After a life filled with wild pig fights, being shot in the face
and left for dead, losing an eye and being castrated, he finally
died last week at the age of 112.
In dog years.
After a life filled with wild pig fights, being shot in the face and left for dead, losing an eye and being castrated, he finally died last week at the age of 112.
In dog years.
The year was 1988, the 49ers were in the Super Bowl, and one of Everett Sparling’s favorite players was strong safety Chet Brooks.
That same year the 12-year-old San Benito County resident received a brown and black Catahoula puppy that, in honor of his favorite player, he bestowed his name upon.
“After (the Super Bowl) his career folded and the dog lasted longer than he did,” Sparling said.
Chet was a working dog who spent the first 10 years of his life hunting Russian Boars on the Sparling’s 6,500-acre ranch for their pig hunting business, Las Viboras Wild Pig Hunts.
The instinctual nature of the dogs makes them great hunters and trackers, but Chet was something of a phenomenon, Sparling said.
“(My family’s) been doing it for about 40 years, and Chet’s probably the most influential dog they’d had,” he said. “In his 10-year span he’d found about 250 pigs and he’d earned about $100,000 – which I never saw any of except what my dad paid me.”
In Chet’s 10th year of wild pig hunting, the 60-pound dog was helping Sparling guide two novice hunters into a thick brush where a pig was hiding. The hunters were extremely nervous to begin with, and when one of the 300-pound boars, 3-inch protruding tusks barred and ready to strike, came charging at the group, one of the hunters panicked.
“He was scared out of his mind and he started shooting at movement, which is bad to do because (he shot) Chet,” Sparling said. “He shot him in the face – it was pretty bad – and so I looked at him and was like, ‘You just shot my dog, pal. He’s dead.'”
After assessing the damage the gunshot had done to his dog, Sparling decided to leave Chet where he lay because he couldn’t see any sense in carrying around a dead dog that would rather stay in the wilderness he loved, Sparling said.
In remembrance of his fallen friend, Sparling decided to deal with the loss by having a small wake.
“So we went to town and got beer and came back, and in the meantime my dad was in this canyon (on the ranch) and he heard a dog barking,” Sparling said. “It ended up being Chet.”
Sparling believes that when Chet was shot he went into shock and passed out, and later regained consciousness and was trying to find his way home when Sparling’s dad found him.
When they took Chet to the vet, they found that the bullet had entered through his eye and left in a clear sweep through his ear, only fracturing the top of his jaw.
After the accident, Sparling retired Chet so he could live out the rest of his one-eyed days in peace – but Chet had something different in mind.
“We kind of thought after he got shot that he got a new lease on life – he was kind of a reckless abandon,” he said. “He started getting into a lot of fights, so we had to castrate him because he was just getting whooped with only one eye. They would blind side him – literally.”
When the family moved from their ranch at the end of Comstock Road into town, Chet became more active in the community through his frequent antics and roaming sense of adventure.
Any chance he could get he’d find a way out of the house – either Sparling’s house on South Street or his parent’s house on Line Street.
“One day cars were totally swerving and Chet had decided to take a nap in the middle of Line Street,” he said. “He’d get out and the pound knew him, and they’d be like, we’ve got your dog again.”
Between Chet’s economic impact on the Sparling’s life and the unconditional love and loyalty a good pet has on its owner, his death was received with feelings of sadness and happiness, Sparling said.
After 16 years, Chet’s quality of life had deteriorated to a level his wild spirit just couldn’t appreciate anymore, he said.
“He was just a good dog,” Sparling said. “I took him up to the ranch and put him next to a big rock. He doesn’t need much to be happy – obviously, he lived with one eye and was happy.”
