Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1291839 in Books
• Published on: 1992-08-28
• Released on: 1992-09-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The case of a dog ordered put to death by the state of Connecticut in 1987 occasions poet, philosopher and animal trainer Hearne's ( Adam's Task) wide-ranging and brilliant discussion, equally saturated with references to Plato and dog-training theory, of such issues as justice; the role of language in perception; racism; and gender theories. Hearne describes how she retrained Bandit, a dog deemed dangerous (because it had bitten people under exceptional circumstances), and thus earned the dog's reprieve--if not the right to return it to its owner, an elderly black man inhabiting a poor urban neighborhood. Positing her ideas of animal behavior and education, she then examines the sociological dimensions of the case against Bandit, a bull dog inaccurately labeled a pit bull, demonstrating that those breeds favored by the underclass have long been demonized. The politics of disenfranchisement and the corruption inherent in do-goodism are the subjects of other noteworthy critiques in this outstanding work. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In Stamford, Connecticut in 1987, Bandit was condemned to death for being a dangerous dog, an alleged "pit bull" who had bitten twice, once in defense of his friend and property and once in self-defense. Despite stiff opposition by local animal control officials who wanted Bandit "disposed of," Hearne, an animal trainer, poet, and author ( Adam's Task , LJ 8/86) was able to obtain the dog and train him. A moving account of the fight for Bandit's life and liberty (as recorded in the recent PBS documentary A Little Vicious ), this is also a compelling indictment of the political movement for breed-specific "vicious dog" legislation and the self-declared experts who advocate it. Hearne provides a much-needed counterpoint to what has been a very one-sided argument on a volatile issue. Recommended for academic and public libraries.
- Jennifer King, Monmouth Cty. Lib., Marlboro, N.J.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
An astonishingly resonant meditation by animal-trainer Hearne (Adam's Task, 1986; The White German Shepherd, 1988) on the implications of her ongoing--and well-publicized--fight to keep the state of Connecticut from killing ``Bandit,'' a biting ``pit bull.'' ``Pit bull'' is in quotation marks because, as Hearne emphasizes, Bandit, despite media claims, is not really a pit bull- -that is, he's not an American Pit Bull Terrier. And that is no picayune point but one central to Hearne's argument that ``we have traded awareness for language.'' Caught up in the pit bull ``hysteria,'' Bandit, she argues, has been judged by the kangaroo court of language as being ``what he is not'': a pit bull and ``vicious.'' And so it is that Hearne's loose account--of how Bandit responded to provocation by biting a passer-by, then his owner; of how a judge permitted Bandit to live on condition that Hearne take him from his owner to train and to keep; of how the state continues to harass both her and Bandit--expands into a profound exploration of the power of words like ``justice,'' ``law,'' and ``dog bite,'' and of the relations of humans and dogs to awareness and language: ``dogs honor grammar, the surface, the syntactical implications of an exchange more readily than people do, which is their form of honesty.'' Hearne's own form of honesty is in trying ``to return to awareness through language,'' by rooting her study of language to her direct experience, which is on rich display here as she writes, passionately, of her training of Bandit and other dogs (and a wolf); respectively and knowingly, of animals' qualities; and, often sarcastically and even bitterly, of the humans, especially in Canine Control and humane societies, with whom she has fought for Bandit's life. Digressive, almost epistolary; soul-baring and politically volatile; and simply one of the most perceptive works about the social contracts between humans and animals ever written. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Great Dog, Difficult Book to Process
I respect Vicki Hearne, I like this book. Bandit, and his case that Vicki fought for so well was a very important watermark in exposing the myths and half truths that cause so many local authorities accross the country to blindly deem certain breeds of dogs as dangerous. I want to love this book because of this, however, for me the book was to difficult to read. Vicki uses extremely complicated sentence structure and seems to enjoy putting the reader through the wringer before she makes her point. I had to come back to this book a few times to finish it. I believe this is a story we all should be aware of, unfortunately the style of writing alienates it from a good deal of it's prospective audience. If you're well read, go for it, if not just expect to go through a mental obstacle course before the book is finished!