Never Let Them See You Cry (15 page)

The only way to have a friend is to be one
.

—R
ALPH
W
ALDO
E
MERSON

Fred the dog sprawls on the sofa to watch television. He chews gum until the sweet taste is gone, then spits it out. He jumps up to kiss the faces of the eight Sanders children when they come home from school.

On a Friday the thirteenth he saved their lives.

“I couldn't believe it,” Metro Fire Lieutenant William Hall said. “I never heard of an animal going
back into
a burning building.”

At 5:30
A.M
., when fire swept their Opa-Locka home, they were all asleep: Patricia, 16; James, 15; Raquel, 14; Raymond, 13; AH, 12; Arbury, 10; Clifford, 9; Carmen, 8; and their mother, Arbury Sanders. Smoke filled the house.

They would have been overcome in minutes, but Fred, an eighteen-month-old black-and-tan mixed breed, raced to the mother's room, pushed open the door, bounded onto the bed and pawed frantically at her chest.

The sleepy woman shooed him away. Fred dashed in and out of the room, pawed the woman again, then caught her night-clothes in his teeth and tried to drag her out of bed. Fred had never misbehaved this way before. So Arbury Sanders got up and padded to the door to see why he was so upset. Fire hit her in the face.

She choked and gasped, as she and Fred herded her dazed children through dense smoke and out of the burning house.

Then Fred turned and ran back inside, galloping through shooting flames, right to the Sanderses' bedroom.

“Fred's afraid of fire,” fifteen-year-old James said, “but he went back into the house to see if anybody was there. He was trying to find my daddy.”

Their father, Cornelius Sanders, had gone to work on his construction job at five
A.M
.

As the children screamed and a neighbor dialed 911, Fred emerged from the inferno, his head singed and the skin burned off two spots on his legs. The parakeets, Salty and Coco, perished. So did the goldfish. The house was destroyed.

But the Sanders family was saved.

“We would all be dead if it wasn't for that dog,” Arbury Sanders said tearfully.

Firefighters lauded Fred's intelligence and courage but lamented the lack of smoke detectors in the house. “We do not advocate that animals take the place of smoke detectors,” said fire department spokesman Stu Kaufman. “A smoke detector is the only device we can guarantee will wake you up.”

I wrote the story of Fred the Dog, then watched in awe as it took on a life of its own.

Fred the Dog Day was soon observed in Opa-Locka. A brass band played, and a red carpet was rolled out. It's always a hoot to watch camera-conscious politicians maneuvering and jostling in order to stand next to a VIP, like the president, the pope or Michael Jackson, but it is a delight to watch them maneuvering and jostling when the celebrity is drooling and part Doberman.

They honored Fred with pomp and circumstance, speeches and applause. The Canine Medal of Valor was solemnly bestowed during ceremonies at a Metro-Dade fire station. The Tampa-based animal-rights group that awarded the medal also inducted Fred into its hall of fame.

Mrs. Sanders, a lovely woman, and her well-behaved children nearly burst with pride. The handsome boys, in three-piece suits and ties, escorted the girls, immaculate in party dresses. Fred yawned widely, obviously bored, as Senator Roberta Fox spoke, comparing him to Lassie, Flipper, Mister Ed, Mickey Mouse and Benji. “Dogs
are
our best friends,” the senator gushed. “I envy the family who owns Fred.”

Opa-Locka Mayor Helen Miller issued a proclamation. ‘Treat him like a king,” she intoned to the Sanderses, as the honoree sprawled on the floor, eyes locked onto a box of Milk-Bones. A letter of praise was reported en route to Fred from the White House. Senator Paula Hawkins and other dignitaries unable to attend sent Fred greetings. Seated on the dais with other VIPs, Fred basked in the glow of TV lights as the bronze medal was hung ceremoniously around his neck.

Few four-footed heroes receive accolades. Most are unsung, many are without a home.

As he crossed a footbridge with his dog, Henry Hollingsworth, nearly sixty, either fell or jumped and plunged thirteen feet into the water. James White, twenty-eight, saw it happen. Paralyzed in one arm and no swimmer, he could not help, but there was one other witness who did not hesitate to try.

