Belka, Why Don't You Bark?

by Hideo Furukawa

  The Pacific Ocean.

  History.

  And the dogs.

  Yes, even the dogs.

  Seventeen dogs with no sense of how they were being used. Their fates might intersect in the most mysterious ways, there on the Korean Peninsula, on the site of a proxy war between East and West, part of the broader Cold War, but they would never know. It was the season for war. The twentieth century, a century of war dogs. The dogs were played with, toyed with, exploited. As the fighting intensified, dragged on, devolved into a quagmire, UN forces began procuring dogs from closer by. In January 1952, America’s Far East Air Force purchased its first dogs from Japan: sixty German shepherds. They had been selected from a group of more than two hundred dogs brought to Ueno Park from throughout the Kantō region. More than a third had passed the first battery of inspections and tests, which included height and overall physical condition, the ability to remain calm in the presence of close-range gunfire, the willingness to attack people clad in protective gear, and the absence of filariasis. Both the commissioned officer in charge of the Far East Air Force’s dogs and the veterinarian were surprised that so many animals passed the test, but given their ancestry it shouldn’t have been a surprise. These were the descendants of war dogs that had not only lived during but also through the Fifteen Years’ War, which included both the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War. And, of course, they were purebred German shepherds. Purebred Japanese German shepherds.

  There were no dogs left in Tokyo in the immediate wake of the defeat. There were no dogs in Osaka either. Or in Hakata, Nagoya, Kanazawa—zero. In the two years leading up to the surrender, dogs had disappeared from Japan’s cities. There was nothing to feed them. With the food situation as dire as it was for humans, fretting over dogs was out of the picture. War dogs were the only exception—they had rations. But they were destined for the battlefield. And then, toward the end of the war, citizens were ordered to turn in their dogs. These weren’t war dogs, just ordinary pets. They weren’t deployed as reinforcements. They were procured as military supplies. They were valued, now, for their fur. Dogs from all across Japan were offered up for the Japanese military to kill and skin. Between ten and twenty percent of Japan’s civilian dogs survived. These lucky dogs lived in rural areas where their owners could feed them.

  As for the war dogs, only those strong enough, fierce enough, lucky enough to escape death on the battlefield, not just once but time after time, survived.

  By and large, the dogs that gathered in Ueno Park in January 1952 were descended from the second of these two groups.

  Something rather amazing happened as a result. American dogs ended up fighting on the front lines and living in the camps with these formerly Japanese dogs, newly incorporated into the UN forces. And among the Japanese dogs were some that, if you traced their lineage, had as their great-great-grandfather the same German shepherd who had sired Katsu. Katsu, the dog that had served in the army garrison manning the Kiska/Narukami antiaircraft battery. The same German shepherd that had kept his distance from the three other dogs left behind on the island, that had ultimately sacrificed himself in a banzai attack, leading the American soldiers into a minefield. And that wasn’t all. There were, in addition, a few dogs descended on their mother’s side from Masao. Yes, that same Masao—Bad News’s father, the grandfather of those seventeen dogs sent into South Korea. But so what? Brought together in this unexpected place by the purest of coincidences, the dogs themselves remained oblivious.

  The dogs’ owners kept breed registries, but the dogs didn’t. They knew nothing about their pedigrees, their history.

  The very uneventfulness of the dogs’ reunion marked their subjection to their destiny.

  To the tense dynamic playing out between the US and the Soviet Union. Or, perhaps, to Truman’s and Stalin’s intense personal hatred of each other.

  The hand of fate played in its fickle way with Bad News’s children elsewhere too, not only on the Korean Peninsula.

  In autumn 1951, in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, a female dog started giving birth to puppies that would have a shot at the top. Her name was Sumer, and she was a sister by the same mother of Gospel and Jubilee, then fighting on the Korean Peninsula. Sumer had never been sent to the front. She wasn’t an elite dog—in fact, she wasn’t even a war dog. She was tested when she was six months old, and she had failed. Naturally each puppy in a litter has its own character and abilities, even though it and its siblings are born of the same seed. By the close of 1949, Bad News had fathered some 277 puppies; of that total no more than 150 were judged appropriate for military use—though among those who were, a good half proved to be extraordinarily capable on the battlefield. Most of the pups that were rejected—on the grounds that they were too friendly, say, or too excitable—were given away for free to ordinary households, or sometimes sold for a small sum. And there were buyers. These were purebred German shepherds, after all. They might not have been suited for war, but they were certified purebreds. And they were pups, and they were adorable.

