Pulled off the front porch and mauled

COEUR d'ALENE - Jamie Sedlmayer was delivering ads to homes for The Press on Wednesday afternoon when she saw two dogs fighting over a toy in somebody's yard.

But something wasn't quite right.

She quickly realized the "misshaped stuffed animal" was actually a cat. The two dogs were lab mixes, but one definitely had some boxer in it, she said.

"I laid on my horn to get the dogs to let it go," Sedlmayer recalled. The dogs did and the cat initially looked lifeless.

"The kitty was gasping for air and grasping to life," she said. It had long white hair and blue eyes.

"There was a trail of fur and destruction from the cat's bed on the front porch to the place I stopped the attack," she said.

The cat's owner, Sharon Harris, buried the animal, Tina, on Thursday behind her home on the 3400 block of N. 12th Street. The dogs, it turns out, live nearby.

Tina had been living on Harris' front porch for 10 years, after wandering up as a stray kitten.

"She was crosseyed and terrified of everyone," Harris said.

She said Tina didn't wander around the neighborhood once she found a home.

"I'm horrified that this would happen," Harris said. "I feel terrible for Tina."

Next time it could be somebody's child who gets mauled, she said.

"We have a lot of little kids in our neighborhood," Harris said.

An animal control officer was called to the scene and the dogs have been impounded.

According to Coeur d'Alene Police Sgt. Christie Wood, the dogs have separate owners, who are roommates.

They have been issued citations for the attack, Wood said.

"The owners didn't have a way to contain them," she said. The dogs "busted the fence that was containing them."

The animals have been declared dangerous, a designation given to animals that injure or kill a domestic animal, Wood said.

Tina died at Alpine Animal Hospital.