Let’s be careful with how we approach this next topic. In his bizarre text messages to Chavo Guerrero and Scott James in the early morning of Sunday, June 24, 2007, Chris Benoit said: “The dogs are in the enclosed pool area.”
The dogs were two German shepherd guard dogs. Their names, incidentally, were Carny and Highspot.
The reason we have to be careful is that Benoit – who had already killed Nancy and Daniel, and was about to take his own life – might not have been thinking rationally. So we don’t know that the dogs were in the enclosed pool area just because Chris said so in text messages.
On Monday afternoon Fayette County sheriff’s deputies arrived in response to the 911 call. Carny and Highspot were not in the enclosed pool area. They were snarling and threatening the officers at the front gate. A neighbor who took care of the dogs was summoned to secure them so the search of the house could proceed.
Someone I asked about this discrepancy said it’s easily explained: after a long period, and feeling hungry and frisky, the dogs could not have been contained by the backyard fence.
However, someone else I contacted, who owns a German shepherd, disagrees with that. And my instinct tells me that if the Benoits had a fence, they had reasons, and one of those reasons would be to contain the dogs.
I confess that I’m no expert on German shepherds. Blog readers can view a couple of photos of the fence and the pool area at http://muchnick.net/BenoitFence1.jpg and http://muchnick.net/BenoitFence2.jpg.
Tell me what you think at tips@muchnick.net.