oblivious to your presence.
Now he smells something in a cold, fickle wind - gloveless hands, exposed flesh. Bandit lifts his massive neck, his watery, red-rimmed eyes - and charges.
Before you can react, the dog is upon you . . . batters you with tremendous force . . . leaps toward your throat . . .
And playfully nuzzles your face.
And Vicki Hearne - the woman who saved this purported monster from execution - laughs and says, "Watch it - bull-breed play can be rough."
Later, Bandit regards you with wise and compassionate eyes as if to say, ''I was always aware of you. I know who you are and where you're from and where you're going and how many dogs you have. I even smelled your fear - and you should be ashamed.
"If you've read Plato and Nietzsche, you know you have nothing to be afraid of."
Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Bandit and his biographer, Vicki Hearne. Hearne, 45, is a nationally known writer and trainer of dogs and horses, a poet, philosopher, expert witness on dog behavior, member of a Yale University think tank, founder of the American Pit Bull Terrier Defense Association and Literary Society - and, most recently, author of Bandit's life story.
Bandit: Dossier of a Dangerous Dog (HarperCollins) is touted as the tale of the first so-called pit bull to get off Death Row in the "Pit Bull Wars," as Hearne calls them.
According to Hearne, Bandit is actually a gentle philosopher who communicates with her as if in perfect English.
Describing one of her first meetings with Bandit - when he was locked in a pound like a condemned man awaiting execution - Hearne says, "He didn't jump up and say, 'You've got to pet me.' It was more . . . 'Excuse the mess here, but I'm pleased to meet you.' Then he sat down and wagged his tail and said, 'Would you like to discuss anything?' "
