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Gameness
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Gameness - The exact
definition of "gameness" varies greatly depending upon whom you
ask. However, most true pit bull fanciers can agree that this is
the single most important trait the APBT possesses, and without
gameness, the dog is just a shell of what it should be. In the
most general sense of the term, gameness can be described as "an
unwillingness to give up, even under the most difficult of
circumstances and despite the threat of injury or death." True
pit bull breeders strive to preserve this trait in their dogs
and insist that the only way to preserve "real" gameness is in
the fighting pit. However, modern society and humane attitudes
dictate that we look to other ways to preserve the trait of
gameness of this breed. Faniciers/breeders would do well to come
together and unite in common agreement as to what can be done
LEGALLY to preserve this most noble of breeds before it is too
late and the true working pit bulldog is just a memory of the
past. (It should be noted that gameness does NOT equal
dog-aggression.)
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____________________________________________________________
What exactly is "gameness"?
[The following is an exchange that occured on bulldog-l
between Scott Bradwell and Wilf LeBlanc. The passages offset with ">"'s are
questions posed by Wilf.]
Gameness in APBT's is a canine virtue that is most akin to
the human virtue of unflagging courage. It is a determination to master any
situation and never back down out of fear. It was developed in pit bulls by many
generations of selective breeding. It is what allows a pit bull to keep fighting
non-stop for two or more hours, in spite of broken bones, torn muscles, blood
loss, dehydration, and exhaustion. But it is also valued by APBT owners who
would never think of fighting their dogs. It is manifested in the can-do
attitude of pit bulls toward any type of challenge, whether agility
competitions, climbing up trees, or protecting their family against an armed
attacker, etc. (Yes, check out Richard Stratton's books for photos of pit bulls
actually climbing up the trunk of a big tree in order to nestle in the branches
15 feet off the ground.)
Generally speaking, a game dog is an emotionally stable,
easy-going dog, especially good with kids. Gameness should not be confused with
aggressiveness. There are plenty of aggressive dogs that are not game, and there
are game pit bulls who are not aggressive toward other types of dogs.
Aggressiveness will propell a dog into a fight but will only sustain him for the
first few minutes. Gameness, on the other hand, will not necessarily make a dog
fight-happy; but if the dog has no other choice but to fight, a game dog will
fight until it wins or dies trying, and will keep going as long as necessary.
Gameness is an inner quality of pit bulls. There is no way you can tell by
looking at a pit bull whether it is deeply game or not. The only test--and for
many years the main criterion for selecting a dog for breeding purposes--is
actually fighting the dog to see how it stands up to other dogs that have
likewise already proven their gameness in the pit. Dogs that are emotionally
unstable, or that fear-bite human beings are generally not game. If you want a
nice pit, you're generally better off getting one that has been game-bred. These
dogs represent the truest exemplars of all the best qualities in the breed. Your
questions about my post on the nature of "gameness" posed a couple of very good
questions that I would like to try to answer.
> If it is indeed the case that the only way that
you > can be sure that your dog is truly "game" is to have > a fight to
(almost) the death, what is really the > point of having a game dog ?
Many APBT owners like myself have no interest whatever in
fighting our dogs, yet we appreciate the quality of gameness in our breed. I am
quite content to know that just about any APBT, even one with only mediocre
gameness as far as APBT's go, is still going to be far more game--that is, far
more courageous and determined to succeed against any challenge he may
confront--than the gamest individuals of just about any other breed. Thus,
without ever having to match your dog against another, you can be confident that
your dog is game simply by virtue of the fact of being an American Pit Bull
Terrier. Of course not all pit bulls are equally game. It has been pointed out
in a previous posts that there is a range in the variation in the *DEGREE* of
gameness among individual pit bulls. If you plotted a distribution graph, you
would get a classic bell curve, with a handful of dogs exhibiting dead gameness,
another handful of dogs who are afraid of their own shadow, and the bulk of the
dogs concentrated around the average in between these two extremes. If you then
plotted the bell curves of gameness for other breeds, you would find that there
is little overlap between the APBT's bell curve and those of all the rest. Your
second question, Wilf, relates to whether the degree of a particular pit bull's
gameness can be assessed by some test other than fighting; I'll return to this
question below.
