The Dog's Revenge

This true story takes place on the eve of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union and does not end until many years after the war.

My old buddy, Shay Alexandrovich, a retired colonel who had just returned from Soviet occupation in Germany and one of the oldest members of our service dog lovers club, told several of us dog lovers the following thrilling story.

One

What I value most is spirituality and loyalty. What I'm telling is a story about the spirituality and loyalty of dogs.

That was on the eve of the Great Patriotic War. Back then, I was serving in a border post, and my family lived with me next to the border. Let's just say we had a young man at our post, a very good military dog guide. This young man is well-read and very educated. He was guiding a large wolf dog of shepherd breed. The dog was young, strong, well-trained, and very attached to him. This is also understandable. This young man is gentle and polite, but at the same time, he is a man of fortitude and bravery. All his free time is spent with this dog. He can even understand the dog's mood from the slightest change in the dog's behavior, to the twitching of his ears, and the dog can obey his master's orders with a single glance.

However, this good young man was killed by the enemy. Here's what happened:

On the border where our outpost was managed, a band of bandits crossed the border. Our soldiers fired at the enemy. This young man and another soldier got caught in the first attack of the enemy. They gave the bandits the blow they deserved, and despite the large number of border crossers and only two of them, our fighters were good at holding off the enemy until reinforcements arrived.

When we arrived at the scene of the battle, what was presented was this picture: three border crossers were killed; our loss was: one soldier was killed (the other was unharmed). It was the young man's military dog guide, Starrozin, who died.

The young man died a heroic death. He ran out of bullets and fought the enemy hand-to-hand, and was unfortunately killed by the enemy with a pistol in the hand-to-hand fight. Next to him lay a seriously wounded dog. It had defended its pilot and suffered two gunshot wounds.

We are all deeply saddened by the sacrifice of Starrozin. We also miss the dog named "Wennay" (loyal translator's note). Wennay quickly recovered from his wounds, so we assigned him to another soldier to guide, but the decision was not followed through. First, Wennay disobeyed the guidance of the new guide; second, he kept walking to the place where his previous guide was killed, whining. By the way! I almost forgot to tell you an important detail: Next to Starrozin's body, we found two human fingers. Maybe it was the finger of the gangster who shot Starrozin, and it was bitten by a dog. Obviously, at that time, Vern jumped on the gangster and bit off his two fingers with his sharp teeth.

We tried to send him to another post, but he became restless and kept breaking free from his leash. As a result, he lost one of the most important qualities of a border dog. In addition, another calamity fell on him. It turned out that the dog had a gunshot wound in the head, the bullet damaged hearing-related nerves, and the dog quickly became deaf. He was no longer suitable for border service. So, I personally adopted him. He lives in my house, is very close to my family, and is very affectionate to me. A dog has a temper: he always has one of the most attached people. However, I always think that, deep down in him over the years, the image of his past friends and owners is indelible.

The Great Patriotic War broke out shortly after Staloszin's death. I went to the front. During this time Vern became completely deaf and old. However, he was still strong and fierce when necessary!

Since it is completely deaf, it becomes more and more isolated. However, it is the loss of hearing that sharpens other senses. Isn't it, it has an amazing sense of smell and extraordinary intuition. It can understand what people mean by the touch of their lips; you can also whisper orders to it. It will do it right away.

Two.

After our army captured Berlin, I flew to Berlin with the same general. We landed on an airfield with a wreckage of German planes.

I am proficient in German. Even before the war, I had read a lot of German canine literature, and knew the location of German police and military dog breeding grounds, and the number of police and military dogs owned by each breeding ground. The general and I were eager to find out whether the breeding grounds were intact. However, the first kennel we visited was so damaged that the only staff member was a Czech who had gone into hiding for liberation on the eve of Hitler's gang's collapse. The Czech briefed us: On the eve of the capture of Berlin, three German officers drove to the kennel. They walked through the compound of the kennel and ordered us to let the dogs out. The dogs came running towards our staff and the three of them shot them one by one. Within half an hour, the bodies of the dogs they shot were piled up and 400 dogs were shot.

"There was a man who shot very hard, a fingerless man," the Czech said unexpectedly. "He knocked down twice as many dogs by himself as the other two. He killed dogs with a diabolical satisfaction. Even smiled slightly."

"Fingerless man?" I asked mechanically.

"Yes! His right hand is missing two fingers... he shot with his left hand."

The general and I both stood there like clay sculptures. We have witnessed many horrific things in this war, but we were shocked by senseless murders like this. In addition to being shocked, I realized that the total war is still going on!

Shortly after touring the kennel, I was appointed garrison commander of a small town in the province of Brandenburg. My family also moved from within the country, as did the deaf dog Wennay. A few months passed.

One day I took Vinny back to the house from the garrison headquarters. For months, Vinny followed me often, never on a leash, walking freely beside me. He has aged even more recently: he is ten years old, which is a rare year for a dog, and he sleeps as soon as he sits down, and even the hair on his torso has turned gray except for the kiss. But Vinny's sense of smell is as keen as ever. Vinny has always been a model of obedience to orders. On this day, however, his behavior was unusual: he walked very restlessly. At one point he left me and ran forward, at another he pulled behind me, and at other times he had a temper. I got angry too, so I shouted at him, and I noticed right away that Vern was shaking like a shiver, sniffing the air nervously, and then sniffing the asphalt of the sidewalk. Could it be that he was sick?

