vintage grippers

Honest Abe on Bulldogs

Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.
Abraham Lincoln

The Clinging Death

WHITE FANG
Part IV: The Superior Gods
Chapter 4 The Clinging Death


Jack London

The following is an excerpt from Jack London's White Fang.

There was no escaping that grip. It was like Fate itself, and as inexorable. Slowly it shifted up along the jugular. All that saved White Fang from death was the loose skin of his neck and the thick fur that covered it. This served to form a large roll in Cherokee's mouth, the fur of which well-nigh defied his teeth. But bit by bit, whenever the chance offered, he was getting more of the loose skin and fur in his mouth. The result was that he was slowly throttling White Fang. The latter's breath was drawn with greater and greater difficulty as the moments went by.

It began to look as though the battle were over. The backers of Cherokee waxed jubilant and offered ridiculous odds. White Fang's backers were correspondingly depressed, and refused bets of ten to one and twenty to one, though one man was rash enough to close a wager of fifty to one. This man was Beauty Smith. He took a step into the ring and pointed his finger at White Fang. Then he began to laugh derisively and scornfully. This produced the desired effect. White Fang went wild with rage. He called up his reserves of strength and gained his feet. As he struggled around the ring, the fifty pounds of his foe ever dragging on his throat, his anger passed on into panic. The basic life of him dominated him again, and his intelligence fled before the will of his flesh to live. Round and round and back again, stumbling and falling and rising, even uprearing at times on his hind-legs and lifting his foe clear of the earth, he struggled vainly to shake off the clinging death.

At last he fell, toppling backward, exhausted; and the bulldog promptly shifted his grip, getting in closer, mangling more and more of the fur-folded flesh, throttling White Fang more severely than ever. Shouts of applause went up for the victor, and there were many cries of "Cherokee!" "Cherokee!" To this Cherokee responded by vigorous wagging of the stump of his tail. But the clamor of approval did not distract him. There was no sympathetic relation between his tail and his massive jaws. The one might wag, but the others held their terrible grip on White Fang's throat.


http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/WhiteFang/4chapter4.html

Emerson, essays and bulldogs

We can help ourselves to the modus of mental processes only by coarse material experiences. A knife with a good spring, a forceps whose lips accurately meet and match, a steel-trap, a loom, a watch, the teeth or jaws of which fit and play perfectly, as compared with the same tools when badly put together, describe to us the difference between a person of quick and strong perception, like Franklin or Swift or Webster or Richard Owen, and a heavy man who witnesses the same facts or shares experiences like theirs. 'T is like the impression made by the same stamp in sand or in wax. The way in which Burke or Sheridan or Webster or any orator surprises us is by his always having a sharp tool that fits the present use. He has an old story, an odd circumstance, that illustrates the point he is now proving, and is better than an argument. The more he is heated, the wider he sees ; he seems to remember all he ever knew ; thus certifying us that he is in the habit of seeing better than other people ; that what his mind grasps it does not let go. 'T is the bull-dog bite; you must cut off the head to loosen the teeth.


MEMORY. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 12 (Natural History of Intellect and Other Papers) [1909]

Presidents and pit bulls

"The greatest thing about him is cool persistency of purpose. He has the grip of a bulldog; when he once gets his teeth in, nothing can shake him off."

President Lincoln's impression of Ulysses S. Grant

Pushing to the front, or, Success under difficulties: a book of inspiration

the pit bull in poetry

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr (August 29, 1809 – October 7, 1894)

Never Give Up

Never give up, there are chances and changes,
Helping the hopeful, a hundred to one;
And, through the chaos, High Wisdom arranges
Ever success, if you’ll only hold on.

Never give up; for the wisest is boldest,
Knowing that Providence mingles the cup,
And of all maxims, the best, as the oldest,
Is the stern watchword of ‘Never give up!’”

Be firm; one constant element of luck
Is genuine, solid, old Teutonich pluck.
Stick to your aim; the mongrel’s hold will slip,
But only crowbars loose the bull-dog’s grip;
Small though he looks, the jaw that never yields
Drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields!

Nippers, Rippers and Grippers

Tige liked to play with balloons too.

Jessup, the animal control officer in Olympia, uses two pit bulls to train police and animal control officers on surviving dogs attacks.

Unlike dogs who are nippers and rippers, her pit bulls are typically "grippers" who bite down and hang onto their victims.

At the workshop, animal control officers learned to avoid the animals' gripping jaws by using fences, vehicles or even a rabies pole, a four foot long stick with a wire noose.

Under no circumstances should anyone ever lie down or play dead around an attacking dog, Niemczyk.

Even if the animal bites an arm, that is better than an attack on the neck or head, she said.

By the end of the day, Dread had knocked down two male officers, tore at Nienczyk's arm and taught a few lessons.

QUESTIONS
IF ALL dogs bite and IF pit bulls are no more dangerous than labs or cocker spaniels, WHY do they need pit bulls for this seminar? Doesn't the use of pit bulls help feed the fear mongering that pit bulls are more dangerous? Why not use boxers or collies? OR, could it be that the instructor (Diane Nutter Jessup) needed a dog that had the ability to KNOCK DOWN an adult male police officer to demonstrate how critical it is that you should never be in the prostrate position with a biting dog? OR, was this just another stunt in an effort to show how wonderful pit bulls are?


Spokesman-Review August 3, 1988

Some dogs don't let go

The Record Union, Sacramento, April 11, 1891