All dog owners think there is something unique and
superlative about their own dog's breed. Gameness is what I, as an APBT
chauvanist, think is so special about pit bulls. Actually, let me modify that.
What I love best about my own dog is how cute and cuddly and friendly she is
with everyone. She's a dog I am proud to bring anywhere. She makes everyone
laugh with her insane kissing compulsion. But these two qualities are not
unrelated. As I mentioned in my prvious post, gameness seems to go hand in hand
with a lovable, outgoing, licky disposition toward people. I have to say that I
don't know and don't really care exactly *how* game my dog is relative to others
of her breed. I imagine she's no great shakes, since her parents were
weight-pullers, not fighters, and you'd have to go back to her
great-grandparents to find dogs that were game-tested. But I can tell you that
she is known, among more than a few neighborhood dog owners, as "the friendliest
dog in Hyde Park." She is beside herself with happiness--literally leaping up
and down for joy--whenever a passerby so much as smiles at her. It's important
for people to understand the paradoxical truth that she, like all the other
nice, human-loving pit bulls out there, is the way she is BECAUSE OF--NOT IN
SPITE OF--her breed's history of selective breeding for fighting purposes.
Until about 15 years ago, there were only a small handful
of dedicated breeders who maintained this breed, and I would guess that nearly
all of these breeders bred for gameness and game-tested their dogs in order to
choose the ones to be bred. During all that time, you never heard of pit bulls
mauling 5-year old kids. It was only when the breed became immensely popular in
the 1980s--i.e., when lots of ignoramuses suddenly became backyard
breeders--that you began to read stories (at least some of them must have been
true) about man-eating pit bulls. These monster dogs were not "fighting dogs,"
but just the opposite. The scrupulous criteria that old-time breeders had used
for selecting or culling dogs in breeding programs were thrown out the
window--along with plain common sense. The backyard breeders didn't know the
difference between gameness and aggressiveness. Many of them didn't grasp the
fact that a champion fighting dog is born, not made; so they tried to make their
dogs into "fighting dogs." How?
Through abuse, teasing, "practice" on non-fighting dogs,
etc.--all sorts of things that knowledgeable pit enthusiasts would find cruel
and abhorrent--and counterproductive as preparation for pit contests. I read a
story not long ago that was enough to turn my stomach; it was about the arrest
of an 18-year old kid in Philadelphia on charges of animal abuse; he was keeping
his wretched pit bull isolated in a tiny feces-covered kennel. The dog's only
contact with the outside world was when this jerk would "feed" it live cats and
dogs that he had stolen from neighobrs' homes. He thought he was preparing the
dog to be a good fighter. Needless to say, it is this sort of person, rather
than the old-time dedicated breeders, that the public--thanks to the mass
media--associates with the breed. Speaking of the mass media, I wouldn't be
surprised if this particular jerk got his bizarre ideas about schooling a pit
dog from watching the sort of distorted, sensationalistic news coverage that
purports to "expose" what pit fighting is all about.
In the hands of ignorant breeders, the gentle, affectionate
qualities that were so crucial to the old-time breeders also went out the
window. You began to see idiotic ads in the classified section announcing
"Pitbull pups for sale. Big-boned. Big heads. Excellent attack dogs. No papers.