"Vern, what's the matter with you?" I exclaimed. Immediately I was amazed: Vern heard me speak. It turned around when it heard it. The other thing that surprised me was its eyes. Its eyes were full of pain and indescribable resentment, and there was something I couldn't tell. All the hair on its body stood up, and the tail was tucked under its belly. I've never seen it in such a state of alertness. Of course, the most amazing thing is that it has regained its hearing....

It is said that animals can feel their own doom coming. This can even be found in animal physiological anomalies. Some animals become depressed and fall into a state of repression. In contrast, others experience an indescribable state of alertness. In this highly excited, alert state of mind, the most unexpected phenomena often occur in these animals.

Suddenly, Vernet lowered his head to the ground, hit me and ran away.

"Vern, where are you going? Come back! Come back!" I shouted.

However, it ran forward without looking back: either it was deaf again, or it didn't want to obey orders.

I tried to run after it, but it pulled down in a blink of an eye. Vern disappeared, and I went home worried.

Two hours later, I'm still thinking about Vern. Where is it? What happened? My family made assumptions that were very different from mine: the dog was crazy and things like that. I disagree with them. Something deep inside me was telling me that something more serious had happened to Vern.

Three

You see, not long after two hours, the phone rang. The officer on duty in my office informed me that an unusual incident had occurred on a street in the city center: a wild dog the size of a wolf dog came out of nowhere, swooped at a German citizen, and bit him.

"What?" I yelled into the microphone. "Describe the dog to me!..."

"Is your Vern at home?" the officer on duty asked cautiously.

"Werner is not at home!" I answered with extreme vigilance.

"There were two of our soldiers at the scene of the accident," the officer on duty continued to report. "According to them, the dog looked like Vern."

"Is he still alive?"

"I'm about to die."

"Where's the dog?"

"The dog is still alive..."

The officer on duty said something else, but I hung up the garage and asked for a car before I could hear his report.

Five minutes later, I was on the street reported by the officer on duty. There was still a pool of blood on the asphalt that the street sweepers had not had time to sweep away. This pool of blood indicated the location of the incident. The bitten German had been carried into a nearby house, and he was dead a few minutes before I drove there.

This was a man who was no longer young. Light-haired, tall, wearing an ordinary civilian costume, his face was so cold that even death could not change his grim appearance. The wolf dog almost bit his throat, and he died before a quarter of an hour. Vern was lying next to him, but what did it look like!

It turned out that the passerby had a pistol, and while dodging the dog's attack, he fired resistance, ** a full cartridge of bullets at Vern. Vern was mortally wounded, but alive. I knelt down in front of Vern. He recognized me and twitched his tail slightly. Obviously, he wanted to welcome me. The blood bubbles at the corners of his mouth kept swelling, and at the same time, the blood bubbles made a gurgling sound, a hoarse sound that seemed to get stuck in his throat. Vern was always looking behind me. I looked at where its eyes were pointing: its eyes were constantly staring at the German who was bitten to death by it. What a deep hatred was in its eyes!

"Take him out!" I pointed at the corpse and ordered.

Two soldiers came to the corpse, one moved his head and the other raised his foot. Because of a bump, the dead man's right hand slipped down, sagged, and hit the floor with a "pounce". I couldn't help but be startled: the dead man's right hand was missing two fingers.

Suddenly, I remembered a distant picture that had been obscured by the harsh events of the war over the years. Now, the picture is so vivid that it seems like it was seen yesterday: on the trampled snow, blood-stained, Starrozin, who was killed by the enemy, lying on the ground, a wounded and bleeding dog, two sallow human fingers... Thinking of this, I knew everything. Look, what kind of man is lying in front of me! The murderer of Starrozin was punished.

Look, what's the explanation for the unusual behavior of the dog? Vern was able to smell the enemy from the footprints on the asphalt. The breath of this man has been preserved in his mind for eight years! For eight years he has held an unforgettable hatred for him, and has waited for the day of revenge!

"Is the identity of the deceased confirmed?" I asked.

"It's almost there," my assistant replied meaningfully, who had arrived at the scene not long ago. He handed me the documents of the deceased.

Isn't this a Nazi party card, a Gestapo registration card.

"He carried it with him?!" I asked in surprise.

"It's sewn into the shirt..."

The dead were carried away, and Vern calmed down. Its eyes dimmed, and the expression of hatred disappeared. This hatred has been with it for the rest of its life. It licked me with its tongue one last time, took a deep breath, and died upright. Our Vern is gone...

To tell you the truth, that's the whole story... but one more thing to add: further investigation determined that this guy was an airborne scout for Deko, a dangerous and vicious enemy who has been endangering our country all his life.

After hearing this story, we thought that readers would share the same love and respect for our nation's police and military dogs as members of our Service Dog Lovers Club.