  So that’s how it was. The puppies scattered. They left the training center kennels behind and went out into the great wide world to live their lives as ordinary pets.

  Sumer, however, ended up in another large kennel like the one she had left. Caged.

  Her owner was a young woman who maintained the kennel at her own expense. She was a breeder, though more often she referred to herself as a handler. She brought her dogs to shows, walked them around the ring. Held their leashes, handled them. The “shows” were, of course, dog shows. She was a regular at venues all across the United States, an up-and-coming breeder whose dogs took, and continued to take, prize after prize.

  She had first become interested in the puppies that didn’t make the grade as war dogs—second-generation rejects, so to speak—two years earlier, and by now she had acquired twenty-four by this route. She treasured them. These rejects might not have had what it took to succeed as war dogs, but they came from an extremely attractive lineage; they might have been tossed out as failures in the world of military breeding, but they were ideally suited to dog shows that were focused, above all, on bodily form. When the military breeders branded these dogs as “standard but useless,” they were in fact certifying that they possessed the fine external appearance that was most valued in the dog shows, and that was, more than anything, what it took to make a dog a king.

  Unmistakably pure, perfectly proportioned.

  Unadulterated formal beauty.

  Of the twenty-four puppies the woman acquired, half were Bad News’s children. Sumer was by far the most beautiful. She was hopeless as a war dog, true, but she was outstanding as a plaything, a pet. Such a gorgeous coat, the handler murmured. Just look at how perfect her bite is. At the same time, the handler had also spotted her weaknesses. She had been doing this ever since she graduated from high school, an up-and-coming breeder, a twenty-five-year-old pro. She entered Sumer in several local shows, to see how she would do, but the best she ever placed was third in her group. No surprise there, the handler thought. She needs a bit more pizzazz, a sort of a sensuousness, something to catch the judge’s eyes. If only the handler could bring that out, she would have a perfect champion dog.

  She would have, that is, a brand.

  Just one more step.

  In order to bring out what she needed, the handler started breeding Sumer. If only this last step could be achieved with this bitch, the next generation would be able to take the grand prize at any dog show in the land. And so Sumer began giving birth to litter after litter by different fathers, twice every year. She was given all the care she needed so she could focus on raising her children.

  The dogs who straddled Sumer over the next five years were all certified purebred German shepherds. She had intercourse with seven different dogs, but every one of the puppies that emerged from her w
omb belonged to the same breed.

  The purity of her blood was preserved.

  The German shepherd line continued unadulterated. But what of the other dogs?

  Dogs, you dogs in Kita’s line, where are you now?

  Most of your number—124 by the end of 1949—remained in Far North Alaska. You were pulling sleds. Half the blood coursing through your veins derived from the Hokkaido breed; half came from other Northern breeds. You were mongrels, every one of you. But you were a mongrel aristocracy—the sons and daughters of Kita, the greatest sled-racing hero of the late 1940s—and as such everyone in the region associated in any way with sled racing knew of your existence. You were nobility, and you were priced accordingly. You might fetch two hundred, five hundred, even a thousand dollars. And you found buyers, every one of you. A few dozen ambitious mushers, new faces in the evolving world of dog sledding, shelled out the cash and bought you. One day you would be their lead dogs.

  You were dispersed. Mostly around Alaska and the Arctic Circle.

  And you mongrelized your line ever further.

  One dog left the territory behind and descended far to the south. Her name was Ice. Her mother, a Siberian husky, had given her a foxlike face and blue eyes. Her maternal grandmother had a touch of Samoyed blood in her, however, and from her Ice had inherited a snow-white coat of long hair, light and fluffy, especially from the ridge between her shoulders down along her spine. She looked a little like a wild beast you might find roaming the snowfields.