$250" From the old-time breeders' point of view, the gentle qualities were an
absolutely indispensable safety precaution to be bred into a fighting dog, since
no dog could be fought if it couldn't be safely handled by its owner during a
pit contest. These breeders bred for a type that was extremely easy-going and
docile around people and would NEVER think of biting a friendly hand, even amid
the fury of a fight. A well-bred pit bull is so reliable in this respect that
even if he is badly hurt in an automobile accident and is in extreme pain, he
won't snap at his owner who tries to pick him up--unlike most dogs in that
situation. Well-bred pit bulls are like labs in that they will never try to
dominate their owners through threats, such as growling or baring teeth or
snapping. Sure, they will try to dominate you--by outsmarting you, by doing
something sneaky to get their way when they know you're not looking. But it is a
very rare pit bull that will growl when you pick up his food dish or reach into
his mouth to take a bone away. The analogy to labs is fitting because both of
these breeds were selectively bred for tasks that demanded an extreme level of
generosity toward people. Can you imagine a lab that snarled when you tried to
take the duck from his mouth? Such a dog would have been culled from a serious
performance-based breeding program. Likewise, any APBT that showed the least
sign of aggression toward people was culled as unsuitable for breeding. Whether
true or not, it was an article of faith among old-time breeders that a
human-aggressive dog simply could not be dead game. In any case, such a dog
would have been unsuitable for fighting purposes: no one would volunteer to be
its handler or to referee the match. As a result of this careful breeding
history, the APBT is an extremely easy-going, human-loving dog.
This isn't just a personal, impressionistic perspective of
mine. The American Canine Temperament Testing Association is an organization
that titles dogs for passing its temperament test. The test consists of putting
the dog into a series of unexpected situations, some involving strangers. The
dog fails the test if it shows any signs of unprovoked aggression or panic
around people. Of all dogs that take the test, 77% on average pass. But among
pit bulls who take the test, 95% on average pass--one of the highest passing
rates of all breeds.
One wonderful thing about APBTs is that they have an
uncanny ability to size up a potentially threatening situation correctly and
decide whether or not it is actually something to get agitated over. This is
related to their fearlessness and unphasability. Let me relate three stories
about my dog Ruby that illustrate this point. (Please note: I'm definitely not
claiming that Ruby is exceptionally game; all I'm saying is that she has a
typical pit bull personality). This past summer, my wife had Ruby out in the
back yard of our apartment building. Out of nowhere a little kid about 6 years
old came charging at Ruby, swinging a big plastic sword over his head and
screaming. He was pretending to be a Ninja turtle. Before my wife could cut him
off, he ran right up to Ruby and whacked her right in the middle of the back
with his sword. Ruby responded as she always does to the approach of little
kids: celebratory dancing. She thought it was all a big game, just like tag. She
was prancing up and down and straining at the leash to get close enough to lick
the kid's face. A similar event occured this summer when my wife and I went out,
with Ruby, to visit her brother in Portland, OR. My brother-in-law has an 8-year
old kid, Ben, who is clinically diagnosed as suffering
hyperactive/attention-deficit disorder. He's a nice kid but completely out of
control. He acts impulsively without thinking of the consequences of his
actions. He and Ruby fell in love instantly, but we vowed not to let him be
alone with Ruby unsupervised. Not that we didn't trust Ruby, we didn't trust
Ben. Well, one day the two of them somehow got out alone in the back yard. I was
walking up the stairs inside the house when I glanced out the back window and,
to my amazement, I saw Ben hauling off and repeatedly slugging Ruby in the face!
I yelled out the window for him to stop it, and he did. But the incredible thing
was Ruby's reaction: she was jumping up and down for joy as if getting punched
in the face was the funnest game on earth. There was nothing Ben could do to her
that she would see as threatening. She followed Ben right in the back door of
the house. My brother-in-law sent Ben to his room for punishment. Ruby knew
something was wrong. She stood outside the closed door of Ben's room, crying
forlornly for her buddy to come back out and play. I told my brother-in-law,
"Ben's lucky that the dog he decided to torment was a pit bull, and not a cocker
spaniel or bichon. Otherwise, he might be missing a limb!"
On the other hand, Ruby has growled only once in her life,
and it was in an appropriate context. We live in the south side of Chicago,
which has one of the highest crime rates in the country. 5 of the 9 apartment
units in our building have been burglarized in the last two years; a foreign
grad student was held up at gunpoint in the foyer of our building last year.
There have been 4 fatal shootings in a three-block radius of our apartment since
we moved in two years ago. You can hear gunfire most nights. So we're always a
little anxious when we go out after dark, even just to take Ruby out to pee.
