Justice in Venice Beach

I was with my dog, Annie, on the boardwalk at Venice Beach a year or so back and discovered that there is something to the notion that it is a complex fate to be an American.

Annie is a registered American Staffordshire terrier, or AmStaff for short, and this is at the moment interesting because this year the American Kennel Club Purebred Dog Gazette conducted an election to find out which breed would be voted the All-American Dog. The AmStaff won. But AmStaffs are--like pit bulls, English bull terriers and some others--among the breeds that various groups in this country are proposing to muzzle, outlaw, generally abolish and disapprove of, or at least require special licenses for, on the grounds that they are vicious and un-American.

This day that Annie and I were at the beach--it was June, and everything sparkled--I wasn’t much worried about all of that, on account of Venice Beach not being a place where I worry too much about running into members of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Annie was walking formally at heel, the kites were flying, the peddlers were peddling various things legal and illegal, the skaters were skating, the lovers were loving. I must say that Annie was a bit nervous about this situation, since she does worry about the moral lives of those around her.

Suddenly, from behind a kiosk selling entrancingly unwearable garments, appeared two excited American males, respectable, each with a dog. A collie and a German shepherd. They asked me what sort of dog Annie was. I said she was a pit bull, which is the answer I give when I’m alarmed, and it is in any case true from certain points of view. Respectable-looking American males who are excited always alarm me.

One of these gentlemen--he had a distinctly Santa Monica-lawyerish look about him--started howling about people like me with vicious dogs like Annie being responsible for the ruination of the country. His friend, a Stanford alumnus as it seemed, added that if it weren’t for people like me, the Stanford football team wouldn’t have had to change its name from the Indians to the Cardinal, thus betraying everything Stanford stands for.

Now, you have to understand that Annie is definitely a matriarchal sort of dog. She thinks that people and dogs should behave themselves, and she also thinks that she is in charge of seeing to this--so she was looking very much like an alert and ready-to-move version of Mt. Everest. This caused the Stanford fellow to move threateningly toward me. Annie growled at him. He retreated, while his collie, Lad, responded to the excitement by attacking Cracker, the German shepherd. (Both dogs were males.)

This was too much for Annie. Coming as she does from a long line of noble fighters, she disapproves of street brawls the way a great boxer might. So she leaped in between the snarling pair and performed the acrobatic feat of simultaneously grabbing in her mouth one of the ears of each. The snarling became screeching, and a policeman of sorts arrived to break up the fight. But there was by now no fight, of course, because both dogs had instantly apologized profoundly, promising never to do it again.

Annie said, “See that you don’t!”

Cracker and Lad sat down obediently, symmetrically and formally, putting all they had into announcing their intention to go forth and sin no more. They were dogs, of course, and dogs know what people rarely do--that the female is in charge. Always. The respectable male Homo sapiens, however, were confused and muttered something uncivilized about feminists. Annie looked at them with a look of meaning, and they quieted down.

So the breed that is to be outlawed, muzzled, etc., because of its fighting history was the one that broke up the fight and restored order. And this is the breed voted the All-American Dog. Which tells me that to be authentically American is exactly to be misunderstood. There is Justice in America, just as Thomas Jefferson hoped there would be, but her true name and nature is a secret.