A Day at the Dogfights
This article originally appeared in the February 27, 1979 issue of Esquire. It contains graphic imagery, as well as attitudes and sensibilities about animal cruelty that are potentially triggering. To read every Esquire story ever published, upgrade to All Access.
His name was Skete. I never knew him by any other name. He never said and I never asked. It would have been bad form because Skete was a breeder of pit bulldogs, bred especially to fight, bred for ferocity, tenacity, quickness, and strength. Fighting dogs in a pit, or anywhere else for that matter, is against the law—a felony if the breeder takes his dog across state lines to fight. I’d met Skete through a girl I’d known about four years before. In the middle of the night the girl called me up and asked if I’d like to go to a fight being held in South Florida. She knew, as everybody does who knows me at all, that I love blood sports. Not a particularly admirable trait, but one that I’ve always had and one I’ve never tried to suppress or find the reasons for.
“You think Skete would let me come with him?” I asked over the telephone.
“I told him about you. He said he’d take my word you were a stand-up guy and would cause him no trouble.” “I’d want to write about it.”
“I told him you’d never burn down his proposition.” The girl, Monica, nicknamed Money, had worked for a long time in carnivals, and in a carnival nobody has a job, he has a “proposition.” And if you put him out of business, by using the law or anything else, you are said to “burn down his proposition.”
“You know the people and things I’ve written about,” I said, “and I’ve never burned anybody. Nobody gets hurt letting me watch and letting me write.”
“I know,” she said.
I talked to Skete the next night on the telephone to confirm the invitation. The conversation was short. “Nobody hurts me and mine with impunity,” he said.
Harry Crews's latest book is A Childhood (Harper & Row).
Mr. Pryde was five and a half years old. He and his opponent were fighting at forty-eight pounds, and, like prizefighters, they could not be overweight. Mr. Pryde’s slender tail wagged continuously.
“Come, if you can live with that.” Impunity. Skete was not without an education. In his late twenties, Skete already owned a hotel on the Gulf Coast of Florida. I suspect—I know—he must do a lot of things most folks would not approve of. Money knew him because she worked in the bar of his hotel.
“Then it’s done,” I said. “Done,” he said. And hung up.
I was supposed to meet him in Naples, Florida. To get there, I had to fly from Gainesville, in the middle of North Florida, where I live, to Miami, and then across the state to the Gulf of Mexico. He met me in a Dodge van. Money was with him. So was Skete’s Pryde, or, more formally and correctly said, Mr. Pryde. They’d driven up from Skete’s breeding kennel fifty miles south of Naples. It was then about ten-thirty at night and we’d been told the fight would be held at five-thirty in the morning in Boca Raton, which was all the way back across the state. Both of us knew the fight was not going to be held in Boca Raton, nor was it going to be held at five-thirty in the morning. Those were simply the instructions Skete had, the place to go, the motel to check in to. From that point on, we would wait for a telephone call telling us where to bring the dog and when. Nobody knows where a pit fight is going to take place except the promoters. Skete had already signed a contract with a breeder from Arkansas. Pit contracts always include the money the breeder will forfeit if his dog loses. He also loses the money if he does not show up at the appointed hour and place. I did not know how much money was in the contract, nor did I ask. Again, it would have been bad form. But I’ve seen contracts written in such a way that $30,000 was at stake. The promoters hold the money bet in the contract; they also hold any side bets made during the fight. And between the whiskey, and the blood, and the sweat, the most frantic betting in the world goes on at dogfights, much more so than at cockfights, and the betting at cockfights is something out of a madman’s dream. Mr. Pryde rode sweetly with us in the van, giving no hint that he was about to fight to become a grand champion. He had already won four fights, one more than enough to make him a champion; five wins would make him a grand champion, and he would be retired to stud, never to fight again. He was five and a half years old and had not fought in two years. He was going to fight a dog that was also fighting to become a grand champion. They were fighting at forty-eight pounds, and like prizefighters, they had to come in at or under the appointed weight. Mr. Pryde was gentle, almost like a puppy, his long, slender tail continually wagging. He never barked or growled—no pit bull ever does when he’s fighting, and rarely does he ever bark or growl at all. He was utterly beautiful, conditioned down to nothing but bone and muscle and ligament.
But when we checked into the motel in Boca Raton and Skete took out a pair of scales and hung them on the shower rod in the bathroom, Mr. Pryde became noticeably agitated, the hair got up on his back, and his long, thin tail whipped into a blur of speed. As soon as he saw the scales he knew he was going to fight. Skete lifted him to the scale and the needle swung and held like magic on forty-eight pounds. It was then about four o’clock and a boy had arrived whose name was—or at least he was called—Little Brother. He would be Skete’s second at the pit. Money was there to operate a hand-held moving picture camera. Many breeders photograph their dogs fighting, just as a football coach photographs his football team. The breeder is looking for errors, for gameness—which cannot always be seen in the frenzy of a fight—looking for any idiosyncrasy the dog might have developed since he fought last. Mr. Pryde was, in fact, the sire of Skete’s kennel, and he would continue to be even if he lost.
