In age of cameras, junk yard dogs are rare breed

Meet Tank. But make sure it's in the day time, before he goes to work.

Tank is a remnant of a dying breed: the junkyard dog.

In rusty salvage yards across Hampton Roads, the menacing growl has lost its job to the cold click of security cameras.

Calls to local yards indicate that Tank's kind - an icon of scrappiness, an inspiration for country songs, an early agent of the Some-Things-You-Just-Don't-Mess-With lesson - is nearly extinct.

"Nope," says Al Rudd, owner of a Chesapeake car parts lot. "No dogs here. Too much liability."

A thumb through the phone book turned up similar results and an industry plagued by theft that resents the loss of its trademark defense:

"Insurance companies don't want you to have dogs anymore."

"Guy gets bit robbing me, and I get sued. Criminals got all the rights now."

"Used to have dogs and they were the best thing in the world..."

"Everybody's got cameras now. Don't know anybody with dogs..."

No doubt, that's OK with some animal lovers. Junkyard dogs don't get much pampering. But inside the hard-working salvage industry, where men wipe sweaty brows with grease-stained hands, dogs are expected to earn their keep.

Those who do are respected and treasured.

"It'd be Midnight Auto Sales around here every night if it weren't for Tank," says J.D. Marrs, owner of J.D.'s A-1 Towing & Salvage.

Marrs' yard occupies an acre or so in a gritty Norfolk industrial park off Ingleside Road. Thieves are regular callers. Fences are topped with razor-sharp coils of concertina wire - the kind used to wall off prisons.

Marrs prefers "Beware of Dog" signs, backed up by the real thing. As a former Norfolk police officer, he has seen crooks defeat fences, brave cameras, even take their chances with the business end of a gun.

But sharp teeth ignite a panic that's bone-deep, and Marrs refuses to give up what he thinks is his most effective weapon.

"I've got cameras," he says, "but they're only good for catching somebody after they rob the place - if you can even do that."

He reaches down and pats the tan turf on Tank's broad head: "This is deterrent."

Part pit bull, part Rottweiler, part German shepherd, part Canadian gray wolf, Tank fits his name - low-slung, rock solid. His jaws can shred a king-sized rawhide bone in minutes. His baritone "WHOOF" thunders down the street. Oily puddles tremble, "Jurassic Park"-style - or at least seem like they should.

"He's down to about 110 pounds right now," Marrs apologizes on Tank's behalf. "This time of year, the heat gets him down. But in the winter, he'll go 130 easy."

Daytime visitors usually find Tank stretched out in the cool dirt beneath an old trailer, in the company of Marrs' three smaller dogs. At 10 years old, Tank knows the ropes. His job is the night shift. Off duty, he pries open sleepy brown eyes, ambles over to sniff customers and leans his bulk amicably against their legs.

"A good dog has to be someone you can trust," Marrs says, giving Tank another pat. "He has to be smart and even-tempered. I can let a family in here with a toddler and have absolutely no fear for that child. He might get licked but never bit."

Closing time triggers a transformation.

"Every night before I lock up, I feed the dogs, give them a 5-gallon bucket of fresh water and say a one-word command," Marrs says.

He won't tell what the word is, just that it signals the dogs to "go to work. And if you come over that fence after that, shame on you."

Marrs' cameras have recorded Tank's worth.

"I've seen guys on the camera at night, over by the back fence. They walk up to it, put their hands on it and then you see the dogs coming through the cars."

The smaller dogs move in first. Tank brings up the rear - a snarling, hair-raising entrance that seems to be the deal-breaker.

The would-be thieves "back off real quick," Marrs says. "They change their minds and go in another direction."

Marrs says that "cameras, fences, locks - all that stuff just keeps the honest people honest.

"For everybody else, there's Tank."

WHOOF!

Joanne Kimberlin, (757) 446-2338, joanne.kimberlin@pilotonline.com