Hello, Please read it everyone! This is a true story! DO NOT READ IF YOUR ARE EATING! If you still read it its your own fault!-

I can truly say that I love adn respect all breeds of dogs, and while I really do not wish to provoke an argument, I believe that the smaller breeds are more appropriate for apartment dwellers who live in lagre cities. For years now I have seen men and women walking huge canine behemoths that they can barely restrainon their leashes. That being said, and my prejudices out in the open, I wish to tell you about something that happened to my Terrier Toby and me in November 1992.
We were doing a little neighborhood shopping in the city where I live, and I had left Toby tied up outside a grocery store while I picked up a few items for dinner. As I entered the store, I noticed an eldery woman sitting on a bench at a bus stop. I didn't really think she was waiting for a bus, but just resting from a walk, because she was petting a cat that she had on a little leash and collar.
As I left the store with my grocery items only a few minutes later, I saw a slender, blonde girl of about fourteen or fifteen, struggling with a massive rottweiler. I sensed trouble approaching on four huge paws.
I untied Toby's leash preparatory to our walk back to the apartment, but instead of moving on, we both stood quietly observing the approach of the girl and her dog, as if we had mutually received powerful premonition of what was about to transpire. And then it happened. Perhaps even more horribly than we could have envisioned it.
The elderly woman set her cat down on the street and bent over to hand it some tidbit to eat. From my vantage point, I could see the rottweilers ears prick up, and I could tell that he was a sworn member of that detestable canine society sworn to mangle and maim all felines.
i shouted twice to the women to pick up her cat and hold it-and I realized that she must be hard of hearing or deaf.
The cat arched its back and hissed as the rottweiler and his teenage owner came parallel to the bench. The huge brute had a lunge for the cat and jerked the young woman off balance.
"Hold on to that leash!" I shouted at the girl.
I could see that the rottweiler wore a chain choke collar that could subdue him if enough pressure were aplied. It was also all to apparent that the young woman in charge of the huge dog did not have the strenght or presence of mind to apply what muscle she might have to the collar.
He eyes were wide with panic. "I.... I can't hold him! Magnus, stay! Stay!"
And then the rottweiler jerked loose from the girl's clutching hands, and he was free. The cat was his first victim.
Although the valiant feline got in a couple of good swipes with claws across the monster's nose, the enraged dog took little notice of any pain inflicted as it mauled the cat mercilessly in its huge jaws and spat its bloody, crumpled body out onto the street.
The elderly woman screamed and began flailing. The rottweiler then turned and attacked her, sinking its massive jaws first into her leg, then her hand and arm, and appeared about to lunge her throat.
It was at that moment that Toby yanked himself free of my grasp and charged the fiendish giant, his own leash trailing behind him like a knight's battle ribbon.
Unbelievably, the little terrier's suprise attack caught the rottweiler off guard, and he began to cower before Toby's onslaught. And Toby knew enough to press his advantage; he kept biting at the much larger dog's inner legs and underbelly.
I feared for my my brave little Toby's life, expecting the monstous rottweiler at any moment to realize the great disparity in their sizes and wolf Toby down in a couple of gulps. But the big dog turned out to be like so many bullies. Once he had been thrown his vicious pace of bloody destruction, he displayed his cowardly streak and began to back away from Toby's ceaseless lunges and snapping teeth.
The teenage girl and I both reached for the rottweiler's leash, and the brute turned on his owner and bit her savagely on the thigh.
Toby, however, used the distraction to sink his teeth into the monster's private parts. The rottweiler howled in pain, and I was able to grab the leash and yank the collar around his neck hard enough to make him choke and gasp.
Thankfully, by that time a patrol car had taken notice of the melee on the street and arrived to shoot the rottweiler with a tranquilizer dart. Fortunately for us, in our city police are often forced to assume double dutys as dog catchers.
An ambulance was summoned and arrivedin very short order. The elderly woman was bleeding quite profusely from several wounds, and blood was soaking the teenanger's jeans. It was obvious that the woman's poor cathad died instantly between the powerful jaws of the massive dog.
Toby, my own little Braveheart, had not a single wound that I could discern. All the bystanders who had observed the brief but brutal encounter from the grocery window or frm nearby apartments hailed Toby as the hero of the day. Of course, he has always been my hero.

Duncan W.

That is a TRUE story!