By Mike Moore
Journal Times | Posted: Tuesday, August 14, 2007 12:00 am
In the shade of a Pershing Park tent, Gunnar's entourage debated whether he'd survive in a dogfighting ring.
It was only hypothetical. In some places the pooch could be considered a pit bull, the type football star Michael Vick is accused of pushing into battle. At this week's dog show in Downtown Racine, Jessica Crossland showed Gunnar as an American Staffordshire Terrier.
It sounds so regal that way. I went to see the softer side of the so-called fighting dogs that've been in the news lately.
"You can't get any softer than this boy," Crossland said as I petted him.
Crossland and her mom, Shelly Henss, brought several dogs from Indianapolis to compete. Gunnar's results completed his climb to the champion level.
Much more than a fancy breed name separates him from the dogs trained to tear the fur off each other. The women said "Uncle Gunnar," as he's known for good-naturedly tromping around with dogs of all sizes, converted a show judge who used to have doubts about the breed.
"AmStaffs," as everybody called them, aren't above guard-dog duty. They just have a longer fuse than the breed's brawling reputation might indicate. Anybody suspicious puts Gunnar on alert.
"His expression just changes. He's watching 'em and reading 'em," Henss said. "It's the same person in any crowd that I'd be watching."
The popularity of pit bulls is up in Racine this year, probably for protection. Tom Witek of Caledonia is partial to bullmastiffs, a rarer choice around here.
He likens them to four-legged detectives, bred to track down intruders but let somebody else dish out the punishment. He remembered the time a woman took some tomatoes from his garden without asking, saw the muscular dog's concentrated gaze and "just froze."
Considered a working breed, bullmastiffs got some bad press recently when it appeared some had killed a guy working for actor Ving Rhames. Now we're told he might have died naturally.
The ones at the dog show did bare their teeth, only involuntarily. They stood quietly as the judge pulled back their jowls to see how pearly their whites were. This after letting handlers spray mink oil on their backs so their coats looked prissier.
Afterward, Witek's dog Louis was ready for a rest. Witek's two young daughters kept watch so their canine buddy didn't graze on too much grass.
"He loves giving kisses," Witek said. "He loves nibbling on ladies' ears."
Think of it in the affectionate sense, not the Mike Tyson sense.
It's all in the training; everybody seemed to agree. If some loser jammed us in confined spaces for long periods like fighting dogs are, we'd come out snarling and ready to kill, too. Witek is disgusted by the back-alley cross-breeding that goes on as criminals try to create the perfect killer.
Even if dog-training is mostly nurture, Witek won't discount nature. As a guy who breeds bullmastiffs, he knows they're not a fit for everybody. He has prospective buyers fill out a questionnaire.
Dogfighting ringleaders would look at my new friends Gunnar and Louis and their happily flapping tongues as worthless. Obviously they can't appreciate the preferred meaning of "dishing out a good licking."
Mike Moore's local news column will return in two weeks. He can be reached at (262) 631-1724 or