Table of Contents
Dedicated to all the animals who have been saved
from the cruel hands of abusers,
and to those for whom help was too late
There is much more work to be done.
Clara
Bulldog Meets Alpha Dogs
Milk for the baby, a few containers of yogurt, something for tomorrows breakfast.
While running over her mental shopping list, Jessica Kur land tied her three-and-a-half-year-old bulldog, Clara, to a railing outside the Food Emporium on Forty-third Street and Tenth Avenue in Manhattan. It was mid-March of 2008, a week before Easter, and pitch-dark at 8:30 P.M. But it was a long elevator ride up to her thirty-first-floor apartment to drop Clara off. And shed be in the store only a few minutes. Besides, Jessica wasnt the only one who had interrupted her dog-walking for a quick dash through the dairy aisle; another dog was tied to the rail, waiting patiently for an owner who had disappeared beyond the thump of the glass doors.
But when Jessica came back out of the supermarket five minutes later, she didnt register the flash of red that was Claras leash. Startled, she stared at the spot where her wrinkle-faced, wriggle-bottomed bulldog should have been patiently waiting. It was empty. Nothing but bare concrete and the whoosh of nearby bus exhaust. No Clara.
Panic-stricken, Jessica looked up and down the street, hoping to see Claras charming waddle among the jumble of legs. As the stream of passersby marched on, so did the creeping fear in Jessicas chest. Her dog was gone without a trace.
I started running up and down the sidewalks, screaming her name, remembers Jessica, who instinctively knew that Clara had not wandered off. She never strayed, even when off leash. I was grabbing people: Have you seen a bulldog?
Jessica cruised around in a police car for an hour and a half as the officers scoured the neighborhood, hoping for a glimpse of the missing dog. But after seeing no trace of her beloved Clara, she headed to a twenty-four-hour copy center, where she printed five hundred flyers with Claras picture, her phone number, and the promise of a $3,000 reward.
Desperate to get the word out, Jessica contacted a friend, model Beth Ostrosky, the then-fiance of shock jock Howard Stern and a devoted bulldog owner. Two days after Claras disappearance, her story was on the air and in the citys consciousness. Marlboro-puffing truck drivers, harried commuters, bored office workers, anyone within range of Sterns Sirius satellite channel knew about the smush-faced purebred who had been lifted from a Manhattan street corner. And they knew about the newly upped $5,000 reward being offered for her safe return.
Another day passed, but still, no Clara.
Of the many breeds humans have created over the centuries, bulldogs are one of the most dramatic: With their anvil-size heads, jutting underbites, and bulky, pear-shaped bodies, they attract attention wherever they go. Bred centuries ago as the centerpiece of one of the most brutal blood sports ever devisedbull baiting, where the bulldog latched on to the nose of the enraged steer and hung on until it had drowned the bull in its own bloodthe bulldog we know today exists only to be a cuddly, goofy, placid companion. So ugly they are cute, so extreme they have universal appeal, bulldogs are a breed that defies conventional wisdom.
People think bulldogs are kind of fierce, but theyre really lovers, confides Jessica, who soon encountered a group of rough-and-ready Good Samaritans who fit a similar profile. Like Clara, these animal rescuers were an equally unlikely juxtaposition of opposites: softhearted and street-smart, charming and intimidating, quick to laugh and just as quick to anger, too.
As Claras disappearance stretched into its third day, word of the bulldogs theft had spread all over craigslist. Jessica fielded an e-mail from a retired New York City police detective named Angel Nieves. He belonged to a group of animal rescuers, he explained. I spoke to my team, and we want to investigate and try our best to recover your dog, he wrote.
Yes! Jessica wrote back. She would take whatever help she could get.
And what she got was more than she ever bargained for. Never mind the stereotype of the crazy cat lady in tennis shoes feeding kittens out of pie tins in a vacant lot: Jessica was about to meet a new breed of rescuer, one that was male, macho, and not inclined to take no for an answer.
The morning after Angels call, Jessica opened her door to a group of six men who looked like a Sopranos casting call at a Harley-Davidson dealership. Tattoos covered their well-muscled arms, necks, even faces, running the metaphysical gamut from praying angels to wing-spread bats. Their wardrobe was straight out of a Sturgis biker rally: denim, leather, motorcycle boots, black sweatshirts embroidered with their names in white block letters: Batso. G. Big Ant. Johnny O.
Jessica recalls her husbands reaction succinctly. Holy shit, he said under his breath as the men crossed the threshold.
But his wife felt the stirrings of possibility. I was so hopeful when I saw them, Jessica says. They looked like they meant business.
They certainly did. Clara was about to become the pet project of Rescue Ink.
No one can quite pinpoint the moment when the germ of an idea about a bunch of burly, hot-rod-riding rescuers, whose arms boast more ink than a Catholic-school penmanship class, ever came to be in the first place. Robert Misseri, the groups cofounder, whose noticeably uninked appearance dovetails nicely with his daytime vocation as a Manhattan-based caterer, says the defining moment came in June of 2007.
Robert gathered a handful of guys who knew each other from hot-rod shows, tattoo parlors, motorcycle rallies, or their neighborhoods at a Midtown Chinese restaurant called Gingers. All of them had saved animals over the years, bringing home stray cats or trying to save a chained-up dog whose owners neglected him. They just never knew that what they did had a label: animal rescue. Neither had any of them ever thought to formally band together to try to help animals, though it was only logical that a group of badass animal lovers could do more collectively than individually.
Years back, Anthony Missano, the groups gentle giant at 320 pounds, confronted someone in his Long Island neighborhood who had been seen repeatedly kicking and yelling at his dog while walking him.
Everyone in the neighborhood knew about it for a while, but theres only so much you can take, says Big Ant. It wasnt necessary, what he was doing to the dog.
Not one but six guys answered the door when Big Ant rang the bell.
I said, Listen, everybody knows youre hurting your dog, Big Ant remembers. If you dont want him, Ill take him.
They hurled a few choice words, issued sundry threats, then slammed the door in his face.
A few days later, a dozen Harleys roared to a stop in front of the home of the mistreated hound mix.
At this second overture, they took a different tone, says Big Ant with satisfaction. Maybe he didnt have time to care for the dog after all, the suddenly humbled owner suggested. So Big Ant struck a deal: If he could find a good home for the dog, the man would consider giving him up. In a few weeks, through word of mouth, a loving new home for the pooch was found.
