Now Bruce, their 8-year-old French bulldog, is dead and the family is seeking answers, wondering what happened after he slipped off their porch, was found loose nearby and picked up by police and then transferred to the town animal control officer and a shelter.
"We have the only two bulldogs in Clinton," said Aneta Romagnolo. "We are always out walking them, or walking the baby with them or on the porch with them. How could they not know who he belonged to" in this small town?
Bruce was "a very, very friendly doggy," she said, choking back tears. "He was beautiful, he would never hurt anyone. My heart is broken."
She apologizes for breaking down, saying, "I am not getting sleep. Bruce followed me everywhere, we just picked up his body. I can't look at his body. It's going to be too much for me. I have no answers."
Bruce died after he was turned over to Kim Bennett, the town's animal control officer since September 2013, police Sgt. Jay Hunter said on July 14. He said his department is investigating the dog's death to try to learn what may have happened to a dog that its owners said had "no health issues, nothing."
Romagnolo said Bruce is the reason she met her husband. She was living in Glen Gardner and wanted to show her mom the charms of Clinton, known for its Red Mill.
They brought Bruce with them and met Clinton resident Dean Romagnolo, who was out walking his English bulldog, Brutus.
The dogs hit it off and their owners, realizing they already had a love of bulldogs in common, did the same on long walks with their canine companions.
On Saturday the family celebrated their daughter's second birthday — the couple also has an 11-week-old son.
The breed is known for its loyalty to its families and good disposition. According to the American Kennel Club's Woofipedia, "Frenchies rarely bark" and "besides snoozing the day away, the Frenchie's favorite hobby is being his owner's personal lap warmer."
The AKC says French bulldogs "need little exercise and grooming and are incredibly loyal to their people."
Hunter said on July 14 that "nine times out of ten" officers who find a stray "bring it right back to the owner's house," because a collar and tags will tell them where the dog belongs.
Romagnolo said the couple learned that Bruce was picked up by police "two doors away" from their home, and turned over to Bennett. Hunter said that's because the bulldog had no collar or tags.
She said the dog wasn't wearing his collar because he had come out onto the porch of the family's Leigh Street with Romagnolo and her husband late at night — he was just back from a business trip in the Middle East and she is up during the night with their newborn.
Romagnolo said the dog had been registered in another town and under her sister's name, because her former husband threatened to take him.
The small bulldog was picked up at 1:21 a.m. on July 13, police said. Officers routinely do this in Clinton, Hunter said, to protect loose dogs rather than risk having them run in traffic.
He said the dog died after it was turned over to custody of Bennett.
According to Romagnolo, Common Sense for Animals reported that the family dog was dropped off after an attendant left at 3:30 a.m. on July 13 and was dead when an employee checked on him at about 7 a.m.
Bennett has been the town's animal control officer since September. Her contract calls for taking stray pets to Common Sense in Broadway. She didn't respond to a request for comment.
"Why would a dog pass away after two to three hours in a cage?" Romagnolo asked. "The other dogs were alive, dogs barking in a cage. They give them food, water, blankets."
The family wasn't notified, she said, until the afternoon of July 13, after she and her husband had spent several hours looking for him, calling shelters and growing increasingly confused about how a dog who rarely left their sides had vanished.
They had earlier asked town patrol officers if anyone had seen their dog, Romagnolo said, and were told, "no. No one knew anything."
She's holding her son while talking. He's not crying, but she is. "It's very hard for me right now, very painful, he was our family," she says of Bruce. She thinks he would still be with her if a policeman hadn't spotted the loose dog.
"There are no cars" at that time in the morning, Romagnolo said. "Everyone sleeps in Clinton."
She recalls times when she saw a neighbor's dogs off a leash, and would return them to their owners. "The dogs I found are home safe. But not mine."
(Hunterdon County Democrat - July 15, 2014)
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