There are probably more misconceptions about dogfighting than about any other blood sport. In the March 1976 issue of Harper's Magazine, somebody named Edward Meadows, who writes a column called “Political Economy” for a newsweekly in Columbia, South Carolina, has about as many errors packed into a piece called “An American Pastime” as he could possibly manage. The fact is the English Staffordshire bullterrier was bred to a variety of bulldog bloodlines and game, aggressive breeds to develop the dogs that are most often fought at the pits today. The English bullterrier is small, about eighteen inches at the shoulder, very quick, and will clamp on to almost anything it can take hold of. The American pit bull is much heavier, more courageous, and has much stronger jaws. In the pits, a one-hundred-fifty-pound German shepherd, for instance, has no chance against a fortyeight-pound pit bull. A shepherd has comparatively weak jaws (a pit’s bite is at least twice as strong), and the configuration of the pit’s teeth makes its bite far more lethal.
Here is Mr. Meadows on pits when they are what breeders call “in keep,” which means when they are in training for a fight: “Proper training of a bull terrier for the dogfighting pit requires two dozen live kittens a week. Each kitten is tied unceremoniously to a stick and dangled in front of the dog to whet his lust for killing. A good pit bull will quickly tear the kitten’s front legs off. Then, excited by the kitten’s blood and its agony, encouraged also by his trainer’s bloodthirsty yells, the true fighting dog will rip the kitten’s head off. After perhaps eight weeks of kittens... the dog is graduated to the killing of puppies and small dogs. He learns well the taste of their blood.... The dog is forced to run for hours on a treadmill to build his muscles.” Later, Mr. Meadows says that during the actual fight, “cut-rate prostitutes work the sweaty, darkened pit rooms, even though the fans’ wives and children are present.”
I could go on with this sort of thing, but the above is more than enough. I am not defending fighting dogs. I just wonder why we can’t tell the truth about blood sports, which would go a long way toward telling the truth about ourselves. We are a violent culture. We like to see the two dugouts emptied at baseball games and the players—armed with bats or anything they can put hand to—break each other’s heads. We are thrilled at the spectacle of a football player going off the field on a stretcher or a race-car driver losing it against a retaining wall and being fried alive, trapped in his car. Do we read with shivers of pleasure or of horror about such things as Indian Red Lopez fighting David Kotey for a world featherweight championship and beating him so badly that it took some three dozen stitches to close up Kotey’s face? If the shivers are not of pleasure, why are the results set down in a special section of your newspaper where you can easily find them and read them over your morning cornflakes?
Why can’t we tell the truth about blood sports? We are a violent culture and always have been. We like to see players break each other’s heads, or a racing driver fried alive, trapped in his car.
But back to the pit bull. I’ve been around dogfights all my life and I’ve never seen a dog killed in the pit. I don’t say it doesn’t happen, just that I’ve never seen it. But didn’t Emile Griffith kill Benny “Kid” Paret in the ring, beat him to the doors of death with a full house screaming for him to do it? Every fight between pit bulls I’ve seen—and I’ve seen ’em all over the country—has been fought by what are called Louisiana rules, which means the dog does not have, as breeders say, “to take his killing.” All he has to do is “cur out.” If he turns from the other dog, or won’t leave his corner, the fight is over.
The four of us were sitting in the motel room in Boca Raton, Mr. Pryde asleep in the middle of the bed, his head on Skete’s lap. We were waiting for the call that would tell us where the fight would be held.
I asked Skete about how he trained his dog in keep and also the business about making the dog aggressive and savage by letting him tear up kittens and puppies.
“Bullshit,” said Skete. “You can’t train gameness, or any other fighting qualities, into a pit bull. It sometimes takes years to find the right sire, and sometimes even longer to find the right bitch. If you don’t find the right bitch, you’ll never have a worldbeating kennel.”
“How do you find the bitch?”
“By watching them fight and then paying what the winning bitch is worth or, more often, buying one of her bitch pups.” “I’ve never seen two bitches fight,” I said.
“You ought to,” he said. “You haven’t seen a dogfight until you do. I think bitches are the finer animals.”
I didn’t know if I was pushing too hard or not; you never do, but I wanted to know: “What did you pay for Mr. Pryde?” “Seven hundred dollars as a pup, and flew him all the way from California.” He stroked the dog’s head, the ears of which were chewed down to little more than nubs. “He’s a great dog. He’s already sired three champions. He retires after this match, win or lose.”
“What would you sell him for?”
“He’s not for sale.”
“I hate to sound like something out of a Grade B movie, but everything’s for sale. This is America, where money’s more serious than death.”
