A Brooklyn woman is desperately seeking the return of her beloved dog after a neighbor offered to care for the animal as she recuperated from an illness, only to later inform her she was keeping the pooch, according to a lawsuit filed in Kings County Supreme Court.
Valerie D’Angelo, 65, adopted her dog, a terrier-mix named Grace, from Sean Casey Animal Rescue in 2018 as a remedy for the grief and loneliness she experienced after losing her 18-year-old son, who completed suicide in 2013.
“My dog is everything to me,” said D’Angelo. “She’s my family. I love her so much.”
About two years ago, a woman living two floors below D’Angelo’s Kensington apartment, Catherine Feijoo-Nickell, took an interest in the dog, knitting two sweaters for the pooch and once offering D’Angelo help with moving furniture so she could have an “opportunity to be around Grace,” according to the suit filed Tuesday.
“Being a trusting person, I thought it was a nice gesture. It just came very suddenly. Very fast,” said D’Angelo. “Sometimes when you meet someone, you get a gut feeling about someone. The gut feeling I got for them was I didn’t particularly want to be a part of their lives that fast.”
Courtesy of Ezra Glaser
Valerie D’Angelo filed a suit in Kings County Supreme Court against a neighbor whom she accuses of stealing her terrier-mix, Grace. (Courtesy of Ezra Glaser)
Then, late last year, D’Angelo said she was laid low by seizures and debilitating bowel pain brought on by Crohn’s disease, spurring her to make arrangements to leave Grace temporarily at a no-kill shelter in Kensington on Dec. 19 while she recuperated. It was as she was leaving to take Grace to the shelter that her neighbor made the offer to dog sit, D’Angelo said.
“Catherine came up just as I was leaving. She said, ‘Oh no, you don’t have to do that. We’ll take her,” said D’Angelo.
But about a week after Feijoo-Nickell took Grace, she told D’Angelo she planned to keep the pet while the owner said she made it clear she expected the dog’s return, the complaint says. “(Feijoo-Nickell) wanted Grace’s papers to get her a haircut. This woman said to me, ‘You said we’re keeping her.’
I said, ‘No, my words that day were you’re keeping her until I’m better,’” said D’Angelo. “I was still very sick, but I wasn’t thinking any malevolence was going on here, so I gave her the folder with Gracie’s records.”
D’Angelo said Feijoo-Nickell dodged her calls for about another month before she caught her neighbor in the halls and demanded her dog back, to which the defendant replied, “You know, Grace has a different life now,” according to the suit.
“They’ve taken advantage of the fact that I’ve had some issues. Losing your son, it’s a big issue, but that’s what the dog was for and that’s what makes them so heinous,” said D’Angelo.
It was at that point, according to D’Angelo, that she realized Feijoo-Nickell wasn’t giving Grace up without a fight and she called police on Feb. 2. Officers met her and her lawyer, Ezra Glaser, at the attorney’s law offices on Fort Hamilton Parkway that day, but they sad the dispute was a “a civil matter,” Glaser said. The NYPD did not return requests for comment.
“(Dogs) just make our day better. Valerie, she’s had certain things to overcome in her lifetime and calming her, making her life better, there’s a key ingredient between dog and owner,” said Glaser. “There’s got to be a special place in hell for somebody that steals somebody’s dog.” In addition to the retrin of the dog, the lawsuit seeks monetary deamages based on a claim of larceny.
Rebecca White / New York Daily News
Grace’s dog bed lies empty on the bedroom floor of Valerie D’Angelo’s apartment. (Rebecca White / New York Daily News)
Another neighbor said she was surprised relations between between the two women had deteriorated to the point of legal action and said she hoped the pair could make peace.
“I’ve seen them do so much for Valerie,” the neighbor, who asked that her name be withheld, said of Feijoo-Nickell and her husband. “I hope it gets worked out. I feel like it must be a misunderstanding. I can’t imagine them having ill will toward Valerie.”
Feijoo-Nickell did not a return messages left seeking comment. When a Daily News reporter tried the defendant at her apartment Friday, there was no answer. Multiple legal notices pertaining to the lawsuit were spotted posted to the front door of her apartment.