My neighbor banged on my door at 11:00 PM during the thunderstorm. “Your dog has something in the backyard,” he yelled over the rain. “He’s shaking it. I think it’s a rabbit.”
My stomach dropped. My dog is Tank. He’s 140 pounds of Cane Corso. He looks like a gargoyle come to life. People cross the street to avoid him. If he caught a rabbit, it was already over.
I grabbed a flashlight and ran into the downpour. I saw Tank by the back fence. He was drenched, mud splashing up on his massive chest. He had something small and grey in his mouth.
“Tank! Drop it!” I shouted, expecting the worst.
He didn’t drop it. He trotted over to me, looking panicked. He nudged my hand with his wet nose, still holding the thing in his jaws.
I shone the light. It wasn’t a rabbit. It was a kitten. Maybe four weeks old, half-drowned in the mud.
Tank wasn’t shaking it. He was trying to carry it without crushing it.
I held out my hands. Tank lowered his massive head and opened his mouth. He didn’t just drop it; he deposited the kitten into my palms with the precision of a surgeon.
We rushed inside. I grabbed a towel. The kitten was freezing, barely moving. Before I could start rubbing it, Tank pushed me out of the way.
He lay down and began to lick the kitten. His tongue was bigger than its entire body. He cleaned the mud off its face. He warmed it with his breath. He curled his giant, muscular body around it, creating a wall of heat.
The kitten let out a tiny squeak and buried its face in Tank’s neck fur.
My neighbor called him a killer. I watched a 140-pound “monster” hold his breath so he wouldn’t scare a baby.
The kitten’s name is Squirt. He lives here now. And Tank? He’s no longer just a guard dog. He’s a nanny.
Don’t judge a book by its cover. Sometimes the scariest beasts have the softest hearts.
