Dog Fight

About a Dog Fight by Banjo Paterson

Dog-fighting isn't a popular sport today. To begin with, it's illegal. People say it’s a cruel sport which society has decided to reject. However, dog-fighting still happens near Sydney, and it’s organised by men who live in Botany and don't care about what other people think.

The sun was rising over Botany when we got to the meeting place. It was Sunday morning and the respectable people of the suburbs, the people who don't like dog fights, were sleeping deeply. Now and then a horse-drawn van, filled with ten or eleven men, went by. These men were dog-fighters who had got the message about where the match was happening.

The meeting place was on a main road, one kilometre from town; about two hundred people met there. They left their horses and cars without trying to hide them. They said the police would not stop them – they did not seem like people you should try to stop.

When we arrived, we saw a dog in a car sitting by its trainer. The dog was a white bull-terrier of about seventeen kilograms and trained every day. It had muscles all over its body. The dog was licking his trainer, but the rest of the time the dog looked angrily at everyone. The dog knew that sport was about to begin, and it looked around for what it could get its teeth into.

Soon a man came running up to learn whether the trainer was going to sit in his car until the police came. The other dog, the man was told, had arrived and was ready to fight. The trainer and the dog got out of the car. We followed them to a large tent, twenty metres away from the main road. People were waiting around the ring, and the other dog was in the arms of its trainer.

It was wonderful to watch the two dogs when they saw each other. The white bull-terrier came up to the ring, almost pulling his trainer off his feet to get at the enemy. The dog also made a sound to challenge the other.

The brown dog never made a sound. He carefully watched his enemy, wanting to fight him. The dog never looked away and watched everything the other dog did. All the time it never moved while it waited for the fight to begin.

Before the fight began, all the plans and rules for the fight were explained. People think there isn't planning in a dog-fight, but that's not true. There are rules that must be followed, and they are simple rules but important. There were two referees and a timekeeper. The dog that won the fight would earn ten pounds for its trainer. Soon, the dogs were carried to the centre of the ring and put on the ground. Suddenly they ran at each other and began to fight.

Almost everyone has seen dogs fight. But when people think of a dog-fight, they think of two dogs who bite at each other's ears, but that is not a real dog fight. Terriers are the warriors of the world of dogs. They are born and trained to fight, and even eat certain foods for fighting. They love to win. Each terrier is trained to fight for certain holds, to hold the ear, the back of the neck, or the foot are common. But the best hold is the throat.

The white and the brown threw each other around. They fought violently and didn't make much noise during the fight. The noise came from their trainers who supported their dogs: "That's the style, Boxer – fight for his foot," or "Pull your foot back, old dog." Every so often one of the dogs would bite the other's foot and chew for a while. The people watching loved to see that happen. When the dogs let each other go they were carried by their trainers and brought to their corner. The dogs had one minute to rest. During this time their trainers washed their mouth and put a cloth over their bodies.

Then came the part of the fight where the white dog was held in his corner, while the brown one was released. If the brown dog didn't attack the white one on his own, without their trainers calling to them, he would lose the match. During the next round it was the white dog's turn to go. Sometimes when the dogs became tired, they wouldn't always attack. The dogs fought each other for fifty to sixty minutes until the white dog did not attack the brown one. So the white dog failed and lost the fight.

The dog-fight is certainly violent. But it isn't more cruel to the dogs than rabbit-hunting is to rabbits. Dogs are born and ready to fight; they love it. Anyone watching the dog-fight could see that the dogs were having fun. Fighting is like breathing to a dog, they must have it. All animals have a fighting instinct in them but dogs have more of it.

Of course, these dog-fights will soon become out of date. We probably won't be allowed to keep any dog more violent than a poodle. And maybe one day, the man of the future who doesn't fight anymore, will, perhaps, be found on a Sunday morning with a group of others with two poodles violently fighting each other.