Was he a vicious dog? My brother and I didn't think so. We called him Rinty.

    It was a lazy summer quite a number of years ago, a sunny day in the Matanuska Valley of south central Alaska. Michael looked up from the back porch and cried, “Hey, there's a dog in our yard!”

    I looked up and there he was, a German Shepherd right out of the “Rin Tin Tin” television show. He was sniffing the flowers in Mom's garden.

    “He must belong to a neighbor,” I said. We were always being invaded by stray cats and dogs, but it had been a long time since we'd had a really handsome dog in our yard. In fact, it had been five years since Taffy left us.

    Taffy, a spoiled Poodle, had growled at Michael. Dad had given her away. Dad was the kind of person who always blames the dog. To him, dogs are just critters, something to have around that would bark at strangers and unexpected visitors. Michael and I had wanted another dog ever since.

    Michael was seven. I was 12. I hadn't thought it was possible to ever own a dog as pretty as Rin Tin Tin. We sat on the porch speculating about this new dog.

    We were cautious about gifts from the blue, but we were enterprising. Our conversation went something like this.

    “He sure is pretty,” Michael observed. “Do you think he's smart?”

    “We'll train him,” I suggested.

    “Do you think Dad will let us keep him?”

    “He might,” I said hopefully. “But first we'll have to make sure he's a friendly dog. Let's feed him.”

    We quietly strolled inside and raided Mom's refrigerator. I found a loaf of hamburger. I tore it out of the package and we crept back outside to the fence around the garden. When we got near the dog, he raised his tail, curled his lips, and snarled.

    “Doesn't look very friendly,” Michael murmured.

    “Wait and see,” I whispered back, as I held out a piece of the meat.

    The dog started toward us, hackles up, ears laid back. I tossed the meat and he caught it. He looked surprised and then gobbled it down. His ears came forward and his tail went down. When he finished another piece of meat he looked up at me as if to say, “Not bad. How about some more?” I tossed him a bigger piece.

    “Good boy,” I said. “There's more where that came from.”

    By the time the meat was gone, the dog was wagging his tail. We had made a new friend. We scratched him behind his ears and under his chin, and told him all about how we were going to train him. When Mom called us to supper, we said casually, “We've got a dog out in the yard.”

    “Oh, sure,” Mom muttered, dishing out the beans. Then she gasped, “What?”

    “A dog,” I told her. “He's a German Shepherd. We fed him and tied him to the porch.”

    “His name's Rinty,” Michael added.

    “Eat your supper,” Mom said. “We'll see about that.”

    After supper, when Mom saw our prize, she was enchanted. Mom liked dogs, and I remembered how sad she had been when Dad gave Taffy away. “You be careful with him,” she warned us. “He could be vicious. I'll have to start calling neighbors to see who's lost a dog.”

    “Don't tell Dad,” we begged. Dad had gone into Anchorage on business and wasn't expected back until the end of the week.

    Mom shrugged. “Don't be silly,” she said. “When your father gets home, he's going to hit the roof. You can't hide a dog.” Then she smiled and added, “But I'll talk to your father, and if nobody comes for the dog by then, maybe we'll be able to keep him.”

    That night we were the best children you'd ever want to meet. We did the dishes, swept out the kitchen, and told tall tales to entertain Mom. Somehow, she didn't get to make but two phone calls.

    The next morning Michael and I were up at dawn to feed the dog. He greeted us with a happy tail. I took a stiff hairbrush and worked him over, and got my face washed as I worked. By noon we had him trained to sit and stay and to fetch a stick. The dog was ours.

    The lost companionship had come back. The sun reflected on Rinty's coat, clean and shiny, and I hugged him and loved him.

    But we had our new companion for only two days. On the morning of the third day there was a foreboding knock on the front door. There stood a man with a chain and a stick in his hand.

    “Pardon me, Ma'am,” he said to Mom. “Are you the folks who found my dog?”

    Mom eyed him suspiciously and made him describe the dog in detail. Then, and only then, did she direct him to the back porch. Michael and I tagged along behind the man. I was sad; it was not going to be a nice day.

    As soon as Rinty saw the man, his hackles went up and he lunged on the end of his line, teeth snapping and flashing. The change in his personality shocked me. He was suddenly a vicious animal, barking and snarling as if he wanted to kill the man. Michael screamed, “Rinty, no!”

    “You kids stand back,” the man told us. “He's ugly. It's a good thing for you that he's tied up.”

    “The kids tied him,” Mom said from the porch. “He wasn't like this a while ago.”

    The man didn't say anything. He threatened the dog with his stick, and Rinty snapped and snarled at him. The man stepped aside and caught the dog by the scuff of the neck. Rinty turned his head and snapped, but the man brought the stick down across the dog's nose. The dog yelped. As the owner led Rinty away he offered to pay Mom for finding his dog.

    “No,” she said icily. “He's your dog. Just take him and get out of here.”

    As the brute walked off with our treasured companion, we knew he'd never be able to keep the dog. The dog wanted to kill. I never saw Rinty again, although I hopefully checked our garden each day for the rest of that summer. Even now, after more than fifty years, that “vicious” dog is often on my mind. Funny, isn't it, how much dogs are just like people? Treat them kindly and you'll never have a better friend. Treat them mean and... Well, maybe Rinty's owner could tell you what happens then.