Ozzy gets stay of execution

Ozzy, the German shepherd sentenced to die this week after allegedly attacking a 7-year-old boy and a young woman, was granted a last-minute stay of execution yesterday.

Camden County Superior Court will review his case.

Ozzy's owner, Kelley Allard, who was sobbing uncontrollably in Somerdale, N.J., Municipal Court when a judge ordered Ozzy euthanized, decided afterward to continue fighting for her beloved pet's life.

"I just couldn't sleep at night not doing this," Allard said.

The reprieve is the latest twist in Ozzy's surreal journey from trusted family pet to death row.

For seven years, from the time Kelley and Ray Allard brought the 8-week-old puppy home to Cornell Avenue near the White Horse Pike in Somerdale, Ozzy was "just a big, friendly bear," Kelley Allard said.

Her 13-year-old son, Tim Matuliewich, said: "Oz has been at all my birthday parties in the back yard with 20 or 25 kids. He swims in the pool with kids . . . he is around my friends all the time."

But everything changed for Ozzy on April 23, when the 100-pound dog escaped from his yard and, as he often did, walked two blocks up the street to play with Kota, the chow-mix in the Lovello family's yard.

Frankie Lovello, 7, told Somerdale Municipal Judge Nick Trabosh that he came home, put his bike away in the shed and was walking toward his house when Ozzy attacked him, biting his right arm, his chest and his face.

The attack landed Ozzy in quarantine for weeks at the Animal Orphanage shelter in Voorhees, and landed his human family in front of Trabosh, who had to decide if Ozzy was vicious and needed to be destroyed.

On the eve of his trial, Ozzy bit Animal Orphanage worker Desiree Osbeck, 24, on the shoulder and right arm, after she fed him treats during a TV news filming.

Tuesday night in court, defense witnesses prepared to tell the judge that they had seen 7-year-old Frankie behave aggressively toward dogs - but they did not get to testify because the case suddenly shifted focus.

Brian Berg, a retired Medford Police K9 trainer now in private business, came to the court to save Ozzy's life by offering to rehabilitate him.

But after talking with Osbeck and seeing photos of her bite wounds, Berg testified for the prosecution that Ozzy was dangerous and should be euthanized.

The defense accepted Berg's expert opinion. Trabosh ordered Ozzy's death, saying, "We don't know what it is, but something has gone wrong with Ozzy in the past few months."

Yesterday, after having second thoughts about Berg's evaluating Ozzy without meeting him, Allard requested a stay of execution.

Retired Atlantic City Police K9 officer Joe Schafer - one of many Daily News readers who protested the decision to kill Ozzy - was relieved last night to learn about Ozzy's reprieve.

"A dog that is vicious attaches itself and doesn't let go," said Schafer, who trained more than 250 K9s for the Atlantic City police. "[Ozzy's] bite and recoil behavior is biting out of fear, not out of viciousness.

"There's no way that I could, in good conscience, decide whether a dog should be put to sleep without physically evaluating it," he said. "Most dogs that fear-bite can be trained out of it." *