Not a fan of gore or splatterpunk. That being said, it seemed well written, just not my kind of thing.
Also, and obviously this isn't a criticism of this story, I didn't think it was helped in my opinion because I'd just seen Django Unchained a week or two before, which involved forced fights to the death and one which involved an eye-gouging between men that this reminded me of. I thought that movie did it better. Obviously that's not a criticism of the story, since this story was published a quarter century before the movie and it was just coincidence that I came across them so close in time to each other.
You see, the author here did something that's verboten in fiction: he killed a dog. He killed a dog.
That just isn't done. Oh, sure pull out the guy's eye. Beat him to death, break his neck, let the dogs consume his flesh, and then mount his defleshed skull on a pike. But, dude, you killed a dog. 
Stephen King must've missed that memo. I think of all of his stories and books I've read there was one dog that survived, in Under the Dome.
That being said, I tend to have the same reaction, reacting strongly to hurting dogs but not as much for people. Perhaps because I feel we have a responsibility for canines, I dunno.