Well, one night my wife took Ruby down to pee at about midnight. My wife noticed
a guy walking down the other side of the street muttering to himself and
shadow-boxing the air. He seemed to be drunk or on drugs. When he saw my wife,
he crossed the street, still shadow-boxing and muttering, and approached her.
Ruby didn't like the looks of this one bit. Her hair went up on her back, her
whole body began shaking, and when this guy got within about 15 feet, she began
to snarl in a deep, menacing tone. The guy backed off, muttering, "Whoa, pit
bull, pit bull, pit bull," and crossed back over to the other side of the street
and continued on his way, no doubt looking for an easier victim. We were
pleasantly surprised to find out that Ruby actually had it in her to be
protective; we had always thought she was just too goofy and too overly trusting
of strangers to act the way she did.
> If gameness manifests itself as climbing trees, >
(etc etc) then aren't all these legitimate tests for gameness?
Pit bulls will generally excel in activities that require
sustained determination and that test their bodies' ability to endure pain and
exhaustion to an extreme. But the fact is that there are very few activities
that will test a dog's gameness to its limits, or that will provide a basis for
comparing one dog's degree of gameness to another's. For example, wild boar
hunting, in spite of the high level of risk to the dog involved, doesn't really
test the limits of a dog's gameness. The tangle between boar and dog is fast,
furious, and generally quite short (compared with a pit contest). Athletic
ability, agility, explosive power, strength of bite, and smarts are of a higher
priority here than gameness, which never really has a chance to come into play
in so brief an encounter. The dog will either take the boar down or be killed
before the depth of his gameness can make much of a difference. Several larger
breeds of dogs--American Bulldogs and Argentine Dogos--seem to be at least
equally adept at boar hunting as pit bulls. But this doesn't make them as game
as pit bulls.
Just because a game disposition will aid a dog in excelling
at many different activities--such as agility competition, flyball races,
tree-climbing, etc.--doesn't mean that these activities are sufficient tests for
gameness. Gameness is multi-dimensional; the above activities do not stress all
of these dimensions simultaneously to their extreme limits . Gameness is, in
positive terms, a happy eagerness to pursue a challenge; but it is also, in
negative terms, the stubborn refusal to heed the cries of the nervous system to
stop struggling and and to flee the situation that is causing so much pain. None
of the activities above can fully assess this second dimension.
Unfortunately,the only activity that really tests the full extent of a dog's
gameness is pit contests. It's a pity that this is the case. Personally, I don't
much like the idea of dog fighting, especially when money is involved and takes
precedence over the well-being of the dogs. If I knew of another method--say, a
DNA test--which could determine gameness, I'd be happily promoting that method
right now. But genetic research has a long way to go before it could provide
such a test. And with slightly more imporant concerns, such as preventing
cancer, I don't expect many research dollars to flow into DNA game -testing. As
a result, I'm left in the rather hypocritical position of celebrating a canine
virtue that is only made possible by a human vice. So be it. I still prefer game
dogs.
I said at the beginning of the post that I am uninterested
in finding out just how game my own dog is. You might ask, "Why would anyone be
interested in knowing exactly how game their dogs are?" Well, I'm not a breeder.
Understandably, breeders only want to choose the very best exemplars of the
breed in their breeding programs. If you breed APBTs without regard for their
degree of gameness, their gameness will gradually be lost with each succeeding
generation. This is essentially what has occurred with Am Staffs and Staffy
Bulls, which for many generations have been selectively bred for appearance
rather than for the invisible inner quality of gameness. (Furthermore, I should
add, less than scrupulous selection of all these breeds also risks the loss of
the breed's excellent dispostion toward people.) In order to maintain a high
degree of the desired qualities, a breeder must carefully select only those dogs
that have them in the highest degree. Gameness was an extremely difficult trait
to develop; it took more than a century of tiny, incremental improvements
through selective breeding to produce today's APBT. Though achieved only with
great difficulty, gameness is easily lost, sometimes even in the hands of good
breeders. If you mate two grand champions, you will be lucky if just one or two
of the pups is of the same quality as the parents. Traditonally, the job of
breeders was to identify these offspring and use only them to continue the
breeding program. Sometimes it's the case that two great dogs will not produce
any offspring who are their equals.
