Bandit: The Heart-Warming True Story of One Dog's Rescue from Death Row

by Vicki Hearne, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (Introduction)

A world-renowned animal trainer recounts her fight to win custody of a pit bull unfairly condemned to die in this “wonderful” true story (The Wall Street Journal).
 
Writer and dog trainer Vicki Hearne first explored the human-animal bond in her classic bestseller Adam’s Task. In Bandit, she returns to that theme, but on a more intimate scale, telling the tale of a pit bull terrier who bit three people and ended up sentenced to death by her home state of Connecticut.
 
Employing a unique combination of psychology, philosophy, sociology, and dog training theory, Hearne recounts her successful campaign to rescue Bandit from “doggie death row,” a legal battle that extended well beyond the particulars of his case. As she fought to prove that no dog is inherently vicious, Hearne quickly discovered the factors that contributed to Bandit’s behavior and set about releasing the essentially “good dog” that lay within.
 
A powerful inside account of the so-called pit bull wars that continue to rage to this day, Bandit is “simply one of the most perceptive works about the social contracts between humans and animals ever written” (Kirkus Reviews).
 
“Brilliant, fiery. Hearne captures a hundred nuances of the relation between people and animals. Anyone who likes dogs . . . will like Bandit.” —Chicago Sun-Times
 
“One cannot help coming away from this book with an utterly transformed understanding of dogs.” —The Wall Street Journal

Genres: Dogs, Animals, Nonfiction

340 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Victoria Elizabeth "Vicki" Hearne was an American author, philosopher, poet, animal trainer, and scholar of literary criticism and linguistics.

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a terrible book!

I personally hoped to learn more about court cases involving dogs, and pit bull breeds in particular, by picking up this book. Unfortunately, only the first chapter, and the last chapter, actually had any information about Bandit and his circumstances.

The remainder of the book was a rant about sexism, racism, and a lot of the author's inane ideas about art and history. Which somehow she believes to know the history behind every piece of artwork and completely disregards-or perhaps doesn't bother to research-any of what she is talking about (the "Capitoline Pit Bull"? Really?).

I definitely will not be recommending this book. To anyone. Ever.

[Sharon Azar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second time I'm reading this book. Vicki Hearne was a powerful, fiery, brilliant and compassionate poet, philosopher, journalist and animal trainer. Her mother said, about kindness; "think of it always, speak of it never"...I thought this to be great wisdom. Her mom was clearly a beautiful influence on Vicki. In Bandit, Dossier of a Dangerous Dog she reveals her deep commitment to truth, fairness, and trust. Her understanding of the subject matter is profound and she takes the reader to places where he/she will learn about not only the Bandit story, but the big picture of life, human nature, politics, poetry, and trust.
I shall read it again and again. .

[Ryan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't doubt that people can enjoy this work. But I found that the author read as slightly conceited and rambled far too often for me to enjoy it.

[Fishface · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good, well-thought-out read about the unreasonable dread people have of pit bulls. The author does a good job of putting pit bull lore into perspective and reminding us that, hey, they're just really muscular dogs.

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Incomprehensible word salad. Don't market it as a story of a legal battle and then fill it with obscure references and poetic dead ends.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are interested in pit Bull type dogs and the problems they sometimes have because of the prejudices against this type of dog, please read Bandit. Vickie Hearne is also a clever and sometimes humorous writer and a dog trainer who went to Yale, so no dummy her.

Ms. Hearne gets envolved in Bandit’s story when he bites a woman who is attacking someone the dog feels protective of and when he bites his master while enduring a beating. The dog is going to be euthanized until Hearne takes charge of him.

Ms. Hearne espouses a unique and sometime obscure type of dog training and along the way gives us her views on Animal Control Wardens, the AKC, and racism both regarding humans and dogs.

While her prose can be delightful, this is no light read. I found myself struggling at times to get her meaning hence only 4 stars.

[Mark Stangroome · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is not a good book.
To start with it is not about a dog called Bandit, it is a vitriolic rant by the author against anybody who does not see the world in the same way that she does with Bandit occasionally woven in to presumably make the book more commercially viable.
A shortened list of the people/organisations who receive the ire of the author include; anybody who uses the word Pitbull as Pitbull is not a breed. All cops, all of them, who are apparently either dumb or corrupt or crazy-mean. The American Kennel Club commit various offenses. All dog control officers or agencies. Anybody associated with any Humane society and bizarrely Art Historians. The crime of all Art Historians is not to recognise that the Capitoline Wolf is not a wolf at all but a Pitbull (I didn't think I was allowed to say Pitbull, I'm confused now) and further evidence of the authors' one-track mind is the assertion that the slightly bared teeth with no visible tongue is not a low growl to warn against disturbing the suckling Romulus and Remus but shows panting after an arduous task. Panting without a visible tongue after a task that we have no way of knowing about.
The author chooses to use data that men are more likely than women to be bitten by Pitbulls (that word again) but as the youngest age range has more females decides to dismiss this awkward fact by stating that the sample size is too small, which is reasonable. However the author then uses data from other age ranges than are the same sample size or smaller than the 'awkward' data as these pieces of data prove her point.
In summary this is a rant, a ranting blog before blogs were a thing and has next to nothing to do with the titular dog.