“The dog jumped right in behind him,” James White said. The man surfaced in the water moments later, on the far side of the bridge. “The dog paddled toward him,” White said, “but the man slipped under, and the dog couldn't find him. The dog kept swimming in circles, looking for the guy.”

White ran for help.

Miami police found the dog, a scrawny part-Labrador retriever, racing up and down the canal bank, barking furiously.

“He was hysterical, looking for his master,” Homicide Detective Jose Fleites said. Divers searched the murky water. They could not find the victim, whose frantic dog kept running back onto the bridge to the spot where his master fell, then racing back to the canal bank, plunging through dense underbrush, searching the water's edge.

“Everywhere police went, the dog went,” White said. “That man would be alive now if his dog could have got to him.”

White wanted to try to find the faithful animal a home, but detectives whisked him to headquarters to give an official statement. Police gave up the search for the body and left. Only the dog remained. An animal control officer arrived soon after, caught the dog and took him away.

A boat-yard worker spotted the dead man floating in the water two days later. I was concerned about his best friend and called Animal Control. They would keep the dog for a short time, they said, in case the victim's family wanted him, but apparently Hollingsworth had lived alone. No one had reported him missing after four days, and police were not even sure where he had lived.

Since no one had claimed his body, it seemed unlikely that anyone would claim his dog. No one even knew the name of the animal, still waiting patiently at the shelter. A
Herald
photographer shot his sad face, behind bars. I quoted White, the eyewitness, in my story. ‘Too bad,” he said, about the inevitable. “That dog had a lot of intelligence.”

After dozens of
Herald
readers offered homes, the dog, henceforth to be known as Duke, went to new owners with a half-acre of fenced-in yard, a pool and a golden Labrador named Duchess.

Happy endings are as rare in real life for animals as they are for humans.

Prince, a skinny street dog, has seen more than his share of trouble. Prince has been hit by cars five times. A drunken tormentor set him on fire once—just for fun—he was shot at another time, and once he saved the life of his owner, who had been attacked by a knife-wielding man.

I heard about Prince when police blamed him for a murder.

Metro officers issued a press release after arresting a man on a homicide charge, saying that the killer had shot Curtis Gervin, thirty-six, after a long-running feud. Reason for the feud: “Gervin allowed his dog to run loose, during which time the dog attempted to attack the suspect and others, numerous times.” The press release concluded that in a final showdown, Gervin was shot dead.

Another basic rule of journalism: Never believe everything you read in a police press release.

Sad, I thought, that a man's best friend caused his demise. I went to see Prince, to find out how all this happened.

Police had said the dog belonged to the dead man. Not so.

“He's my dog,” Kenneth Seay, twenty, proudly told me. “He saved my life once. If he was bigger, Curtis might have had a chance.”

Prince was just a puppy that nobody wanted when he came to live with the Seay family six years earlier. He grew up in a tiny house with eight children, then four grandchildren. He never bit anybody, they all said, except a man who had once tried to attack Kenneth Seay with a knife and a broken bottle.

A crazed individual, the man had beaten up his own father and then attacked Seay, a witness to the family fight. Seay tried to back away, stumbled and fell. As the crazed man lunged, swinging the knife, he was attacked by Prince, who “grabbed his leg and left a gash,” according to Seay, who escaped unscathed. The man with the knife later went to jail for stabbing somebody else.

The first time Prince was hit by a car he was just a pup. Running to fetch a rubber ball for Seay, Prince scampered into the path of a car and was hurled halfway across the street. Another time a car dragged him down the block. He had three other mishaps with autos. Now, family members swear, Prince looks both ways before crossing the street.

A good watchdog, he once barked at a stranger who pulled a gun and fired. Prince ducked and kept on barking.

Nobody buys dog food for Prince, who survives on scraps and has never met a veterinarian. He is still scarred from the burns suffered when his drunken tormentor set him on fire.

Prince and the Seay family lived a block from the murder scene. Gervin, a truck driver with a baby daughter, had met Prince a few years earlier. They liked each other and became friends. Gervin fed the dog table scraps, and Prince began to divide his time and loyalties between the two households.

