dog baiting - quotes and descriptions to inspire creative writing

It was a kind of dog baiting, but not what you'd imagine. I learned that tonight, out there in the almost twilight. There was a man near the woodland, a man with a dog that had been accustomed to fighting, yet he gave away every intention his gang had with each word he uttered. He spoke of "dog baiting," that they sought passive ones to bait for the "puppies." He spoke of an "injured bird" and asked if he should kill it. He said he had "run with criminals" and this was his conscious speaking up. For when I hear his true voice he tells me everything even as he thinks he's testing me. Without realising it he is telling me my dog will be taken and used as bait and I'll be left for dead. He leaves. I walk on. Then my dog disappears, my ever so friendly dog, gone into the woodland. He doesn't bark as he would if he were chasing something, yet is completely quiet as he would be if greeting a person. And so instead of going forwards to find him I back away. I call him and head to the park gate, to find a ranger and ask for help. The minutes go by and I fear the worst, that maybe they took him, that maybe he was the target all along. Then after twenty long minutes he comes running back to me. So beware of the dog-baiters, sometimes its people they bait. And remember to listen well to the word-choices of others, of the impromptu stories they choose to tell, for even as the twilight-man was part of something awful, a part of him was telling me to run, that I was with criminals and in danger; it was the good part of him fighting back against the monster he had become.