PENNSYLVANIA -- Rudy led his puppy into the yard on Blue Sage Drive in Upper Macungie, he said.
First, he looked to see if the neighbor's pit bull-boxer mixed breed dogs were out.
He said he never saw them behave aggressively toward another dog, but he didn't want to risk it with his new 4-month-old Irish Setter.
"I had Duke in the yard and they weren't out right away," 12-year-old Rudy Bailey III of Upper Macungie testified Wednesday morning. "And (the pit bulls) ran out and I said, 'Duke, come,' and he didn't. He thought they were playing."
But the pit bull mixes weren't playing. One went for Duke's neck and one for his belly.
Rudy said he never heard his neighbor, Nicole Pugliese, yelling as she lay over Duke to protect him. She was asking him to get Duke, but he didn't.
"I knew he was already gone."
As he sat in a plastic seat at the prosecution's table next to Upper Macungie Detective Adam Miller, Rudy told the story three times. He started by telling District Judge Michael Faulkner's courtroom the story of the Oct. 12 incident from beginning to end.
Then he walked through it slower a second time as Miller asked him a series of questions, noting how his other dog, King, ran outside to protect Duke's body, but was attacked as well. King, a Yorkshire terrier-poodle mix, later died of his injuries.
When defense attorney Eric Dowdle, who was representing the pit bull-boxers' owner, Nicholas Okane, gently quizzed him about a few points, Rudy stayed steady. He didn't waiver, he didn't hesitate and he was direct in his answers through all 30 minutes. But when it was over, he couldn't hold it in anymore. The boy wept for his puppy and his terrier.
aulkner found Okane guilty of two counts of harboring a dangerous dog.
"You can't look at a dog like you do a person," Faulkner said, noting dogs act on instinct and people can reason. Faulkner said Nicholas Okane, the owner of the pit bull mixes, seemed to be a "responsible owner," with a large, metal, 6-foot fence.
Faulkner ordered Okane to pay two $250 fines, court costs and ruled the pit bulls are "dangerous dogs."
It was a tense but sober hearing.
As the second witness, Rudy's father, Rudolf Bailey Jr., entered the courtroom he could hear his son's sobs, and he shot Dowdle a look before testifying. He told Faulkner that his son came running into the house yelling, "'Duke is dead, Duke is dead.'"
A construction worker, who was working on a job site about 50 to 70 yards away also testified.
David Gobrecht, of Kay Builders, said he heard a scream that sounded like a little child. But when he turned it was the puppy.
"It looked like two sharks attacking something in the water," Gobrecht said. "It was aggressive. It was coordinated."
Upper Macungie police shot the male pit bull with a Taser before they could coral the two dogs back into their home.
Pugliese also testified. She said she saw Duke poke his head through the fence and she warned, "Pick your dog up, I don't know if they'll hurt him."
Because the two pit bull-boxer mixes have been deemed dangerous by a judge, Okane will have to register the dogs with the state and follow a series of restrictions, including posting a "dangerous dogs" sign, keeping them confined and, when they are outside their enclosures, they'll have to be muzzled and leashed.
Okane has 30 days to appeal Faulkner's ruling to the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas.
(The Morning Call - Dec 16, 2015)
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