May 18, 2005|By GREGORY KANE
THE DOG was blind when an unidentified woman found him, undernourished, missing some teeth, covered with sores and abandoned on the streets in one of the counties surrounding a city that, of late, has come to be known for its cruelty.
The city is Baltimore. The dog is a pit bull. The woman who found him took him to a veterinary hospital, where workers decided they could do little for the poor critter. They sent the dog to an animal shelter, and workers there didn't have the heart to put him down.
Instead, they named him Gabriel because of his sweet, angelic nature. Then they contacted a woman who contacted Ann Russell Ashton of a Baltimore group called Adopt A Homeless Animal Rescue. Ashton, who started the organization with several others four years ago, declined to name the veterinary hospital or the animal shelter involved. She doesn't want the folks involved to lose their jobs because they saved Gabriel's life.
Ashton said Gabriel is now in a foster home in Silver Spring, waiting for someone to adopt him permanently. Gabriel's condition, Ashton said, was "the most extreme we've ever had." That's quite a statement because, Ashton said, AHAR rescues pit bulls and pit bull mixes in similar condition constantly.
"We get about 10 calls a day," Ashton said. Those calls are from people who know of a pit bull being abused, used for fighting or just abandoned on the streets because the animal's "owners" no longer feel the dog is useful.
Gabriel was wandering the streets, Ashton suspects, because he was no longer useful. But not because of his blindness. Ashton thinks his condition may have made him a perfect "bait dog."
Through her research of the scandal commonly referred to as dog fighting, Ashton learned that pit bulls who are to be used in combat have weights tied to them to build up their bodies. Then they're starved for an unspecified period of time.
"Then a small dog or cat is dropped down between the dogs to encourage them to fight," Ashton said, adding that she doesn't know if Gabriel was deliberately blinded so he could be a bait dog, "but the practice is common."
Dr. Kim Hammond, a veterinarian at the Falls Road Animal Hospital, knows what a "bait dog" is. He knows about pit bulls injured in dog fights, too.
"A lot of them are brought to our hospital and it tends to come in waves," Hammond said. "It looks like they've been in a fight with Mike Tyson - with a knife. When we see these dogs come in and we think they've been in a fight, we charge a lot of money to make sure it's cost-effective for [the owners] not to come back. And they don't come back."
Hammond said hospital staffers then call police and alert them that illegal dog fighting may be going on. "It's horrible," Hammond said of the practice of dog fighting. "Just horrible."
A horrible practice perpetrated by despicable human beings. But for every despicable human being there are at least 100 good ones. That's one thing Ashton has learned in the past four years.
"This is a perfect example of the worst of mankind bringing out the best," Ashton said. Concern for Gabriel's plight - and offers to adopt him permanently - have come from as far away as California and Nova Scotia. Ashton said staff members at Cornell University's veterinary school have offered to see Gabriel free of charge.
Gabriel has gained about 10 pounds in his foster home.
Veterinarians won't be able to save his eyes. Ashton said they may have to be removed. And the abuse was so great that vets can't accurately determine how old the dog is. The highest estimate is 6 years. The lowest is about 1 1/2 years. But Gabriel is much better off than he was.
"He's doing wonderfully," Ashton said. "He's getting fatter and stronger."
Gabriel may be getting fatter and stronger, but River, a fellow pit bull in distress who was saved by folks at AHAR, is learning to be a virtuoso. River got his name when a stranger passing by found him tied to a tree by a river. He had been abandoned and bound so he couldn't find his way home. Ashton suspects that River, too, was a bait dog who had outlived his usefulness to local pit bull persecutors.
The man who found River took him to a vet, who contacted AHAR. River is now the proud pooch of a Johns Hopkins University graduate student, who has taught him to play the piano. River also has - get this - his own Web site.
Ashton knows that for every pit bull like Gabriel or River, "there are probably thousands languishing away in a cellar somewhere." Ashton said pit bulls have received a bad rap with news reports of how they've attacked people.
That might be the species' way of leveling the playing field. The pit bull's crimes against mankind pale in comparison to mankind's crimes against the pit bull.
