July 2000

Wednesday evening at the Krebs, an outdoor dinner party of 45 people was savoring appetizers and enjoying perfect weather when a deer wandered into the garden. “A deer,” someone said and all eyes turned. At that moment, a 55-pound Akita bounded into the garden, hauled down the doe by the throat, and finished it off.

The hostess chased the dog away from the corpse, but it continued to skulk around the periphery of the garden, prompting the diners to move indoors and the police to come.

The surprise guest and venison fancier was Ebony, one of a legendary family of Akitas, who have previously confined themselves to savaging a beagle, a Labrador retriever and a man walking two Airedales, as well as terrorizing one mail deliverer and several other neighbors, trying on one occasion to break down a door after their luncheon prey was rushed inside.

The owner, who lives down the street from the Krebs, did not see her dog kill the deer, and therefore won’t say that her dog is guilty, in spite of the presence of 45 wide-eyed witnesses. “They’re not as bad as people think,” she told a Post-Standard reporter.

“They guard the kids and they’re good watchdogs,” she went on. The universal question in this Village this morning was, “Guard the kids from WHAT?” Indeed, in one of the safest communities on the planet, the only things people have to fear are Ebony, her mate Fred and their son Red Dog.

Ebony is at the vet’s, awaiting a judge’s decision. (It was thumbs down.) The owner is blaming an unknown vandal for knocking down a portion of their fence, and is eager to show the judge a photo of the fallen fence. It doesn’t look like the handiwork of a dog, she notes.