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Animal control rewrites dog tale's happy ending

A woman who befriends a stray discovers the story doesn't end with adoption.

By PAUL SWIDER
Published March 23, 2005

This ongoing saga sets up like an after-school special, only there is no happy ending.

A single woman working two jobs befriends a stray dog near where she works. The community loves the dog, feeds it, even relates it to American Indian spirits, but the dog is afraid, will let only the woman get close.

After some work and with the help of a nonprofit group, the woman fully adopts the dog. She takes it home to be with her other dogs, and everyone lives happily ever after - until she gets a citation for obstructing the work of animal control officers.

"I think there's some jealousy here," said Guillermo Ruiz, pro bono attorney for Sandy Cole, who adopted Blackie, a Lab-chow mix that has lived feral on Tierra Verde for about eight years - until Cole took him home.

"I think animal control couldn't get the job done and they're upset because the (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) got it done in a day."

Cole has worked for two years at Hidden Lagoon at Arrowhead Point, a gated condo development that is about 3 years old.

Construction workers building the condos say they saw the dog, fed it from their lunch boxes, but could never get close. When people moved into the condos, the skittish dog would hang around and accept scraps from them and from local restaurants.

"He made his rounds," Cole said of Blackie, a burly 85 pounds. "The dog ate well."

But Blackie always kept his distance, especially from tall men and anyone in uniform.

People speculate the dog had been severely abused and had run away. On remote Tierra Verde, he'd made a life, but couldn't seem to make a friend, until Cole came along.

Cole said she saw the dog for the first year she worked maintenance at the complex, but that Blackie shied away from her, too.

He was never aggressive, barked a bit, but never growled or threatened, and would run into the brush whenever anyone tried to get close.

One day, Cole stopped to pet some other dogs. She thinks Blackie got jealous. He came up to her, she petted him, and they were inseparable from that day.

"He follows me everywhere," she said. "He's like my shadow."

Cole said Blackie would run after her truck when she left for home. When he couldn't catch up, he would just melt back into the scenery like he had for years.

Then a new resident in the complex thought the dog a nuisance and called animal control.

Cole said the animal control officers came to the complex a half-dozen times. They would use an air rifle to shoot a tranquilizer dart at Blackie, who would immediately dart off, and the officers would try to find him in the brush. She said they'd search for 20 minutes or so and then give up, once even saying, "They have better things to do."

"When we get a complaint, we have to respond," said Janet Berry, Pinellas County's senior animal control officer.

Cole thought this a cruel and ineffective process, particularly considering the dog was not a threat and was so well liked by all but one resident. The other residents, she said, took to putting notices in common areas, urging the complainant to give up, to "live and let live," but to no avail. Things came to a head on Feb. 3.

Cole said she was cleaning one of the complex's pools, with Blackie nearby, when animal control officers approached. She was between the officers and the dog, but she did nothing. When the officers told her to move, Blackie came to her side.

Cole said an officer aimed his tranquilizer gun at the dog that was nestled against her leg. Feeling personally threatened and also protective, Cole said she told Blackie to run, which he did, disappearing into the foliage.

Cole was served with a citation for obstructing an animal control officer and for feeding and harboring the dog.

Cole said community residents were up in arms. They took up a collection to help her fight the charges, and one resident, who worked for Ruiz, got him involved. Ruiz filed to have the charges dismissed. He said he got a call from the county attorney's office indicating charges had been dropped.

In the meantime, Cole was working on a plan to adopt Blackie.

At the urging of residents, she got in touch with the SPCA, which arranged for help from one of its investigators, a former animal control officer.

By having Cole feed the dog strong tranquilizers and then waiting quietly for a couple of hours while the drugs took effect, the investigator captured Blackie and took him to SPCA offices, where he was neutered, given all his shots and a tracking microchip, and licensed to Cole.

Disoriented, Blackie responded instantly to Cole when she came to pick him up. She brought him to her Pinellas Park home to play in her expansive back yard with Butler and Cheyenne, her two purebred Labs.

Cole brought Blackie home March 18 and thought she had her happy ending. The dog quickly adjusted to his new surroundings and family. Then, on March 21, an animal control officer served Cole with another citation, this one relating to the Feb. 3 charge of obstructing an officer.

"We re-served the original citation," said Berry, the senior officer. "The county attorney told us the original was incorrectly worded."

Cole is beside herself. She's already spent plenty of time and money on the process of saving Blackie. Now she's facing a fine on charges that were once dropped relating to obstructing officers from capturing a dog she's already captured and tamed. She goes to court April 15.

"He chose me," Cole said of Blackie, crouched behind her legs, his eyebrows raised in puzzlement. "He feels safe with me."

"This is starting to feel like harassment."

[Last modified March 23, 2005, 00:55:18]