During a three year break in service, we lived in Phoenix. One of the schemes in my little thinker was to become a breeder of magnificent German Shepherds...with Golf von Haus Schutting as the prize breeding bull. Golf liked the idea, too. The plan got no farther than the first litter, we had a dozen or so dogs at one time...but times were not conducive to raising guard dogs. So the whole enterprise dried up, we sold two of the pups and gave away several, the most beautiful of the bunch, a smallish black and silver with perfect conformation, contracted feline distemper and had to be put down. The only other one we held onto was a huge silver and black. As a newborn, he had a big, jowly, crinkled up face...Butus was a natural name for such a monster.
Brutus, like his smaller brother, Gypsy, who got the distemper, was just about perfectly formed. At six months he was shoulder to shoulder to his dad, but about twenty pounds heavier. The reason we kept him was because his ears folded down like a hound dog. I mean flat down. There is a surgery that can fix that...costly. And every time the dogs start to rough-housing, they could break down again. So anyway, Brutus was a huge, sweet, even tempered dog.
There was another problem with Brutus. We lived across the street from a large park. A perfect place for leash training. We started simple obedience stuff at about three months...they are eager learners...they see mom and dad doing the leash and they pick it up quick. Most of them. Brutus, immediately upon having a collar and leash put on him, sat on my foot and leaned against my leg. Brutus was a big chicken. We started calling him "Brutie toot toot". None the less , I loved Brutie toot toot and it was a sad day when economics required us to find him another home. But fortune smiled, a friend of ours who lived across the park wanted to take him...he was a cop, she worked, too, and no kids. They would be thrilled to have Brutie...and I was thrilled to have him close to home. I wish this was the place to say, "and they lived happily ever after"...not so.
They fixed up a really nice dog run in the shady area between their house and the neighbors. All was going well..except Brutie took a dislike to the neighbor lady. After the fact it was discovered that when she came home from work she would taunt the dog, shake her keys at him and...call him names? I don't know what all. Any way, one afternoon she came home and found Brutie laying on her front porch. He had busted off the run and calmly waited for her to come home. He bit her. Frank, the cop, got a call . Brutie was in lock up. He had to bail out his dog. A lot of his cop pals thought it was funny, they liked Brutie, they didn't like the neighbor lady, and it was quickly brushed under the rug.
A week later it happened again. This time she was not so understanding, the cops were not so tolerant, and Brutie was not so popular. Frank showed up on my doorstep, Brutie alongside (still wouldn't move on a leash), and told me it wasn't good for cops to have criminals in the family. Brutie had a clean record on my side of the park, so it was best if I took him back. We did. But the economics hadn't changed so I had to find another home. This time another Frank, one that I worked with, had a large lot in south Phoenix and he would love to have the dog. Brutie rode to work with me...rode home with Frank.
I don't know what happened to Brutie toot toot, he had enough of Frank II, I guess, and took off. One of our neighbors swore she saw him on my front porch one evening, but I doubt that...I don't think he carried a grudge against me...I don't think....