A deranged bull terrier story

An unpleasant memory from my childhood came to mind this evening, as I sat down to write my daily Medium story.

We had a dog — a bull terrier — by the name of Mighty.

Mighty was a very powerful dog. When he first joined our family as a cute puppy we couldn’t get enough of him. For many years the idea of getting a pet had not been open to discussion, because Mom was allergic to animals. But Dad eventually persuaded her. The breed was chosen because it had little hair and one of Dad’s colleagues, who sold us the puppy, did a great job of advertising bull terriers. Maybe he was a breeder — I don’t remember. Bull terriers, he said, could kill rats quickly and could even fight bears. We had neither rats nor bears at our apartment in Moscow but, nonetheless, we became the proud owners of a supposedly brave and strong dog. I imagined the dog would protect us from thieves and criminals who’d try breaking in into our apartment. We lived on the outskirts of the city. I wouldn’t call our neighborhood unsafe, but for sure there were stories of crimes and break-ins.

“Mighty” was mighty indeed. As a puppy, he was already getting into fights with much bigger dogs. He would lock his disproportionately big jaws in a deadly grip, around another dog’s neck, and we were in awe. We punished Mighty for these fights but, at some subconscious level, we were proud of him. There seemed no doubt this fearless beast would have attacked a bear.