For the Animal Lovers: An Excerpt From 'Wallace' by Jim Gorant

Jim ­Gorant’s ­Wallace tells the story of an unruly shelter dog who got a second chance and ­became a world champion. Gorant follows the Frisbee-­obsessed pit bull as he and his owner conquer the disc dog ­circuit, winning titles and hearts across the U.S.





Read the excerpt below from Wallace: The Underdog Who Conquered a Sport, Saved a Marriage, and Championed Pit Bulls—One Flying Disc at a Time.

Roo and Clara had gotten engaged the previous fall, back at Garvin Heights, on the bluff overlooking the Mississippi. Clara knew what was coming as soon as they pulled up. She had given him her grandmother’s engagement ring months before—just in case. Now she couldn’t wait to see it again. She didn’t hear anything he said, she just kept thinking, Come on, ask, ask!

For Roo, the moment was one he had long anticipated, and as they stood on the bluff, Roo pulled out a ring, dropped to one knee: “You’re the only woman I’ve ever truly loved. Will you marry me?”

In the aftermath, the couple rose to a new level of happiness. They spent more and more time together. They played with the dogs, they gathered with friends, they spent time at Paws & Claws trying to make a difference. But not everything in their lives remained similarly charmed. A few months after their engagement, Clara’s mom, Sally, had gone into the hospital with stomach pain and had a large tumor removed from her abdomen. The mass was tested and determined to be leiomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer.

The word “cancer” hit hard, and after Clara recovered from the shock she was full of questions. She sat with her mom asking what it all meant. Sally talked about the condition, the treatments, and the medical prospects in dry scientific terms, but beyond that Sally had little to say. She refused to entertain any talk of feelings or fears or potential long-term implications. Sally’s approach felt a little odd or old-fashioned at times, but in truth Roo and Clara had a similar view: Do what could and should be done and don’t dwell on the rest of it. It helped that the prognosis seemed positive. Better to focus on the wedding.

The ceremony took place on September 24, 2004, outdoors. The reception was held on the property of an old farm that had been converted to a bed-and-breakfast. Following the ceremony, the group moved into a two-story circular barn, and at one point, Clara changed into a red dress, and she and Roo danced a tango. Before the newlyweds knew it the DJ was packing up the speakers, their friends were heading for their cars, and they were standing with their families outside the little bed-and-breakfast, soaking up every minute of the perfect starlit night.

They had planned their honeymoon for December, closer to the holidays, so when the weekend was over and all the guests had gone home, they returned to their everyday lives. Wallace had become a shared project, and they were happy to see he was making progress. He had a long way to go, though. Many of the people who worked at the shelter were still scared of him, and even if he managed to behave at times, he continued to be a ball of frantic energy who barked and jumped and nipped.

Finally, Wallace’s nature and circumstances got the best of him. A large Lab mix named Reggie lived in the kennel next to Wallace. The two dogs often barked at each other and pawed through the gate. On this day Reggie stood on his bed, raised up on his hind legs so his mouth was right near the top of the cinder-block wall dividing the two pens. Chain-link fencing extended above the blocks, and as the dogs continued to bark they became more agitated. Finally, Reggie stuck his paw through the chain link. Wallace bit.

Reggie squealed.

The attendant on duty heard the sound and rushed in. She burst into Reggie’s pen, grabbed his paw, and tried to free it, but she couldn’t do anything to loosen Wallace’s grip because he was on the other side of the fence. Reggie, in pain and afraid, lashed out, biting the woman on the arm. Now she yelped too, and with a final determined pull, wrested Reggie’s paw from Wallace’s mouth.

The attendant was bleeding. Reggie was bleeding. Wallace was apoplectic.

Clara arrived at Paws & Claws around noon, for her regular shift. As soon as she stepped through the door the receptionist said, “Did you hear about Wallace?”

“What?” Clara said.

“Well, he went after another dog and bit his foot. And when someone tried to break it up, he bit her, too.”

Clara couldn’t believe it. She ran back to the kennel. She burst through the door and almost knocked over Adam. “How?” she said. “Who?”

Adam told her what happened—really. That Reggie had stuck his paw through the fence and that Wallace had bitten it. That Reggie had bitten the attendant, not Wallace. And that although the damage to Reggie’s paw was pretty bad, it would have been much less severe had someone pulled open Wallace’s mouth instead of wrenching the limb out from the other side.

Clara felt a wave of relief, followed quickly by a spike of anger and a surge of sadness. It was clear how quickly everyone wanted to believe the worst about Wallace. She realized what this meant. Even if they could get everyone to hear the true story, the damage was done.

The questions about Wallace’s future would only grow louder. Sure enough, news of Wallace’s issues had reached the shelter’s board, and some board members had begun asking around about him. The rumor mill spun. Word had it that the board was coming to view Wallace as a “dangerous dog.” The talk of euthanasia turned serious.

This development represented a turning point for Clara and Roo. They had been on Wallace’s side from the beginning. They were young and full of passion. When the first rumors of euthanasia circulated they didn’t like them, but they understood. If Wallace was unadoptable—and everyone considered him pretty much so: He wasn’t even on the adoptable-dogs list at the shelter—and incapable of functioning in a shelter environment, at some point it would be in not only the shelter’s best interest but in Wallace’s to end his suffering.

This was different. They were talking about putting Wallace down because he was a risk to both people and animals. To Clara and Roo—and Adam too—that simply was not true. Wallace was a brat, but he was also a high-intelligence, high-drive dog locked in an overstimulating setting with little to no outlet for his energy. That may have been reason to loathe him, but not to kill him.

Clara and Roo suspected something else was at play, a fact of Wallace’s existence that he could do nothing about—his breed. Rochester’s shelters had not yet been overrun with pit bulls, so the dogs remained a sort of unknown that existed more in myth and headline hyperbole than as actual canines. Clara and Roo felt that another dog in the shelter, a Lab mix named Roofus, was every bit as bratty and difficult as Wallace, but he seemed to receive a lot more understanding and patience. In one message-board posting Roo posed a question for the group: “What if Wallace acted the same, but looked like Roofus?”

It was weird to use the language of civil rights to discuss dogs, but for Clara and Roo no other word fit except discrimination. They could live with euthanasia for the right reasons, but bias and fear were not the right reasons. Saving Wallace became a mission.

Reprinted by arrangement with Gotham Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright (c) 2012 by Jim Gorant.


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