What Ever Happened To Man's Best Friend?

Is it an urban legend - or a cover-up?

Our story begins at approximately 5:30 p.m. on the afternoon ofJuly 23, in front of a company called Federal Marine Terminals on theSoutheast Side. A crew from the Chicago Department of Water had beencalled to the scene earlier in the day to repair a broken water mainand had dug a sizable hole near the entrance to Federal Marine.

Now, there's a friendly neighborhood stray dog that is wellknown to the residents of the area and some of the workers at FederalMarine. They feed him, they pet him, they play with him; he's neverbeen the least bit dangerous.

The dog reportedly wandered near the broken water main on theday in question. For an account of what allegedly happened next, wequote directly from a report filed by an independent security guardwho was on the site at the time.

WHO? Chicago Water Workers.

WHERE? At the front gate of Federal Marine.

WHAT? While repairing a broken water main, a stray dog wastossed in the exposed hole, and buried alive! by city workers.

Whoa.

Says an employee of Federal Marine: "I didn't see the dog go inthe hole, but I did see the workers dancing around out there afterthey had filled the hole in. They were humming something thatsounded like Taps and laughing about it. It was a whole mockfuneral."

Then again, perhaps they were simply bidding farewell to a hardday's work.

"No way. . . . Practically everybody in the neighborhood hasbeen talking about it."

There's no disputing that. Over the past three weeks, fourpeople - none of whom claimed to know each other - called or wrote totell me the story of the dog that was supposedly buried alive. AfterI obtained a copy of the original security report of the incident, Ibegan nosing around to find out what was what.

George Dosen, traffic manager for Federal Marine: "Yes, I'veheard the story, but the security guard is the witness and he doesn'twork for us. You'll have to talk to the security firm."

Vincent Rufallo, president of A&R Security, whose employee filedthe report: "We're not really sure if it happened or not. True, oneof our security guards filed a report about a dog being buried alive,but as it turns out, the guard . . . looked away for a moment. Whathappened was, he saw the dog near the hole, he turned away, then heturned back and the dog was gone.

"Did the dog fall in the hole? We don't know. We can't makethat claim."

Mark Durham of the Chicago Department of Water: "We did get acomplaint on that, and apparently the neighbors in the area have beentalking about it. It's a very bizarre story, a very strange story.In fact, it got to the point where we sent a crew out there to re-digthe hole, but they didn't find anything. We have documentation toverify that they found nothing. The story appears to be totallyunfounded.

"We're very grateful there wasn't a dog down there. You wouldhope that if a dog accidentally fell into a hole, people would try torescue it, not bury it alive."

But in the neighborhood, the talk continues.

"I was there when they came back and re-dug the hole," said aFederal Marine worker who didn't want to be identified. "Let me tellyou something - they didn't dig deep enough. They only scraped thesurface. Then they said, `See, there's no dog down there,' and theycovered it up."

If this were a Stephen King novella, the stray dog would awaken,dig itself out of the hole, shake off the mud and crud and start offin search of the city workers who did him in. That hasn't happened -yet - but everyone involved with this tale agrees on one thing:

Since the day in question, the friendly neighborhood stray dogwho roamed the streets for years hasn't been seen once, not once.

Visit with Richard Roeper and seven other Chicago Sun-Timescolumnists from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. tomorrow on the Sun-TimesPlaza, 401 N. Wabash. Comments and questions welcome. Noreservations necessary.