- April 25, 2024
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What started out as a casual walk turned into a fight between two dogs in Palm Coast on Wednesday, Sept. 26. The fight sent one of the dogs to an animal hospital, according to a report by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, and the wounded dog later died.
Richard Glover, 59, was walking his brother Anthony Glover's red nose pit bull, Red, while 63-year-old George Dos Santos was walking his black-and-white cocker spaniel, Louie, at the intersection of Ranch Way and Rae Drive when the two parties met, according to the Sheriff's Office report.
Glover "said that the dogs started sniffing one another but they got too close and the dogs started to get aggressive with one another," a deputy wrote in the report.
Glover told the deputy that he had tried and failed to break up the dog fight and that he had asked Dos Santos "to hit the dogs to break them up."
George Dos Santos told a deputy that he'd come across Glover and the pit bull at the corner and that the pit bull had lunged at the smaller dog and grabbed him by the neck, thrashing him around.
Jackie Souza-Dos Santos, George Dos Santos' wife, wrote in a Facebook message to the Observer that the pit bull had been on the other side of the street before it got loose and attacked.
"Louie was being walked by my husband when the dog on the other side of the road got loose from his owner and grabbed Louie by the head and dragged him for over 75 feet," she wrote. "Nothing my husband did or its owner did made him let go until my husband tore a branch from a tree and only then did the dog drop Louie."
Both parties at the scene confirmed the dogs were on their leashes while being walked. The Sheriff's Office report states that both dogs "broke free of their leashes due to the altercation."
Glover told the deputy that he had never had issues with Red being violent before and had always been able to maintain control over the dog while walking until Wednesday.
Jackie Souza-Dos Santos confirmed that Louie — who was taken to Flagler Animal Hospital — suffered a fractured skull, puncture wounds around the neck and internal bleeding.
Louie succumbed to his injuries in the early morning Thursday, Sept. 28, Souza-Dos Santos reported in a Facebook message to the Observer.
The pit bull, Red, was placed on quarantine at home pending further investigation.
