Man bites Pit Bull to save his Husky
Quote:
Man enters dogfight headfirst
New Yorker defends his dog against pit bull and finds himself in middle of the melee.
By Elissa Gootman
New York Times
July 21, 2002
SOUTH HUNTINGTON, N.Y. -- A Long Island man said he defended his dog against a pit bull here this month by sinking his teeth into its head -- a reaction that turned a routine dogfight into a high-profile case of canine justice.
A television reporter referred darkly to the animal shelter's isolation room where the pit bull is being held as "death row." A radio announcer made jokes about the dog-biter's license plate, which reads NOLEASH, but which the man says refers to his bachelorhood, not his recovering pet.
Now the pit bull, Dutch, is scheduled to be put to death, and a lawyer for its owners says that the publicity surrounding the case has stacked the deck against the dog.
"Any time that the public is made aware of an incident, it's going to put pressure on the Police Department to act in some form," said Michael J. Brown, a lawyer for Dutch's owners, Mary Graham and her son, Michael Marano. "The public has this perception that pit bulls are just mean, nasty animals. There are standard poodles who are nasty. There are Labrador retrievers who are nasty."
The trouble started July 13, when Richard Robbins, 44, Melville, N.Y., took his three dogs for a walk in a field near a school at the same time Graham took her three pit bulls there. The police said Graham's dogs were unleashed, and that one, Dutch, lunged at Robbins' Siberian husky, Gina Marie.
Robbins said that to save his dog, he bit Dutch, which then let go of Gina Marie and attacked Robbins. At that point, the police said, another of Graham's pit bulls, Eve, also attacked Robbins.
Robbins said he was bitten on his face, head and arms, and that his dog needed more than 100 stitches.
Graham's lawyer counters that her dogs were on leashes and that Robbins should have known better than to stick his face into a dogfight. "This gentleman injured himself by putting his head between two fighting dogs," Brown said.
The authorities say Dutch's fate is his owners' fault and that Marano signed a form after the fight authorizing Huntington's town animal shelter to put the dog to death. Brown is seeking a hearing on the matter, saying Marano did not realize what he was signing.
