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Richard F. Stratton.com - Short Stories>
Jocko and the Bobcat by Richard F. Stratton
Although I am convinced that pit dog men are wrongly accused of cruelty to animals by those who are not familiar with the American Pit Bull Terrier breed, I am very much against the fighting of a Pit Bull against a wild animal because, in such a situation, you have an unwilling participant or, in most cases, an animal that is simply fighting for its life.
Just as a point of interest, however, the little dog Jocko was at one time pitted against a bobcat that actually outweighed him. Jocko tipped the scales at 28 pounds. The bobcat was kept by a saloon keeper in Colorado. (This was in the early part of the last century.) I�m not clear how they managed to weight the bobcat, but he was reputed to weigh 35 pounds. Surprisingly, most of the men seemed to feel the bobcat might take Jocko, but then, none of the men were seasoned pit dog men. In any case, Jocko killed the bobcat very quickly by crushing his skull.
Pit Bulldogs are often used for hunting, and the general consensus seems to be that no animal anywhere near their size seems to have a chance against them. It might be of interest to know that writings done hundreds of years ago seem to indicate that it took three Bulldogs to kill a lion and four to kill a bear. That is still giving away a tremendous amount of weight, since three dogs would only weigh around a hundred and fifty pounds. I have a certain skepticism about such statements, since it would be hard for the dogs to hold the lion there to kill, once the cat had decided to "break for it." I could certainly live with the statement that three Bulldogs could normally defeat a lion, although such things are only of casual interest to me.
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