King cites a real life event as providing the inspiration for his novel Cujo. What was this event?

King cites visiting a mechanic whose St. Bernard almost bit him as the real-life event that inspired Cujo. In spring 1977, King took his motorcycle to a rural mechanic near Bridgton, Maine, after it broke down. A very large Saint Bernard emerged from the garage, growled, and lunged toward King’s hand before the mechanic intervened.

The encounter supplied the novel’s central image: a normally familiar family dog becoming terrifyingly dangerous. King transformed the real dog into Cujo, a 200-pound Saint Bernard who contracts rabies and terrorizes the Camber family and others in the fictional Maine town of Castle Rock. The mechanic and his isolated workshop also helped shape the story’s rural atmosphere.

A common mix-up is to treat the entire plot as a true story. King did not encounter a rabid dog on a killing spree, and no Maine serial-killing incident inspired the novel. The trapped mother-and-child storyline, the dog’s rabies, and the deaths are fictional additions. Cujo was published in 1981, with the real mechanic visit serving as the story’s starting point rather than its literal plot.