“You’re gonna regret that, motherfucker,” his arm swings up and I quickly block him. Delivering a hard punch to his face, he goes down fast to the floor. I’ve learned that making another man’s dog listen to your commands is right up there with sleeping with his woman – they don’t like it.

Sled flashes me an evil grin. “Nice.”

“Thanks.” Hitting him felt good. Too good. It’s eased some of my anger from last night, at least for the moment.

I kick the guy on the floor with my boot and he rolls over, holding his bleeding face. “Get up, buddy. We’re not done. Unless you like laying in your own garbage?”

“What the fuck do you assholes want?” He stands slowly, wiping the blood from his broken, crooked nose with the back of his hand.

“We just want the dogs, that’s it. We don’t want your drugs, or your money. We won’t even tell the cops what we saw here. The deal is we take the dogs and you agree to never fight dogs again. Simple as that. You can sit here for the rest of your fuckin’ life and get stoned man, we don’t care. We just want the dogs.”

He attempts to talk but I raise my hand, making him flinch. “There’s no debates. Either you let us take the dogs, calm and quiet, or we’re calling the police, and that’s gonna go way worse for you. Your choice on how much you want to lose.”

Tanner leans down and pets the dog, which is still in the stay position, and it wags its tail at his gentle touch.

“Take the fucking dogs.” The guy mumbles, his voice thick and nasally.

“Good choice. How many you got?”

“Eight adults and four puppies downstairs and there’s four bait dogs out in the fucking garage.”

Puppies and bait dogs. What a scumbag.

I haul my arm back and crash my fist into his face again, knocking him back down onto the floor. “That’s for the puppies and bait dogs, asshole. You might want to stay down there, after all.”

My brother nudges my arm. “You in a bad mood today, Tor?”

“You could say that.”

It takes us an hour to load the dogs up into the transport cages and into the back of my truck. Three of the dogs are in bad shape with fresh open wounds and ripped, oozing ears. The puppies are young, maybe eight weeks old, kept in the basement on the cold blood-stained floor but still wagging their tails. The bait dogs are assorted breeds, timid and shaking, and were most likely strays or picked up on Craigslist ads from ‘free to good home’ offers. Luckily, the puppies are young enough where they’ll forget the horrors they must have witnessed the first few weeks of their lives, but the bait dogs will need rehabilitation.

On our way out, we take the pretty fawn pittie that was in the living room because I don’t trust that asshole with any dog, pet or otherwise. Once an abuser, always an abuser.

My mother and a local vet who volunteers for situations like this are waiting for us when we arrive at the shelter to triage the dogs that need medical attention first. While they’re doing that, we bring the other dogs to the quarantine area and set them up in their kennels with fresh food, water, and beds. Most of them seem pretty friendly, which is a good sign they’ll be able to be put in foster homes and retrained. My guess is the guy who had these dogs was new to this sick hobby and hadn’t had them for very long. I pet each dog softly on the head before we leave. It’s a new beginning for them, and I always feel like a small part of my soul goes with each one.

My father used to tell us to try to make a difference in someone’s life every day. Even if it’s only to make them smile. Today, I made a difference. It was just for a bunch of dogs, but it still counts.

After dropping Tanner and Sled back off at the shop I decide to take the rest of the day off to unwind and get some sleep. Lisa calls my cell just as I’m turning down my street. She has the uncanny ability to always call me when I don’t want to talk to anyone.

“Yeah?” I say into my phone, not doing much to hide my irritation.

“Hey. You didn’t answer your phone earlier so I called the shop and they said you went home.”

“We took fighting dogs out of some guy’s place this morning. I’m in a shit mood so I just wanted to go home and sleep it off.”

“Isn’t that something the cops should be doing?”

My teeth grind together. “We have an arrangement. We go in first.”

“Oh. Do you think you’ll be in a better mood tonight?”