JOHNSON: Knife that killed pit bull finds way to owner's heart

By Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 8, 2007 at midnight

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He was pretty certain of it the first time he saw the knife blade go in. And God, it was an awful sound, he remembers.

The second, third, fourth and fifth times the blade plunged in are still a blur, as was the first time, seconds later, that the man dragged the blade across Mac's throat.

Ben Johnson, though, remembers distinctly the second time the man slit Mac's throat, a moment in time when he was simply beside himself, words that should have come out in a scream choking in his throat.

All he wanted, he said, was to somehow separate himself and Mac from the dog-and-man scrum in the middle of Broomfield County Commons Dog Park, to shield the nearly 4-year-old Mac from the Doberman, and yet more blows from the Doberman's owner's knife.

Onlookers gasped as Ben Johnson picked up Mac, cradling him as if a baby, and raced him to his car.

Mac died some 15 minutes later, or shortly after his owner laid him on the vet's examination table.

What Ben Johnson (no relation to this writer) feared in those early moments of the attack last week, it seems, has come to pass. Some witnesses, according to Broomfield Police Chief Tom Deland, reported Mac as the aggressor. "In order to stop the attack, the owner of the dog got a knife and stabbed the other dog," Deland was quoted as saying.

Mac, you see, was a pit bull. Sure, tiny as pit bulls go, but a pit bull nonetheless. And it's my perception that if a pit bull is involved, the pit bull will be blamed, no matter what.

"A few of the people there said Mac attacked the Doberman, which is just ridiculous. People will never just look at a dog, but the breed," a still-grieving Ben Johnson, 24, said.

"Some of them also said I attacked the Doberman's owner which, of course, I didn't, and which is so ridiculous."

Neither the Broomfield police nor district attorney's office would release the other dog owner's name, and I was unable to find him for comment.

Ben Johnson has been going to Commons Dog Park since adopting Mac as a puppy. He had intended to adopt a dog from a litter of basset hounds. But then there was Mac, not only a pit bull, but the runt of the entire group.

"He was really cute, actually kind of adorable," Ben Johnson said. "I don't know, I picked him. It was just luck or fate, I guess."

He wanted a companion, having just moved out of his parents' home. So he nurtured and loved Mac, who still never grew to his proper size. Indeed, over the years at the dog park, owners of puppies would even allow Mac to socialize.

On July 30, it all changed.

Mac and the Doberman, both arriving at about the same time, initially sniffed each other. Soon, they got more aggressive, jumping on one another. The larger Doberman snipped at Mac's nose, bloodying it a little.

The two owners separated their dogs. No harm, no foul, they both agreed.

Minutes later, romping around the park, the two dogs met again. Ben Johnson swears the Doberman attacked first. The dogs were rolling on the ground, when from the corner of his eye, he saw the Doberman's owner run up with a knife out.

"He stabbed Mac five times in the back and slit his throat twice," Ben Johnson said, choking up.

"I ran him to the car as fast as I could, holding his neck up. The amount of blood he was losing was amazing. It was just so much."

A Broomfield Police Department spokeswoman said the name of the Doberman's owner is not being released pending a district attorney's decision on charges. She would not say what charges the DA is considering, or against which owner they were filed.

Ben Johnson is convinced he faces zero charges. Nor would it, he said, surprise him if he did.

"I'm used to the stares, the fear, the comments because I own a pit bull," he said. "They have a bad image, which the news promotes, which Michael Vick has not helped.

"Mac was a gentle dog. The Doberman was a size and a half larger than him. Mac never looked for a fight."

How much did he love that dog? The Thornton home he lives in today he bought shortly before Denver, where he had lived, enacted its ban on pit bulls in the city.

"I've lost my best friend," Ben Johnson said.

"He was profiled in a way. People look at a pit bull and immediately think 'bad dog.' I know that in his life, he changed people. He was such a great dog, one who lost his life in a very horrible way."

He insists he is not angry at the Doberman's owner. "What's that going to accomplish?" he asks.

Instead, while he prays the justice system in his case will work, he is thinking of things to do in Mac's memory - selling charity bracelets, the proceeds of which he would donate to pit bull rescue and other animal causes.

"I am devastated," Ben Johnson said. "But I know God has a plan for everything. Maybe this will help bring about awareness of the good that is pit bulls.

"I am just not an angry person. I'm just really sad. Who wouldn't be?"

johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2763

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