  Ice had left the territory over which Kita’s children ruled, it was true, but not by accident—it wasn’t as if she had gotten lost. Though in the end, she might as well have been lost. That, more or less, was her fate…but that wasn’t how it began. The musher who bought her realized it would be foolish for someone so inexperienced—and his new team of sled dogs, with Ice at its head—to commit to an endurance race without adequate preparation, so he made the wise decision to enter his team in shorter competitions. That, at any rate, was what he did the first two winters. And they did impressively well. Ice was the master of her team, she took pride in her leadership, skillfully kept the other dogs in line. And so they moved on to the next stage. In January 1953, Ice went south—or, rather, was taken south—to participate in a competition in Minnesota. Her master always picked races he was convinced they could win, but he had never actually taken the prize. The competition was too stiff in Alaska, in both the American and the Canadian regions. Ice had far too many worthy opponents. There was no guarantee that she would emerge supreme. But her master wanted that, he wanted it so badly…He wanted her to be recognized as a winner in a short- to mid-distance race, and then, if possible, to make a dazzling debut in the world of long-distance racing. Consumed with ambition, Ice’s master searched for just the right race. And he found it. In the snowy Minnesota highlands, where dog sledding was just catching on as a winter sport. Just below the border with Canada.

  Who would ever take a real team that far?

  No one.

  No one but me.

  So he rented a truck and drove his twelve dogs down.

  In January, Ice and her team attempted the three-hundred-mile Minnesota Dog Sled Marathon. The dogs were in mint physical condition and they encountered no particular difficulties along the way, but still they came in second, losing by fifteen minutes. Ice and the other dogs expected their master to shower them with praise, since second place was still awfully good, but he was clearly disappointed; his shoulders drooped. They got no medal, no prize money—he couldn’t even cover the cost of transporting the dogs. He had screwed up. He was overcome by despair. And then, two days later, he was over it. He had met the woman he was destined for. She was twenty-eight years old and single and lived eighteen miles south of Minneapolis. She didn’t have any dogs. She had, instead, twenty cats that lived with her in a house on land inherited from an aunt. They exchanged glances, for no particular reason, and they realized in a flash that they had been in love in some previous life, and that was that. They got married. The musher moved in with her, bringing his twelve sled dogs, and he put down big, thick roots in Minnesota. He didn’t care about racing anymore. Winning, losing. So what? Love was all that mattered. Medals and prize money? Pshaw—all you need is love. No more of this dog sledding shit for him.

  Early in February 1953, Ice and her eleven teammates settled in the low-lying plains of Minnesota, reduced to the status of pets. They were in America now, the home front of the Korean War, in an age when the mood of the country was tense from red-baiting. Everyone was watching I Love Lucy on TV—such a riot. Everything went slow and easy here in the lazy, lukewarm heartland. Totally different from life up in Far North Alaska. Down here in the south.

  It got stressful.

  There were no ice floes. No vast expanses of snow. You couldn’t run. Not only couldn’t you run, you were ordered not to run. WHAT’S GOING ON HERE? Ice wondered. WHERE THE HELL ARE WE? One member of the team, overcome by the same feelings, fell sick, grew progressively weaker. The depression spread. Still the sled dogs remained obedient to the musher. Except he was no longer a musher. Their master had abandoned his sled, he was no musher. He was their owner, plain and simple. And he knew this, and he felt a little bad. The former musher thought he knew what had made his dogs so disconsolate—it was because he no longer had them pull the sled. But, hey, love wins out in the end! The new wife trumps the dogs. When four dogs finally died, the former musher actually found himself thinking dogs could be kind of a pain.

  The sled dogs were no longer loved. But Ice and the other seven loved their master.

  The cats were worst of all. Time and again, the twenty housecats attacked the chained-up dogs. There was a malamute with a shredded ear, a husky who had lost an eye. Retaliation was impossible. Because their master’s wife was cat crazy. She was the problem. Their master was still the leader of their pack, of course. Ice, as lead dog, was number two. But now their master made it clear he wanted them to obey his wife. So where did that leave Ice? Number three? And what about the cats, basking in the wife’s affection? Just you try and touch us, they seemed to be saying, leering at the dogs. You’ll catch it from the master’s wife.