“I wouldn’t sell him.”
“What could you get for him?”
“I’ve never thought about it. He’s not for sale.”
There were as many women as men at the fight. The place was blue with smoke. If there was a hand that didn’t have a beer in it, I didn’t see it. Money was everywhere, balled in fists and pockets.
It was the tone of his voice that changed the direction of the questioning.
“When he’s in keep, how do you train him?” I mentioned running on a treadmill.
“Some breeders apparently do it, but I’ve never known one that did. Running a dog’s no damn good. These are fighting dogs, not greyhounds. For five weeks before a match, I walk him twenty miles a day. I cheat and ride, but he walks. I never run him. He eats almost entirely protein in a mixture I made up myself.”
“What kind of mixture?”
He smiled. “If I told you, then everyone would know, wouldn’t they? Every breeder has developed certain things he believes in and he doesn’t give those things away. To anybody.”
I knew that cockfighters pump their birds up with vitamin K to retard bleeding. Did he?
“No, because I don’t believe it works. You bring the dog in as dry as you can because the less water he’s got in him, the less blood he’ll lose. But that’s a delicate thing nobody can teach you. You just learn over the years how much water he has to have to come in strong but not so much that he’ll lose blood for nothing. Besides, a breeder doesn’t notice the blood and neither does the dog. Blood doesn’t mean a thing unless he starts pumping.”
But I already knew that. You never hear a bull make a sound in a fight, even when he’s covered with blood. If he starts pumping, though, he’s cut an artery and there isn’t much a breeder can do—short of stopping the fight—to save him. That’s why a leg dog is one of the worst to fight. The artery in the hind leg is too easy to cut, but a good fighter will recognize immediately that he’s up against a leg dog and will instinctively protect that quarter of himself. There are throat dogs and stomach dogs and chest dogs and there are rider dogs—dogs that will take hold in the top of the shoulder much the way collegiate wrestlers ride each other. A rider dog simply maintains the top position until he wears his opponent down, until not even the gamest dog will have the strength to continue. Each breeder knows the breeder he’s coming up against but not which of the breeder’s dogs his own pit will have to fight.
“Mr. Pryde has always been a face dog,” said Skete. “In the same way you can’t train a dog for gameness, you can’t train one to fight a certain way. You can try, but you’ll end up making him a poorer fighter than he would have otherwise been. These dogs live to fight.” He leaned forward. “Listen, I don’t want my dog hurt. I love him. But he’s not happy unless he’s in the pit.” He sighed. “There’s a lot of guys breeding who don’t know the first thing about it.”
“What kind of fighter you hope you face this time out?”
“I don’t care. Mr. Pryde doesn’t either. I’ve done everything I can for him. He’s ready.”
He took some pictures out of an attaché case. They were of Mr. Pryde swinging on the knotted end of a thick hemp rope hanging from the limb of a tree. “Pryde’s always loved to swing on the knotted end of a rope. It’s a game to him. It’s also as good a thing as you can do to strengthen his jaws, toughen his gums, thicken his neck. Mr. Pryde’s got a muscle high between his shoulders like a fighting bull. I’ve seen him lift a dog that weighs as much as he does entirely off the ground and shake him like a doll. But a dog is either a rope dog or he’s not. Making a pit do something unnatural to him ruins him. Like his weight, for instance. Every pit has a weight that’s his natural fighting weight. You have to try to find out what that weight is and bring him in at it. You try to make him heavier or lighter than that and you only put him at a disadvantage.”
The phone rang. Skete took it, talked little, made notes on a pad, and hung up without a good-bye.
“The fight’s twenty miles this side of Stuart. I know the place. Let’s leave a call and get some sleep.” Skete and Money slept in one bed with Mr. Pryde between them. Little Brother, who hadn’t said a word since he got to the room, slept in the other bed with me.
Ah, it was good to be back among my people again. And I’m not talking about southerners. I’m talking about Americans. Naked Americans. In the parking lot there were cars and pickups with tags from as far away as Illinois. The fight was being held in an enormous building that must have once been a paint and body shop of some sort, a building large enough to accommodate at least five hundred people. There were as many women there as there were men, but no children that I could see. The building was closed and blue with smoke. If there was a hand there that didn’t have a whiskey bottle or a beer can in it, I didn’t see it. Money was everywhere, balled in fists and folded between fingers and hanging from shirt pockets. There were men standing in $400 suits and others in overalls. There were lacquered women who didn’t seem to sweat at all and other women who would have sweated if you’d shucked ’em down and put ’em in a deep freeze. There was an incredible din, the noise of violence, viciousness, and the lust for blood and money. The naked American. Nothing fake here. Life insurance and retirement plans were forgotten, children were forgotten, there was no future, only the moment, and the moment was savage. Here was the faith that brought the black man from Africa, the faith that still kicks the shit out of American-born Mexicans in Texas, the faith of the officer saying in his laconic but believing voice, “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” It was so ugly, it was beautiful. It was mine and I would no more deny it than I would my own blood. And disguise that faith how you will, it lives, breathes, and gets fatter every year in this great country of ours. Give us the world and this would be the paradigm we’d use to remake it.
