Tank 'n Bull Ch. 01

"If you don't have one like that today, we could come back another day," Casey was saying. And the kennel owner wasn't real sure, but wasn't the guy actually batting his eyelashes at him?

"Sure, I got just the one. Back in the back. Come with me."

"What kind of dog is it?" Casey asked as the three of them started back down the path lined with kennels and dogs in kennels taking mixed interest in the humans walking through their lives—but not stopping.

Most of the dogs came to the front of their kennels as the three passed. A few growled tentatively—at least until they saw the kennel owner, who was the source of whatever food and exercise they got—but most of them wound up wagging their tails and woofing a little, "Me, me, me. Pay attention to me," welcoming sound, ending in a whine of "Where ya goin'?" as the three walked out of view.

But when they got the kennel at the back of the path, Casey and Phil thought it must be empty. There was no dog nosing at the wire screen of the door to the kennel. In fact, the two had to walk past the kennel and turn back at the kennel owner's instruction to see that there was a bundle of quavering brown short-haired fur plastered to the back corner of the kennel.

"This is him," the kennel owners said. "This is a real man's dog, if that's what you really want."

"This? Back in the corner?" Casey asked.

"Looks pretty nervous and unfriendly," Phil said dubiously. "What breed of dog is it?"

"Pitt bull," the kennel owner answered. "Now pit bulls and Dobermans, they've got kind of a bad reputation, but they can be real babies—and they's a man's dog. No one doubts that. You want a real man to notice your dog, you want a pit bull or a Doberman."

Then he rattled a stick on the wire mesh of the kennel and growled in a commanding voice, "OK, Bull. Get up and get on over here. Now!"

The bundle of brown fur started to move and form and to raise up on four legs. The dog turned a mournful muzzle toward the three men and moved, on not completely steady feet, to the front of the kennel in answer to the voice he recognized as the master.

"What'd you call him?" Casey asked, stepping a bit back from the cage rather than putting his hand out for the dog to smell him, as the kennel owner seemed to be signaling he should do.

"Bull. I called him Bull. That's his name."

"Figures," Phil said, also from a step farther back than he'd been before Bull moved to the front of the kennel. "Just the right name for you, Casey," he added, "You're always full of it."

Casey gave Phil a pained expression and looked, none too confidently, at the pit bull, which was moving back and forth along the front line of the kennel, inside the wire mesh.

"He looks like he's favoring a leg."

"Yep. A little lame in one leg. That's why he's back here. They move from front to back. The next move from here is to the pound, and then. Well, the pound's always got too many dogs to take care of."

"Well, I don't know . . . ," Casey said.

"You asked for a man's dog. This here's a man's dog," the kennel owner said.

"I'm not really . . . are there any other—?"

"We'll take him," Phil said quietly from the background. "What sort of paperwork is needed?"

An hour later, when Phil was leading Bull out to their car on a leash, with Casey still wavering a good four paces ahead of them, Casey turned and asked, "Are you sure? . . . seems like it's going to be a difficult—"

"The limp will help," Phil said. "That he's a man's dog will get guy's attention. But who could then not be drawn in by the limp?"

He was right, of course, Casey thought, as they got in the car and Bull cowered down on the floor of the backseat and gave a little whine, the trembling of his muscles showing his uncertainly. Casey had to admit that Phil was right about that. Guys would want to know about the limp and it would be easier to start up a conversation with them.

But Casey wasn't fooled. He knew that it really was what the kennel owner had said was in Bull's future if someone didn't take him. Phil had been an orphan himself, shunted from one foster home to another—and then into something more like a military institution when people had figured out what his leanings in life were. Phil had taken the dog because he was an old softy. And that was fine with Casey. He snuggled up more closely to Phil as they drove back into the city. This was exactly what Casey had seen in Phil that had attracted him to the big lug.