence or problems with discipline?” he prodded.

  “No.”

  “Except for snapping at your son.”

  “That was just one time,” Brenda protested. “Just when Bubba got to close to his food. Any dog would do that.”

  “He never snapped at anyone else?”

  Brenda sighed. “I don’t know,” she said in frustration.

  “You don’t know. So he might have.”

  “I guess. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. I’ve had dogs before. He seemed perfectly normal. Just a wuss, a little shy.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about the cat?”

  Brenda looked at his face, stunned. How did he know about the cat? He looked back at her steadily, waiting for a response. What was she supposed to say?