You are right, Wilf, in the sense that the presence of
gameness in a dog has nothing to do with making the dog fight. Fighting a dog
obviously will not improve the genes it was born with. But if you were a breeder
interested in *maintaining* the gameness of your line, well, that's a different
story.
_____________________________________________________________
The Color of Gameness
by Richard F. Stratton
It is hard to believe now, but I do remember as a youngster how I couldn't quite
understand the more experienced pit dog men's preoccupation with gameness. I was
more impressed by flash, agility, and talent. My thought was, " Give me the
talented dog and let the other guy have the dead game dog!" Now, I know that I
am getting old, because I worry about the younger Bulldog men being so
preoccupied with barnstormers and not giving sufficient commitment to gameness.
There is consolation in the fact that, if these young guys stick around long
enough, they, too, will come to appreciate gameness.
I'm going to have more to say in a later article about the nature of gameness
and just why it has always been deemed so important by the experienced pit dog
man and is even treasured by people who simply want a Bulldog as a pet. For this
issue, I simply wanted to discuss color.
Almost all dog men develop a preference for a favorite color in their favorite
breed; however, that preference is always quite changeable–depending on what
color their most recent favorite dog was. There are some misconceptions, too,
about certain dog men favoring a particular color. For example, most people
think that Bob Wallace had a particular predilection for red, red-nosed dogs. As
a matter of fact, he did greatly admire the Old Family Red Nose line, as his
original strain was partly founded on it. But his greatest all-time dogs were
Searcy Jeff, Toney, Pistol Pete, Hillbilly, and Madame Queen–all of them brindle
dogs. Only King Cotton, who was white, and Curly, who was red and red-nosed,
deviated from the brindle pattern among his all-time great ones, so, although
Bob certainly appreciated the red ones, he liked the brindles, too, because so
many of his good dogs had been that color. One of the last dogs I got from him
was Wallace's Star, a black-faced brindle female.
In addition to the fact that dog men develop a preference for a certain
coloration, some of them develop a prejudice against a given hue. One pit dog
man, who probably just as soon wouldn't be named, swore up and down that he
never saw a game red nosed dog in his life. Now his favorite stud dog, and
possibly all-time favorite dog, is a red-nosed dog.
I have heard dog men claim that only certain colors within certain strains were
game. Some genetic traits can be linked like that, but I think gameness is far
too complex a trait to be linked to a specific color. One dog man, who liked
black dogs, even cited some scientific evidence which linked a dark eye to the
"fast-twitch" type of muscle cell. Examples to support the speculation were the
cheetah, a very fast animal, with a black stripe running through the eye, and
certain other fast predators. I was unimpressed by that part of the evidence, as
I was familiar with many predatory animals, some of them of the ambush type, who
all had that line through the eye. To me, it always seemed that the line through
the eye was an adaptation toward camouflaging the eye. Prey animals are very
much aware of eyes, and it helps predators to have their eyes partly concealed
or made to look smaller. Still we have had plenty of good black dogs, including
one of my all time favorites, Grand Champion Hope.
At the other end of the spectrum, that most knowledgeable of dog men and a very
valued friend, the late Howard Heinzl, never cared for black dogs, and he
insisted that black was not a Bulldog coloration. Believe me, I never argued
with him, but black is depicted in extremely old pictures of Bulldogs, and,
besides, black can come from other colors, from buckskin crossed with cinnamon
red, for just one combination. Some of Howard's favorite dogs were white, as
some of his best had come that way. His Polly and Dutchess were examples of
that. Also, Howard's favorite all-time dog man was John P. Colby, and old "J.P.'s"
favorites had been his Pincher and Galtie, two white dogs with black spots.
