Rich Ragasa was walking his 10-pound poodle mix named Penny at Sunrise Park at 7:30 p.m. March 11, as he did every evening, when a pair of pit bulls approached, unleashed, from behind.
In the blink of an eye, one of the dogs grabbed his white poodle and began shaking it like a rag doll. Ragasa yelled for the dog to drop his pet, and it did, eventually. But not before critically injuring it.
“I felt so helpless,” he said. “There was not much I could do. It happened within 10 seconds. It was so fast.”
The rest of the details are too traumatic and graphic to share here, but Ragasa and his wife ended up rushing the dog to an emergency clinic in San Jose, while it was bleeding severely. The doctors said there was little they could do and said they could try surgery for $10,000, but couldn’t guarantee it would save the dog’s life. The family couldn’t afford it.
“She was really suffering,” said Ragasa, an IT engineer with three children, 4, 7 and 14. “We tried to help her. We were devastated.”
This was the family’s first dog and they had it for three years and were all very much in love. Neighbors witnessed the attack and they and police tried to find the dogs’ owner, but they haven’t been found.
Their posts on GIlroy Next Door generated reams of controversy between pit bull lovers and haters.
“I’m not trying to do a witch hunt,” said Ragasa. “I just want to put the awareness out there. At least when other people are out walking their dogs, they know what could potentially go on with unleashed dogs. The best thing we thought we could do is to try to prevent it happening to other dogs.”
