Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1886 — THE WILD DOGS OF ATLANTA. [ARTICLE]

THE WILD DOGS OF ATLANTA.

They Conldn’t Stand the War Racket—- ; j' Their Final Extermination. [From the Atlanta Constitution.] Did you ever hear of the wild dogs of Atlanta? At one time the country around here was almost at the mercy of these savage animals. Horses, elephants, and camels can be made to take an almost human interest in war, but dogs cannot stand the racket. . The din of battle and the smell of villianous saltpeter breaks them up entirely. Our dogs had a hard time during the siege. There w ere thousands of them in those days, and when the season of short rations set in they were the first to feel it. In many instances they were abandoned by their refugeeing owners and had to literally forage for a living. The thunder of the big guns, the unearthly shrieks of the shells, the noise of falling buildings, the rattle of musketry, and the heavy tramp of marching soldiers, all struck terror to the canine contingent. Toward the close of the siege nearly every dog in the city was half-rabid or in the last stage of nervous prostration. The wretched brutes sought shelter under houses and in bombproofs. Majestic mastiffs and surly bulldogs curled their tails between their legs and yelped mournfully at every unusual sound. Hundreds of the bolder ones made a frantic break over the breastworks and ditches, and made their way through the lines of both armies, never stopping until they reached the woods. It was even worse after Sherman’s army entered the place. The citizens were driven out in such a hurry that they had no time’ to think of their'pets and no means of transportation for them. Later the destruction of the city by. fire and the general pandemonium that ensued scattered the few remaining dogs. These innocent victims of the ravages of war had a terrible experience during the rigorous winter of 1864-5. Their misery drove them to form strange partnerships, and it was a common sight to see them roving in bands of a dozen or more. The old saying: “Banish the dog from his kennel and have a wolf,” was illustrated in this base. In the course of five or six months the country people for fifty miles around were spinning marvelous yarns about “them wild dogs of Atlanta. ” The dog belongs to the genus which produces the -wolf, the jackal, and the fox. Tame dogs, of course, lose many of the characteristics of these animals; but when persecution and misery cause them to relapse into a wild state they take the appearance, the habits, and the tastes of wolves and jackals. Such ■was notoriously the fact with the Atlanta dogs. They lost every trace of domesticity. They grew to enormous size, with savage eyes and cruel-looking fangs. Occasionally a gang of these ferocious beasts would swoop down on a farmyard, devouring chickens and pigs, and attacking men when they stood in their way. It took the liveliest, kind of shooting to drive them off. Sometimes they would surround a lonely cabin and wait for the inmates to come out. They even made raids into little villages, forcing the inhabitants to shut themselves up in their houses. The disappearance of many a negro in those perilous times was fully accounted for when his skeleton was found with every particle of flesh gnawed off, and with the ground around showing evidences of a desperate struggle. Early in 1865, when a few refugees "began returning to Atlanta, they had to struggle with these wild dogs for the possession of the ruins. Bloody encounters occurred among the ashheaps and piles of debris. Every cellar and hole in the ground held these ravenous brutes, and they leaped upon men, women, and children without the slightest provocation. At that time it was dangerous to ride or drive out in the country." On the main roadbetween here and Decatur, in broad daylight, dogs were known to attack horses attached to buggies, forcing their drivers to open a hot fusilade with their revolvers. After getting this taste of a’wild life the Atlanta dogs went to the bad altogether. They never reformed. A relentless warfare was waged upon them from the Stone Mountain to Kenesaw, and one by one they bit the dust until they were all wiped out. The reader at a distance must not jump to the conclusion that this indiscriminate slaughter has caused an unusual , scarcity of dogs in this region. Thanks to the universal, human weakness for pets, we are abundantly supplied with bench-legged flees, terriers, pugs, Newfoundlands, mastiffs, and bulls. If some unexpected calamity should cause them all to go wild, after the fashion of their predecessors, they would be an uncommonly tough crowd to deal with.