As for Tudor, he liked any color, as long as the dog was a good one. The only
exceptions were the red, red-nosed dogs. Not that he couldn't appreciate them,
but he didn't like the color. He admitted that Centipede was truly a great dog
but lamented what a shame it was that he was one of those "yellow-eyed,
red-nosed dogs." Even Lightner, perhaps the single person most responsible for
the emergence of the red-nosed line, told me he never liked the looks of them
and got rid of them because of that and because of the fact that they were
running too big. How ironic then that this very coloration became a badge of
distinction during the era of Wallace and Hemphill and O'Neal, not to mention
Jim Williams, and remains so unto this day!
As for me, I know I have the reputation of liking the Old Family Red Nose dogs,
and I do as a strain, but they are not my exclusive favorites. I think some of
the prettiest dogs are the tawny red colored dogs. If they are well built, this
coloration makes them look like young mountain lions. I also have a particular
preference for pied dogs, like Dibo's grandsire, Gimp, and Jimmy Boots, not to
mention my own Hoover dog, who was a beautiful animal in his youth. Now, like
me, he is beginning to lose his beauty!
When I was a mere thirteen years old, I studied the Armitage and Colby books,
and I developed favorite dogs in each, and they were almost always brindle.
Galvin's Pup was a particular favorite, and he is still my ideal of what a
Bulldog should look like. Brindle has always been a traditional Bulldog
coloration, even though some other breeds carry it (and they may very well have
gotten it from crosses with Bulldogs), but it is usually not appealing to the
general public. The point is, though, that there are different types of
brindles, with different hues and shades. I prefer the gun-metal grey type of
brindle, with a black face–but, surely, even the general public would like the
looks of Galvin's Pup!
In the final analysis, though, it isn't the color that counts. You have to be
around these dogs a while to realize that gameness is their essence. That is
what you build upon; everything else is gravy. So, as for color, I think we can
safely say that they come game in all colors. For that reason, I don't care
about the color. Just color mine game.
______________________________________________________________
A Scratch in Time
by Richard F. Stratton
I have to admit it. I'm not that much of a fan of pit contests. This may
surprise some readers, as I have, many times, ardently defended pit dog men and
ridiculed their castigators as ignoramuses who had no idea of that very thing
that they criticized. The point is that my main interest has been in the kind of
animal which has been produced by the countless generations of the contesting of
dogs against each other. Still, I am a great student of every aspect of the
game. But, if I simply had my dogs and some sort of "game-o-meter," I could live
without the contests, particularly since the authorities apparently have serious
crime under such complete control that they have made even attending such a pit
contest a felony in most states!
I have noticed that movie makers now occasionally like to put a pit dog fight in
a scene to portray a particular location as especially tough and to underline
the depravity of the characters, too, I suppose. These scenes nearly always show
lots of blood and have the sound effects of horrific growlings. How
disappointing it would be to the average person to see the real thing, in which
there is often little in the way of blood, and, more often than not, absolutely
no growling. Not much of a spectacle really, unless you are quite familiar with
every aspect of the game. (The same statement would be true, to some degree,
when speaking of nearly any sport.)
Of course, to the devotees of the sport, there is simply nothing more exciting.
In fact, I know some proponents who seriously believe that one reason the
activity is suppressed by law is because if the general public got a taste of
it, other lucrative sports would be doomed! Well, of course, I don't believe
that for a moment, but it illustrates the point that the game is interesting
enough that it can breed a fanatical interest in otherwise normal people.
Just one interesting aspect to the contests is the scratch. It is a moment of
excitement, for most contests end when one dog fails to make his scratch. Almost
every scratch has a bet riding on it, as there is nearly always some one in the
crowd who wants to place anywhere from one dollar to a hundred that a dog will
or will not scratch.
For those not versed in the finer points of dogfighting, let me explain that a
scratch consists of a handler releasing his dog to cross the pit to make contact
with his opponent. Normally, the scratching begins when the handlers are able to
handle their dogs free of holds after a turn has been called on one of the dogs.
