Elvis Presley’s ”Storm”

"Storm" with Elvis Presley's "Conan". Some of the last days in which they could still be kept together.

I was dabbling with the local bloodlines for awhile and was generally unhappy with what I had seen and what I had on my yard. Too, what I had on my yard was the best of what I had seen, so if I was unhappy with that then you can imagine my frustration.

One weekend in September 95, I and three other fanciers decided to embark upon a journey across the country in order to find and purchase the best damn bulldogs that we could. That particular weekend was quite uneventful as we saw many litters and dogs, but none of which impressed us, or rather I should say, me. A couple of the guys tried to purchase a little bitch because she was off of the most muscular bulldog any of us had seen to date, but that’s all he was and when we saw him, he was running with 3 other dogs, like they were one big happy family. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Well totally frustrated on he last day of our search, we decided to head home. I told the guys we should make one more stop by a distant relative of mine, who approximately 6 years back asked me what sort of dog they should get as they were on the market for a quality animal. I suggested they get a bulldog from a good breeder as I knew they were responsible folks and would be able to deal with the intricacies of owning a bulldog. I knew they bought a dog about a year later and the dog was raised with 3 or 4 others that they owned from before.

This dog was Shaka and he was a Blood bred dog whose parents were imported from Barbados. As I had mentioned before Blood dogs are basically, 50% Reid and 50% Patrick / Hollingsworth. I had only heard stories about Shaka through the family, one being that they had to get rid of every other dog on the yard, even the females, because Shaka had tried to kill them all. Note, these are non dog aggressive, happy go lucky, mongrel females we are talking about... Soon after I was told they had to raise the fence around the property and put up a double chain link fence to try and contain Shaka as he would either scale the 12 foot fence or bite through it in order to get in a scrap. Being responsible folks, they tried it all but it wasn’t enough. The fence was never high enough and failing that Shaka would just bite through the double link. He lost his teeth early on because of this particular habit. At one point they were locking him in a room upstairs whenever they were going out and it seems one day, Shaka heard some barking outside jumped through a plate glass window he couldn’t see out of, fell from two stories fracturing a leg, receiving numerous injuries, scaled the fence and tore into some unfortunate CUR making a racket. Well, after this episode, they moved to keep the peace with the neighbors...

We arrived at Shaka’s home, I had never seen the dog before as they moved to a very distant location, I was pleasantly surprised to see one of the best conformed bulldogs I have seen to date. He was about 50+lbs and as is characteristic of the Blood dogs, he had tight skin and hugely muscular rear leg development, but had a very lean appearance otherwise. A black dog with a bit of white on the chest with an oval head like Double Gr Ch Tornado, except, more masculine. Well, after hearing a bit about the dog from his owner including one story in particular where Shaka had put a 80 bulldog in intensive care that some joker was boasting about, I was sold. I wanted some of this. As it turned out, they had used Shaka for stud with a bitch from another part of the country and had gotten a pup off the deal, a white bitch that was the spitting image of her dad and with the same temperament save she was a somewhat nervous bitch. They had 8 or 9 pups out of Shaka bred back to his daughter and I reached down and picked out Storm, the pick of the litter. A black male with white socks and a white blaze on his chest and neck. Incidentally, the pups were 7 weeks old at the time and were fighting each other like big dogs. One female in particular had to be isolated because of her battling ways.

When I brought Storm home a week later, I knew he was something different. He had not been home a week before he had caught, killed and ate a bird that was just too slow when trying to steal his chow. I had a male named Conan who is bred off of the Shaka Zulu dogs (a Reid bloodline) from Barbados and though he was 2 months older than Storm he had yet to show any signs of being a bulldog. In spite of this, it was almost 3 weeks before I could put him together with Storm as that crazy little pup would attack the older bulldog regardless of the size difference. Storm was the most agile pup I had ever seen and would scale the barriers placed in the yard to keep him out of trouble effortlessly, in spite of his diminutive size. He ate well and grew even faster.

Storm’s first battle came at the age of 3 months. I was walking both he and Conan as they had become playmates, when a cur, toy breed rushes up and attacks my pups. Now, the cur is bigger than Storm but smaller than Conan who is about 5 months. Conan runs for cover, while Storm grabs the cur in the belly and begins to work him over. I must admit, I was in shock for a few seconds as I had never seen a pup with such fire before, but I soon got to my senses and picked up my dog. No damage to the cur, save some small belly punctures. Storm’s next tangle came when he was six months old. I was walking him, ever alert for the ever present attacking cur when my stupid neighbor opens his gate and let’s out a big, aggressive mongrel that immediately tears into Storm. Storm is about 40lbs of solid bulldog now and I caught hell trying to get him out of this fight. As a matter of fact I received numerous bites from the cur while trying to save his life. the whole thing lasted only about a minute, but after it was all over my right hand and the cur were both in a mess...Storm was a happy camper as usual. It was about this time two tears ago that I got on the Internet and subscribed to Bulldog-X the only bulldog mailing list around at the time. I created a great flame war when I asked the best way to separate a bulldog from a cur without taking injuries yourself. Because of these heated debates and others, this caused a rift between the English bulldog people and the APBT folks. Hence Rob started APBT-L just for us. Anyway, that’s another story.

