You may find 1-year-old Coco cute, but as her owner Barbara Bottiglieri discovered this weekend, not everyone would agree.
Certainly not the man who lives across the street, who she says attacked her miniature dachshund right before her eyes.
"What possessed him to do this to an animal is beyond me. Because if he's capable of doing it to an animal, who knows what's next," Bottiglieri said.
On Saturday, police arrested 56-year-old /*Jamie Sanchez*/, on a charge of animal torture.
After allegedly confronting woman and dog, as they walked on the public sidewalk in front of his /*Franklin Square*/ house, accusing Bottiglieri of letting Coco relieve herself, on his lawn.
"Mister, I don't let my dog on people's lawns I said. I walk my dog I pick up after my dog. I tried to rationalize with this guy, and he just for no apparent reason he took the leash in the middle of the leash, and went like this, and flung Coco in the middle of the street," Bottiglieri said.
Coco landed on her tail, and wasn't seriously hurt.
"Get over it already," said Pam Matias, a neighbor.
And now, neighbors like Pam Matias have taken Sanchez's side, claiming Coco has a reputation of leaving little presents on lawns all over the neighborhood.
She walks around not even in the street. She walks around on the sidewalk on the grass letting the dog go wherever the dog wants to go. So eventually it's going to get to anybody," Matias said.
"The woman has no respect for nobody's property," a neighbor added.
In the end, this all may have little to do with Coco.
Neighbors say a dispute over street parking has festered for years between Sanchez and the owners of the home where Bottiglieri lives.
But she moved in just a year ago, and police say the neighborly baggage of the past is simply irrelevant.
"The history has no bearing whatsoever on what happened at that point in time. This guy got enraged, he took this dog, threw it in the street, it's just by the grace of God that a car didn't come down the block at that time and hurt the dog," said Det. Vincent Garcia, Nassau County Police Department.
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