State: Woman bites dog; twice, to be precise

That's what Margaret Hargrove, a 73-year-old Tallahassee woman, did last week when a neighbor's pit bullterrier jumped on her 9-month-old Scottish terrier, Alex. What happened next made Mrs. Hargrove an international celebrity.

Mrs. Hargrove was out for her nightly walk on Harriett Drive with Alex on the other end of a leash when a pit bull named Holly dashed out of a nearby yard.

Before she knew it, Holly had Alex's head in her mouth and was clamping down.

Undaunted by the attack, Mrs. Hargrove tried to pry Holly's jaws apart, but couldn't budge her toothhold on Alex's head.

With both hands on the dog's jaws and no other weapon at hand, Mrs. Hargrove leaned over and bit Holly on the nape of her neck -- twice.

Holly squealed and backed off for a minute, but came right back after Alex and Mrs. Hargrove.

Bradley Strawbridge, a 13-year-old neighbor alerted by Mrs. Hargrove's screams, joined the fray with a baseball bat just as the pit bull was dragging Mrs. Hargrove down the street by her arm. The pit bull gave up after Bradley hit the dog in the head.

"He saved my life," Mrs. Hargrove said Tuesday.

Wasn't she scared?

"I wasn't scared," she said. "I was scared my dog was dying. I wasn't afraid of danger. I will never get over the look in Alex's eyes while I was trying to get him loose."

After the attack last week, one neighbor took Mrs. Hargrove to the hospital for stitches in her arm and finger while another took Alex to a veterinarian for stitches of his own.

"I'm fortunate not to have been killed," Mrs. Hargrove said. "I'm very lucky, and Alex is very lucky. I hope he knows how much I was willing to do for him."

Dog and mistress are recovering nicely, and she is quickly growing accustomed to international celebrity.

NBC's Today Show was one of the first to call, and they featured Mrs. Strawbridge and Alex on Sunday morning. Since then she has been making the rounds of radio talk shows in Canada, Australia, England and all across the nation.

As a result, she has been reunited with friends she hasn't seen in more than 50 years.

Alex was so traumatized by the experience that he didn't bark again until Tuesday and was unable to keep food down. Until Tuesday, he was slinking around the house without the characteristic little strut common to Scotties. Alex has stitches in eight different places and looks a little lopsided because the doctors had to shave the fur above his eye to stitch up the worst wound.

She has bruises on her arm from the wrist to the elbow, a fingernail that had to be reattached and stitches in her arm and finger.

Alex is the third in a line of Scotties that are very special to Mrs. Hargrove. She got her first puppy from a friend shortly after her husband, Lamar, died in 1976. Her first two dogs, Cissy and Bonnie, lived into old age, the last dying in December 2000.

Alex moved into her life earlier this year after the same friend who gave her the first dog adopted him only to discover that Alex was spending his time pining for visits from Mrs. Hargrove.

Mrs. Hargrove was a longtime state employee, working first as a social worker and then as supervisor of the division for the developmentally disabled at the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services before she retired.

Holly, the pit bull, is being held in quarantine by animal control officers. Her owner, Marcus Hicks, has been constantly calling and apologizing, Mrs. Hargrove said.

"I feel sad for him," she said. "That dog is his friend. We don't know yet what they are going to do."

She has been getting advice from talk show hosts all over the world. One of them is sending some written advice for dealing with dogs that have been traumatized.

Mrs. Hargrove has two grown sons and a 13-year-old grandson named Joshua, the same age as the young neighbor who saved her. Joshua's father, Brant Hargrove, is a Tallahassee attorney.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk