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Pit bulls returned home after attack

By THOMAS LAKE
Published January 3, 2007

HUDSON - Three dogs surrounded their prey on a sidewalk near the gulf. Pit bullterriers, New Year's morning. A tomcat screamed murder.

Richard Mariotti saw snapping jaws from across the narrow road. He stepped toward the dogs, stomping.

"Hey!" he yelled.

He thought they would run off. But they advanced upon him, and Mariotti turned heel. He ran to his house and called 911.

When he came back outside, the dogs were gone. There on the sidewalk was Oreo the tomcat, his black and white fur mangled, an eye missing, his body flattened.

"It was pathetic," Mariotti would recall. "They just tore it apart."

The attack made Mariotti angry. Here's what made him even angrier: After the dogs were caught and Pasco County Animal Services investigated, the dogs were returned to their owner.

Neighbors in the Leisure Beach subdivision say there have been numerous complaints about the dogs, owned by Paul Soprano of 12809 First Isle. But Kevin Mallory, a shelter supervisor for Animal Services, said it has been difficult to get people to put their names behind the accusations.

In this case, Oreo's owner, Brian Bareford, declined to press charges because he didn't want Soprano to have to pay a heavy fine, according to Bareford's mother, Mary St. Germain.

Under state law, dogs must be quarantined if they attack and severely injure a person. That section of the law does not mention attacks on other animals. Soprano was fined $80 for letting the dogs run loose.

St. Germain thought the county should have quarantined the dogs.

"They should take the matter into their own hands," she said. "That's what we pay them for."

When St. Germain heard Oreo had been attacked, she ran barefoot down the sidewalk to his side. He was gasping for breath. Her granddaughter brought a dolphin-print blanket, her favorite, and St. Germain wrapped it around Oreo.

He took nearly half an hour to die. They buried him in the back yard, still wrapped in the blanket.

Pasco County Sheriff's Deputy Adam Cinelli managed to round up the pit bulls and put them in his cruiser. But after an investigation, an animal-control officer returned them to Soprano.

"The whole entire situation took hours," Mariotti said. "Hours. Hours. And the result was the guy gets his dogs back."

No one answered the knock at the Soprano house on Tuesday afternoon. No one but the dogs, snorting and growling behind a white door, trying once more to break free.

Thomas Lake can be reached at tlake@sptimes.com or 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6245.

[Last modified January 2, 2007, 23:31:13]