Buddy was a boxer/pit bull mix that tore open his new owner’s throat and killed her.
The dog’s former owner, Cheryl Davino, tried to reconcile the two Buddys Thursday night when she heard the news from a Virginian-Pilot reporter: A day earlier, the 1½-year-old dog mauled his new owner at her home in Hertford, N.C.
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| Cheryl Davino with Buddy |
“I’m in shock,” said Davino, of Norfolk.
Suzanne Story, the mother of 17- and 15-year-old girls, had been cleaning Buddy’s crate in her home on Snug Harbor Road when the dog attacked. Her sister and roommate, Robin Ross, was lying down when she heard screams for help.
Ross pulled Buddy off Story and shut him in the bathroom. But just as Story was getting up and about to run away, Buddy broke a hole through the bathroom door and attacked her again. This time, Ross couldn’t get him off.
“The dog was holding her down,” Ross said. “She couldn’t get out, and she couldn’t get up to run out the door.
“It was horrible.”
Ross called 911 and, fearing the dog might attack Story’s 17-year-old daughter, escaped from the house. She also called their mother, who lives down the street.
Debbie Brown said she burst into her daughter’s house after hearing the news.
“There was blood everywhere,” Brown said. “Her hair was just soaked – solid blood – just covered in blood.”
Story died about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday on the way to the hospital, Perquimans County Sheriff Eric Tilley said. The dog had no history of attacks, Tilley added, and was set to be euthanized Thursday.
A day later, Cheryl and Carl Davino learned from a Pilot reporter what their former dog had done.
“I don’t know what the heck happened,” Cheryl Davino said.
Buddy got along with the Davinos’ two little dogs, she said. Over the summer, he played with their 11- and 10-year-old grandsons. No signs of aggression or violence.
“He was a big baby,” Cheryl Davino said.
She didn’t want to give Buddy up. But the couple is moving to a different house, one where her husband said they just couldn’t have three dogs. So she put an advertisement in The Virginian-Pilot and, after she got off the phone, cried at the prospect of giving up her dog. Seeing she was upset, her husband bought her roses.
Davino said she called The Pilot intending to give Buddy away for free, but a sales rep told her to put down a dollar amount to make sure people were serious and the dog would be taken care of.
So she bought this ad: “Pitbull & Boxer Mix-Very good w/kids, people. Male. 1 yr. old on Sept. 13. $100.”
Carl Davino said Story agreed to pay an extra $50 if they delivered the dog. But when they arrived in Hertford and saw her scrambling to come up with the original purchase price, they gave her Buddy. In fact, the Davinos said, it was their intent all along.
There's your sign. Why was this woman shopping online for a dog when she clearly had no money to pay for the animal? And why would she offer them $50 to bring the dog to her when she clearly didn't even have the purchase price??? Plus, she already had pets in the household.
They also said they stayed with Story for about an hour to talk about Buddy’s care, and got her OK to come down and visit him every couple of weeks. The Davinos said they arranged to see him last weekend, but Story called at the last minute and canceled, saying she had the flu.
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| Family members remove her other pets from the home. |
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| Stephen Katz / The Virginian Pilot |
“They need to do something, because they lied to us,” she said. “They told them it was good-natured.”
Cheryl Davino said she didn’t lie: Buddy was good-natured around everybody. She said she doesn’t know why he attacked Story. But, she added, she feels awful, and hopes people don’t think she and her husband foisted a vicious beast on some unsuspecting family before zooming off.
“I don’t want people to think we’re bad guys. Nobody’s a bad guy here,” she said. “I feel bad for them. I feel bad for Buddy. All of this is just so awful.”
(Pilot Online - Feb 11, 2016)
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