Storm at 6 months.

When Storm was about 13 months, he was an impressive animal. Tight skin, muscular rear, and pure fire when he saw another dog. He got into another scrap around this time when a Ridge back cross, ran out of an unlocked gate and attacked us. At this time, I had taken to carrying a broomstick to whack curs that came too close, but this dog was fast and big and bowled through my defense to get at Storm. Of course, having Storm pulling like a mad bull to get at the oncoming cur was no help either. The cur was bigger than Storm and taller than Storm, but Storm was a strong pup and he hit that cur in the chest and got him jacked up against a wall on his two back legs. I was unable to try and separate the dogs as they were fighting each other and I knew that damn cur would bite me without prejudice. So I let them go at it for a bit. Storm stayed in the chest while the cur worked Storm’s head and muzzle. Storm started getting deep into the chest and that’s the first sign I saw of his old man’s mouth in him. The cur started to sing a bit and I went in with the breaking stick. Soon as I got Storm off, he took off like a bat out of hell. I took Storm home and fixed him up, his worst injury having been a piece of missing tongue. This mark would stay with him for the rest of his days. I went by the owners of the cur to scream bloody murder, they apologized and I asked if they wanted any help patching their dog. Secretly, I wanted to see just how much damage Storm had done. Well, the cur had for puncture wounds in his left armpit, each big enough to put a fat straw into and dark blackish blood was oozing out. I told them to take him to the vet as he had sustained deep muscle damage and would need prompt medical attention as I couldn’t do much for the dog, mainly because he was trying to bite me!!

As it turned out, this last scrap made Storm even more dog aggressive, though I didn’t think that it was possible. He would go crazy at the sight of another dog and the only dog who he could be kept with was Conan with whom he had been raised. thus far Conan had shown to be stone cold. The pinnacle of his dog aggressiveness was when I was walking him in an unfamiliar location and damn if he didn’t spy a DEAD dog at the side of the road (a very bushy trail) that I didn’t see and he promptly attacked the corpse sending maggots flying with each shake. Disgusting, revolting and shocking....I had no idea he was this dog aggressive. I knew Storm would kill pups and bitches in full heat, but to try to kill a dead dog, again? WOW! As a small aside, I had never encouraged Storm to be like he was, he just came that way. He had become my favorite dog and I wouldn’t have changed a single thing about him, save one thing.

Storm had a mortal fear of thunder. He would literally loose his marbles whenever there was a Storm...There’s irony in here somewhere...It used to be he would try to get in the house by eating through the doors, this proved to be very successful and consequently, we now have metal doors to this day. Whenever thunder boomed he would try to get as high as possible, at one point he broke into the house jumped up on the counter and then from there to the top of the refrigerator and onto the counters near the roof. He was about 16 months now and 75lbs of bone and muscle. This was not a light dog but extremely agile. After we changed the doors and he couldn’t get inside, Storm started climbing up the side of the house, straight up the guttering and burglarproofing and wherever else he could get a hold. I built a concrete and steel pen for him in order to house him whenever it was hurricane season and this solved the problem for the while.

Storm was he strongest damn dog I had ever handled period! I had to stop walking him at one point because I allow my dogs to pull while walking in order to get the maximum work out of the walk and Storm was literally destroying my knees. He had become my best PR dog as I would allow visitors to "walk" him and they would have a blast being dragged up and down my road, by this high intensity bulldog. Storm was now 18 months old and I decided it was time for his first roll.

Storm and Coanan playing...No, really!

Snoop is a dog owned by my friend WW Kennels and is his main stud male. Snoop is also about 75lbs, but rangier and taller than Storm, a brindle, experienced, head dog that made his half brother quit in 15 in his first roll. He didn’t show to have much mouth in this first outing so I thought he would be a good bulldog for Storm to have his first with. I had seen Snoop go for his first, but I had lost track of other subsequent rolls. As I found out, much later, Snoop had earned quite a name for himself as he had stopped and or dominated most every other dog to pass through WW’s yard. When I brought Storm to Snoop’s back yard, he was relaxed, intense and not in the least concerned with the fact that he was in a strange location. Snoop was brought out and the two dogs hit. Here's the deal. I go over and Glen brings out Snoop. Snoop is big...Bigger than Storm. I'm thinking, this dog wasn't this big before. Then I remember last I saw Snoop, he was recovering from his kennel fight with his son and WW's brood bitch. We weigh Snoop only to discover he's 2.5 lbs less than my boy. 75lbs going into 72.5. So we let 'em go. First damn thing snoop does is grab Storm's shoulder and open it up...I'm there, what the??!!! Where did all this mouth come from?!!! Seems Snoop developed some more mouth since ast I saw him. Then, in about 3 seconds, I'm looking at Storm on his back fighting Snoop who has him down. Well, I have time to notice that Storm's tail is high over his back (good sign) even though he's on the floor, so I don't press the panic button. Well, now it gets interesting.