  So in this world, the dogs…were they all the way at the bottom?

  Unwilling to accept this, two more dogs died. Fell sick and died.

  A year passed. In winter, a sparkling white blanket of snow allowed the survivors to feel a modicum of their former happiness. But their master was even more overjoyed. He had gotten it on with a nineteen-year-old waitress in town, and he was up to his ears in love. “In the end, love is all that matters,” he told his still new wife, and scrammed, leaving her behind. Leaving the dogs behind too, of course. Ice and the other five.

  The dogs no longer had a master.

  They couldn’t stand being below the cats.

  Finally, in February 1954, Ice directed them to make their escape. She barked and barked until the woman (now a twenty-nine-year-old divorcée) felt she had no choice but to take them for a walk, and when she testily unhooked their chains and led them outside, Ice suddenly leapt at her. RUN! she ordered the others. WE’RE ESCAPING! There was authority in Ice’s barking. The six dogs fell naturally into line and dashed gallantly off across the asphalt-paved road that wound through the housing development.

  Hope!

  At last, the dogs set out.

  And so six “wild dogs” began their struggle to survive. Basically, they yearned to return to nature. The town was a little too hot. They had all been bred, these “wild dogs”—both as breeds and as individuals—to withstand the cold. So they aimed for the highlands. They didn’t make it anywhere as cold as Alaska, but they got used to it. Ice was clever. She led the pack, found food. She took advantage of the town. Sometimes they snuck quietly into residential neighborhoods, like American black bears in the hungry season.
They lived along the edge of human territory, though of course they spent most of their time in the mountains. When their hormones stirred, Ice and the other five dogs obeyed their instincts. They mated with each other, yes, but they also pursued dogs in town. People’s dogs. Pets. Whenever Ice caught the scent of a dog she liked, she leapt the fence. She stood outside the doghouse, drawing him to her.

  Naturally, she became pregnant.

  One spring passed, another came. She had given birth twice. Ice, the second generation in Kita’s line, was spawning a third generation, more mongrelized than the second. Dogs, you dogs who care nothing for the purity of your blood, what turbulent lives you lead! You have become “wild dogs,” and over time the townspeople have come to despise you. They grow wary. Ice, just look at you, how gorgeous. Your foxlike face, your white mane—your appearance strikes fear into people’s hearts. Look at that ferocious animal! people cry, shuddering, at the sight of you. You are almost a wolf.

  The mountain dogs had begun attacking the town.

  And so it was decided. You were to be eliminated. You were dangerous “wild dogs,” rumored to have bred with wolves.

  They came after you with rifles. You kept fighting.

  Wolves. Of course, the dogs in Ice’s pack had no way of knowing, but in fact by 1952 the blood of a bona fide wolf had indeed entered Kita’s line. One of the dogs who inherited it had found his way into the northernmost regions of Far North Alaska, as if he were living out the fate suggested by his grandfather’s name. Here’s how it happened. Many of the new mushers, inspired to dreams of glory by Kita’s fame, bought dogs belonging to the second generation—Ice’s siblings, some by the same mother, others by different mothers—but not all had substantial financial resources to draw upon. One musher, having found a way to do a favor for Kita’s owner, managed to buy a dog with her noble blood at the bargain basement price of twenty dollars. Unfortunately the rest of the team he had put together was, in a word, worthless. So this new musher hit upon a method by which he might increase his stock of the noble blood without spending a penny—a breeding program that would instantly turn the game in his favor. First, after congratulating himself on the fact that the puppy he had acquired was a bitch, he waited until she was nine or ten months old. Then he hiked into the forest and set up camp, preparing to stay for as long as it took, intentionally leaving the young bitch tied up outside the tent. He was going to get her pregnant by a wolf. This rather primitive and violent mating technique had a venerable history in Alaska and Greenland as a means of boosting sled dogs’ speed and endurance, and this poor new musher had decided to give it a try. He had blown just about all he had buying just one of Kita’s children, but that wasn’t enough for him—the dreamer had bigger dreams. He could do it. One day he would be a top musher.