Gervin's neighbors saw Prince often. He never tried to bite anybody, they told me.

Now police were saying Prince had caused Gervin's murder. A bad rap, according to those who knew the dog best. His owners, the neighbors and the children who play nearby agreed that all Prince did was try to prevent the killing.

Neighbors said the long-running feud and the fatal dispute were about parking, a frequent motive for murder in Miami. The killer had a girlfriend who was Gervin's neighbor in a small quadruplex. There were only four parking spaces. Gervin owned a car and sometimes drove a truck home from work.

The killer had a gun and a long police record and had been drinking that night. Witnesses said that he muttered some complaint to Gervin, who did not want to hear it. Gervin walked back into his apartment, and the man with the gun followed.

Prince was outside. The little tan mutt heard a sudden struggle. He dashed in through the open door, bit the killer and hung on to his leg, according to witnesses.

The man, with Prince still clinging to his leg, jabbed a gun against Gervin's chest and fired. The bullet blasted a hole in his heart.

The gunman fled. Prince lay motionless outside the apartment as Gervin was rushed, dying, to the hospital.

The morning after the murder, I found Prince lying morose and sleepy-eyed in front of the Seay house. He had had a bad night. Those who know him say it was not his fault that his friend was shot.

Prince did the best he could.

Many humans return equal devotion to the pets they love. Tony Garcia, sixty-seven, a popular news photographer, dashed back into his burning home after he and his wife escaped unharmed. He fought his way through flames to rescue his best friend, trapped inside.

He emerged with his clothes on fire, “holding the little dog like a baby,” a neighbor told me.

Arrow, a bilingual dachshund who responds to commands in both English and Spanish, was singed but not seriously burned. Garcia saved the dog's life, but it cost him his own.

Burned over 50 percent of his body, he died two weeks later.

At age 103, Jose Cuello's closest friend was his dog. Every morning they walked. They were always together. The old man's wife had died fifty years earlier. Cuello now spent afternoons in the sun with Surpan, his German shepherd, at his side, telling stories of Cuba to neighborhood youngsters.

Surpan once attacked a would-be mugger who fled, leaving Jose Cuello unharmed.

One morning the old man stepped outside and found the dog dying. The veterinarian said that someone had fed him a piece of meat laced with broken glass.

Jose Cuello cried uncontrollably. He took no more walks, spent no more time sitting in the sun. One day he stepped out of the house where four generations of his family resided and wrapped one end of an electrical cord around a porch railing, the other around his throat. His horrified sixty-year-old daughter cut him down. He was hospitalized, a vertebra in his neck fractured.

I talked to the man's thirteen-year-old great-grandson. “He told us he did it because he loved his dog—and missed him,” the boy said.

The loss of a pet is always painful, but to some people it is the end of the world.

A newly retired Miamian murdered his wife and killed himself. They had no children, were wealthy and in excellent health. Miami Homicide Detective Louise Vasquez investigated the puzzling murder-suicide and learned the motive: The couple had been grieving and despondent since the death of their best friend, a fluffy black poodle named Midnight.

“They had him for twelve to fifteen years,” Louise said. “They were really upset about his death.”

Not everybody understands how strongly some people feel about their pets. Metro's fire rescue squad responded, lights flashing, siren screaming, to a frantic 911 call for help, but the paramedics refused to treat the victim.

Candy, a four-year-old West Highland terrier, died.

“I begged them,” the dog's owner, a twenty-six-year-old woman, told me. “I was crying. They were laughing.”

At play on the patio at home, Candy had encountered a poisonous toad. The little dog began to foam at the mouth. The owner called her vet. He was closed and instructed her and her mother to rush Candy to an animal clinic. The address was wrong. Instead of S.W. 132nd Street, the women went to S.W. 132nd Avenue. The mother held Candy. The daughter drove as fast as she could. It was 7:30
P.M
.

“I was so desperate,” she told me. “I knew they could save her if I could get there in time, but I was completely lost. There were no telephones, just dark streets and houses.”