Storm gets Snoop off of his shoulder by the nose , starts biting down and wrestles his way back up to a dominant position. Believe it or not, Snoop starts singing a little and Storm is really letting him have it. Now, from what I've seen of Snoop, he's a relatively soft mouthed, head fighting, game talented wrestler, that's why I chose him to school Storm.

His starting to sing was highly unexpected as he has never given any bad signs before. Well, I say to WW this is a schooling roll, let's not risk Storm taking off Snoop's nose or breaking his jaw or whatever and let's separate them. So we do and they both run their scratches. They both grab each other on the cheeks and Storm wrestles Snoop to the ground. Then, Storm starts dragging Snoop around in circles driving for a better hold and punishing what he's got in his mouth. I'm watching him closely at this point and even though Snoop has a mouthful of Storm's face and gum, Storm is still shaking and driving for all he's worth. Storm gets where he wants to be in Snoop’s jaw and starts biting down, he’s biting so hard, his back is arching. I say too WW, let's split 'em up, because someone just popped a leak. We get them separated and Snoop is gushing from a puncture Storm put under his moth, near the throat. And that was that...All this in 10 minutes.

That was Storm’s 1st with a bulldog that was supposed to rough him up a bit...Moving on. About this time I got my first bitch on the yard from Black Storm Rising’s Kennels. A pure Boudreaux bitch, Maverick bred, and just going into heat as she came out of quarantine. Well up to this time, I still had Storm together with Conan and no problems. Soon as that bitch came into heat, Conan decided he was going to be a bulldog. He and Storm had it out in my yard and I had to pull Storm off of Conan who is an 85lb’er, at least 10 lbs bigger than Storm, but not nearly as strong. The thing of it is, Storm was totally immune to the bitch’s heat cycle and would have killed her just as soon as he would have killed Conan.

After seeing the roll with Storm and WW’s Snoop one of the locals wanted to back up his bitch, a 50lb bone breaker named Yola to Storm. I was game, but Storm was gamer than all of us and tried to kill the bitch. We muzzled him up, and tried till nightfall to get him interested, putting him to smell her scent through a grooved wall, allowing him to see her in a cage for a couple hours sitting calmly....Nothing doing. So I never did get anything off of Storm.

At this stage, Storm was almost 2 years and was a damn fine looking bulldog. I decided to hook him up for his first match into Ironline’s Hades. This is Ironline kennels in Trinidad, no relation to the kennel of the same name in the US. Hades was a big, black, rangy bulldog that had, along with his litter mate sister, gotten loose and killed their father, Prince. Prince was a tight bred red nosed Reid dog that was imported from Barbados as an adult dog I believe he was a 4xw in Barbados before he came to Trinidad. I had spoken to Ironline and the show was on.

I was working Storm hard trying to get him in shape, not that he was ever really out of shape, since I constantly walk my dogs. As it so happened, there was a storm one night and I locked away Storm in his pen. The next day when I came outside, There was no Storm in the pen, which was still locked. It seems Storm had passed through a space he made in the pen, that I simply refused to believe a dog that size could force himself through, got pass Conan, with whom he would have fought and scaled two walls to get off he property. He even passed through barbed wire... I had searched for days for my beloved bulldog as well as offering a reward for his return. I thought that at the very least I would hear of a dog being killed and I would be able to trace the trail of carnage. I reported the entire thing to the police, except that I told them he was stolen so that if they saw him, they wouldn’t gun him down on sight. In another cruel stroke if irony, it seems that the most likely scenario is that someone does in fact have him and refuses to return him. He looks like a show dog and acts like the terminator, I suppose I could understand someone not wanting to return him, but I don’t have to like it. After I lost him late in 97 I became very ill for a number of weeks probably due to stress and grief. Though it may not have been presented in this story, Storm was THE dog. I would take him everywhere with me. He slept by my side on occasion and almost always in my bedroom unless there was a storm. I am not ashamed to say I shed more than a few tears for this dog and some of my friends both here and on the net know how much this loss hurt. To all those who don’t believe in a chain setup, know this, that was probably the only way this particular do could have been held in a storm. I thought a covered pen was adequate, I thought wrong...Live and learn. Storm’s dad, Shaka is still around and hasn’t been bred since. He’s not what the locals like to see, i.e., huge and aggressive, but I’ll probably be backing up my Boudreaux bitch to him this summer if she works out and if I can get the EXACT pedigree on Shaka. It'll be an out cross and should make for some really rough dogs. I’m just hoping to get a Storm Jr. and I’ve already got my chain spots allocated.

Incidentally the rest of Storm’s siblings went to pet homes, all exhibit the same dog intolerance as Storm and all that I know of, save one is deathly afraid of thunder. Being 75% Shaka (double bred) the entire litter has uniform structure and mentality.

I miss Storm greatly, as he was the best and most intelligent and affectionate dog I have ever had the honor of feeding. When I look back, the things I remember most are, the way he would whine till I let him inside after I came home, his excitability whenever he saw me coming with the lead and most of all, his snoring when he would come and lie next to me on the bed. He wasn’t supposed to be on the bed, but I loved him too much to push him off, so I usually just gave him a nudge to stop snoring...

Elvis Presley’s "Storm" 1995 - 1997