The dog that the turn was called on has to scratch first, but after that, the
dogs scratch in turn. Alternatively, a handler may ask for an out-of-holds count
if both dogs are free of holds for a given time, ranging from ten to sixty
seconds. In that case, the down dog has to scratch first. A third possibility is
that the handlers had a coin toss before the match, agreeing that if there have
been no turns at the hour mark they will begin scratching the dogs anyway. The
one who loses the toss has to scratch first, and the idea behind this rule
deviation is to get the dogs scratching early and hopefully have a shorter
contest in the hope of not losing either dog.
Now an interesting point is that, while most Bulldogs run their scratches, some
walk them, and some shoot across at unbelievable speed. Many people assume,
incorrectly, that the faster the scratch, the gamer the dog. Some great dogs,
including Wallace's Talking Boy, Mason's Hog, and Reddick's Peterbilt were dogs
that simply walked their scratches. But, at the two hour mark, even after taking
a beating, they were still coming across. In some cases, these "walking dogs"
will begin to run their scratches in the latter stages of the match, but this is
unusual. If they walk in the beginning, they usually walk in the later stages,
too. One of the reasons dog men often doubt the gameness of slow scratching dogs
is because a sign that a dog is getting ready to quit is when his scratches
start slowing down.
Although I intend to argue that, everything else being equal, a hard scratching
dog has the advantage, I should point out that the slow scratchers have their
adherents among pit dog men. For one thing, they can make money off those at pit
side who want to bet on the scratches. But from a purely practical standpoint,
the fans of the slow scratching dog would point out that such dogs are normally
quiet in their corners and, thus, get a chance to rest. Another advantage is
that slow scratchers receive a good opportunity to assess their opponent on the
way over and can pick their spots, and, at times, even seem to have formulated a
strategy before making contact.
Doubtless, there is some merit to those arguments, but this is what the truly
hard scratching dog has going for him. For one thing, he wears his opponent out
in the corner hitting him so hard. In fact, his opponent often gets a double
hit, because he receives the impact of the scratching dog and then is driven
back into the boards of the pit corner. A dog's handler, when faced with a hard
scratching dog, is inclined to release his dog early so that he at least is not
smashed back into the corner of the pit. A smart dog learns to side step these
hard charging artists and grab an ear, or something, from the side, but he has
to be released before the other dog reaches him in order to do that. In any
case, the opponent of a hard scratcher is at a disadvantage, as his owner is
always releasing him early, and sometimes those hard scratchers will charge
across at full speed but stop just a few inches away. But he never gets put to
that test if the other dog's handler keeps releasing him early, and it is only
good tactics to do so.
Certainly, it could never be argued that the hard scratchers are gamer than the
slow-scratching ones. But everyone likes the spectacle of a hard scratcher, as
some scratches are truly spectacular. Although a match is often extolled for
having had no turns and, thus, no scratches, they can also be praised by
detailing how many scratches each dog made. To many pit dog men, the exciting
part of the match is when the scratching has begun. In fact, I recall one such
fancier saying that if there was a line of chorus girls on one side and pit dogs
scratching on the other, he would be at the side where the dogs were doing the
scratching.
We may not all be quite that fanatical, but I think anyone who has ever seen a
pit contest would agree that the scratches were an integral and exciting part of
it.
_____________________________________________________________
The Name of the Game
By - Richard F. Stratton
From the Grand Champ
As I mentioned before in an earlier article, I know that I am getting old now,
because I am getting so that I sound just like the old-time dog men that used to
puzzle me so much in my youth. Dogs that impressed me in my youth because of
their agility or punishing power were often looked upon with a jaundiced eye by
some of the old timers. I kept wondering what they knew that I didn't. Well,
there were a few things, to be sure.
For one thing, they knew that it took a game dog to win. Old John P. Colby had a
statement in his advertisements to the effect that it was easy enough to get
good fighting dogs, but it took a game one to win. Few dog men have had the
status among dog men that "J.P." did, and he knew what he was talking about. I
would only modify what he said to "almost always." There are almost no absolute
statements that can stand, And that is the case with Colby's statement, too.