In the center of the building was a sixteen-foot-square pit made of plywood about thirty inches high. Everybody in here had paid the promoters $20 to howl and scowl and bet their last penny on the blood of dogs bred for the sole purpose of spilling it.
That night there were to be four fights. Mr. Pryde was going to fight first. The dog he was going against was a throat dog, three and a half years old, with great configuration of head and body. Pits are bred with a face shaped in such a way that they can take a really deep bite and still breathe. Mr. Pryde’s opponent had a classic head for doing just that, a mouth and nose so formed that he looked like he could go in five inches and still breathe comfortably.
Both dogs were in a rage now that they had seen each other. They slammed together in the center of the pit, both on their hind legs. Mr. Pryde went for the face, the other dog for the throat.
Both dogs were in a rage now that they had seen each other. They only had to be put into the pit and the fight would be on. The rules are simple to the point of ritual. Each breeder washed the other breeder’s dog, washed him with a clear solution and dried him good, all under the watchful eye of the seconds. The washing was necessary because there is a chemical you can put on your dog that will cause the other dog to refuse to bite him. Money was operating her movie camera. Little Brother stood just outside Mr. Pryde’s corner with a towel he would use to fan Pryde when the dogs broke. But the towel could never touch the dog. If it did, he would be disqualified and the fight would be over. There was a sponge and bucket of water in each dog’s corner. But the single rule central to the entire proceeding was this: Once the fight started, nothing that was outside the pit could enter it, and nothing that was inside the pit could leave it. Any violation of that rule was an automatic disqualification. There were three men allowed in the pit—the two breeders to handle their dogs, and a referee. Each breeder lifted his dog into his corner of the pit. The dogs strained to get at each other. Each breeder held his dog by the nape of the neck and by the heavy skin of his back. The referee stood in the center of the pit. Side bets were already being made and Little Brother—it was part of his job as second—covered every bet that came down against Mr. Pryde. I don’t know how much money Skete had brought with him, but it had to be thousands. The promoters kept track of the bets and held the money.
“Pit ’em!” cried the referee, and each breeder released his dog. The dog can only be released; he can’t be shoved toward the other dog. If he does not charge on release the fight’s over.
The dogs slammed together in the center of the pit, both of them on their hind legs, their heads together, fighting for a hold, Pryde in the face, the other dog in the throat.
The breeders can get as close to their dogs as they like, down on the floor with them, talking to them, hissing in their ears, but they cannot touch them. As long as the dogs are locked, as long as one or both dogs have their teeth buried in the other’s flesh, the breeders cannot touch them. But if they break apart, each breeder snatches his dog up and carries him to his corner, where he is fanned and sponged and mucus is sucked from his nose at times, or blood from his throat. The breeders turn the dogs so they cannot see each other. This calms them down so they can be ministered too. The screaming bets continue right through the match to the end. After thirty seconds, the referee cries again: “Pit ’em!” The breeders turn the dogs and they charge to the center of the ring.
For some reason Skete couldn’t understand, Mr. Pryde started going down when the two dogs collided, fighting from his back, which allowed the other dog into his throat. Curiously, the dogs fought without making a sound, but their tails wagged constantly, wagged so furiously that at times you could hardly see them.
The fight lasted forty-six minutes, which is about average for a dogfight, though it is not unheard of for a fight to go for two or three hours. Once the other dog was buried in his throat, I thought surely Mr. Pryde would be killed or at least give up. But he’d come to fight, and he continually shook the other pit out of his throat and went for his face. Even at that, the other dog must have been in Mr. Pryde’s throat twenty minutes. But at about the forty-minute mark, it was obvious the other dog had had enough. He was still fighting, had not turned, but I knew Mr. Pryde was about to do what he’d come to do and I wanted to see it.
An enormous man had moved in front of me. I touched him on the shoulder and told him I’d paid $20 to see this and since he himself had a clear view of the pit, would he mind getting the hell out of the way. He turned and caught me in the throat with what felt like brass knuckles, and when I went down he came down on top of me. I didn’t see Mr. Pryde’s victory. I woke up in the back of the Dodge van with Mr. Pryde lying beside me, snoring away. He had been given a shot of Demerol and a shot of cortisone and had all his wounds covered with some secret concoction of Skete’s that was black and had the consistency of tar. By the time we got back to the motel, I’d passed out from a slight concussion. My vision was blurred, and I had more lacerations and blood on me than Mr. Pryde.
All in all, it had been a grand evening.
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