Please forgive any strange characters as I am cutting and pasting the story. I
found this to be so sad. It was written in The NY Post.

Mike
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Soap actor commits suicide after pup's 'forced' euthanasia

A down-on-his-luck soap-opera actor took his own life this week after he was
forced to put his beloved dog to sleep under pressure from his Upper West Side
condo and became wracked by grief, pals said.

Nick Santino euthanized his dog, Rocco, Tuesday — on Santino’s 47th birthday.
That night, his guilt over the gut-wrenching decision became too much to bear. 
“Today I betrayed my best friend and put down my best friend,” a despondent
Santino wrote in a suicide note, said close friend Stuart Sarnoff.

“Rocco trusted me and I failed him. He didn’t deserve this.”

The Brooklyn-born Santino — a struggling actor whose TV credits include “All
My Children” and “Guiding Light” — adopted Rocco from a shelter several years
ago. 
The man, raised in an orphanage and foster homes, soon began to write about
his pet on Facebook, writing, “I did not rescue Rocco, Rocco rescued me.”

But in 2010, his building at 1 Lincoln Plaza announced strict new dog
regulations, including a ban on pit bulls. The ban didn’t apply to pit bulls
already in the building, but friends and neighbors said Santino began to be
harassed.

“People were complaining about his dog,” said neighbor Kevan Cleary, 63, an
adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School. “It was open season on him.”

Rocco couldn’t ride in the main elevators and wasn’t allowed to be left in the
apartment alone for more than nine hours.

Santino was then threatened with a $250 fine for having a barking dog,
neighbors said.

“The dog was not a barker, but somebody complained that the dog would bark,”
Cleary said.

“He felt like he was in this battle because he was the only guy in the
building with a pit-bull mix,” Cleary added.

Another neighbor, Lia Pettigrew, who runs a pet-care company, said, “Everybody
knows that he had been harassed by the building management.”

The building’s management refused to comment yesterday.

After months of increasing anguish, Santino had the healthy dog put to sleep
Tuesday.

Neighbors said a tearful Santino brought dog treats to the building’s doorman
and said: “Give these to the other dogs. Rocco is no more.”

Dog owner James Steven Grant said Santino left two rawhide bones on his
doorstep and earlier was seen tearfully giving away Rocco’s fluffy bed.

“Rocco was the sweetest dog in the world. Rocco wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Grant
said. 
A veterinarian told Santino that Rocco was becoming aggressive — and Santino
blamed it on his own depression.

He spent Tuesday in agony over what he had done to Rocco.

“He was distraught and remorseful about putting down his best friend,” Cleary
said. 
The last phone call he made was to a former girlfriend at 2 a.m. Wednesday.
Later that day, police found his body in his bedroom. He had overdosed on
pills. 
Rocco has been cremated, and friends said Santino’s remains will be, too, and
they will be reunited.

“One way or another, their ashes will be together forever,” Sarnoff said.
 http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/doggone_shame_1a9XYW8u9ZLlqwRJTa6
jrN
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