If a dog can punish hard enough, he doesn't have to be truly game to win. If he
is enough dog that he can keep another dog down and kill him in short order,
then he doesn't have to be game to win. Dogs like this are extremely rare,
however.
Another reason that dog men liked the game dogs was that it was, more than
anything else, the very essence of the Bulldog breed. It was the thing which
enabled a thirty-pound Bulldog to whip an eighty-pound German Shepherd. Further,
I think that it seemed like something special to Bulldog men. That is, they
considered it an almost spiritual trait.
These old timers had. learned fiom long experience that it was no fun to have a
dog almost
completely disable his opponent and then lose by quitting. There was something
particularly galling about a dog refusing to scratch to an opponent, simply
because his opponent still had fire in his eye and enthusiasm for the
contest-even though he had been taking a beating for the entire time. On the
other hand, there was something extra sweet about going up against a notoriously
hard biting dog with one that simply could not be stopped while he was still
alive and winning. Truth to tell, most of the dog men would rather have lost
with a game dog than won with one which was obviously lacking in that respect.
And the game dog nearly always has the crowd on his side. There is something
about attaining a win by seemingly sheer will that strikes a responsive chord,
not only in dog men, but in people in general. An example of such a win occurred
over a decade ago when Sorrells' Dugan, a son of Wallace's Talking Boy (also
called Sorrells' Hard Rock), won over a barnstorming dog named Cannon. In the
first fifteen minutes, Cannon had Dugan incapacitated in both shoulders and had
him down, looking for all the world as though he was about to kill him right
there in very short order. But Dugan always had a hold
some place to neutralize, to some extent, his opponent. Slowly but surely, the
tide began to turn, as Dugan began to get the use of one of his front legs.
Finally, the Cannon dog, exasperated at being unable to put his opponent away
and at the ever-increasing turning of the tide, stood in his comer and took the
count. This match took place back in the old convention days, and it had the
crowd on its feet during the last part of the contest, applauding wildly, and
some of them were crying unashamedly. Pete Sparks once emphasized the importance
of gameness when a group was debating establishing
two trophies, one for the traditional best dog in show and one for the gamest
dog in the show. Pete snorted at this idea, saying, "The gamest dog in the show
is the best dog in the show." In view of the fact that it is mainly the older,
experienced dog men who appreciate gameness, it obviously takes a while to truly
appreciate it. Still, let's face facts. The Bulldog is superior to other breeds
in areas other than gameness. That is, he is generally more athletic, has more
stamina, has more biting power, etc. And gameness is not
absolute either. The gamest dog in the world can be made to quit, given the
right circumstances. I think most experienced dog men believe that.
And I must admit that some old timers became a little extreme in their adherence
to gameness. It was said, for example, that the Farmer Brothers would cull out a
hard biting dog for the simple reason that they didn't believe that hard bite
and gameness went together. It doesn't very often, but when it does, you really
have something! (You can see how the Farmer Brothers attitude was another
example of absolutist thinking.) Old timers suspect that all talented dogs are
lacking in gameness, because no dog ever comes
along to find out if the dog can take what it dishes out. Everybody felt the
same way about Searcy Jeff, so Bob Wallace game tested him against four
different dogs in turn, and he took it all and begged for more. We are going
through an era now in which dog men are primarily interested in dogs which have
bone crushing ability. One of the problems with that view is that many a finesse
type dog has beaten some of those hard biters by simply holding them out and not
giving them a chance to do any real damage biting. That is a dangerous game,
because all it takes is one time to do real damage. And each time the
hard biter gets to the finesse fighter, he slows him down enough that it makes
it easier for it to happenagain. Still, the finesse type of dogs probably win
more against the hard biters than the other way around. Of course, some of the
finesse dogs occasionally come with some jaw power, too. That is what is known
as the full package! The truth is that it is tough to beat a dog with gameness
and good air. It is my fervent hope that people will not flock to breed to those
barnstormers unless they have proven their gameness, too. We would not want the
Bulldog, renown for his gameness above all other animals, to lose that trait
which has taken countless generations and countless centuries to establish.
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