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.”

HOUNDED TO DEATH: After putting down his beloved pit pull Rocco amid pressure from his condo, Nick Santino took his own life.

 

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.

Additional reporting by Aaron Feis, Jamie Schram and Andy Soltis

jsaul@nypost.com

Hi YR,

Could you please provide a link when you copy and paste off of other websites.

Links like this will be okay. >> http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/doggone_shame_1a9XYW8u9ZLlqwRJTa6jrN

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/doggone_shame_1a9XYW8u9ZLlqwRJTa6jrN

Thanks,
GSD

Gsd :

I didn't  copy it off of anyones website . THanks though

It was sent to me in an email and it came from the New York POST.....And I included the email address of the man who wrote it...


I do not go to any other website, ever.  I have dial up and it doesn't let me go very many places even with firefox..you try downloading anything on 26.4 kbps

I only visit this one, the POF dating site and my bank statement..Sorry to disappoint you but I was sent the link via email.

I went to it and it has a mention of it at the bottom of my post.  I thought that was good enough



This is where it came from:

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

By JOSH SAUL

Last Updated: 9:32 AM, January 28, 2012

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/doggone_shame_1a9XYW8u9ZLlqwRJTa6jrN#ixzz1kp8kXbQK

Back on topic, this is pure tragedy.  WTF can't people mind their own business when something isn't directly adversely impacting anyone else?  I hope the cretins who groundlessly complained about this dog, along with the building management that bought into the unfounded complaints, are haunted by the knowledge that they caused the deaths of two innocent beings. 

At least the dog and his person are together again.

unstable person......
he could have moved to another place and saved his dog....

Yes, Hexe, I thought the same thing

 I have neighbors who just wait for something to complain about..THEY live down the street and cannot find one thing on my place but are scared stiff one of my  very expensive gsd are gonna come 10miles down the road and get them
SO one day about 7months ago this nice lady who drives my road called the State Hwy dept and complained that I had  ORANGE CONES in front of my property./

When the State man came out to share a big laugh with me, he told her to not worry about Miss Yellowrose, she was doing what the Hwy Dept told her to do.. Stop the trucks hauling OIL out of the ]
gated community behind me , from parking a million ton? not sure how heavy) truck in  my ditch and the state Hwy dept having to come repair the ditch  6 times in a two week period last summer so they gave me cones to put in my front acreage .

She couldn't find something legit so she tried...I am only one step ahead of most
I live in the country not the city

And gsd are deemed very dangerous out here.  THE reason is at least 8 homes on my road , let all their dogs run LOOSE with no tags and collars.
So if Yellowroses gsd get loose or she walks them on leash, their dogs will be carried home in a Black bag.

I wouldn't walk my dogs anywhere. They have 3 acres of trees , and fenced area to do as they please.

NOYB is a very good  motto but the dog world has same issues and PIT bulls mix or pure have many issues and I guess fear moves people to do strange things.

YR

 I also do not remember him from Guiding Light which is now off the air.

I watched it for  years but cannot place him. So horrible it had to end two lives.

Hope no one gets the idea that it was his fault or he should have taken his own life. HE should not have but he did.

TOO sad.

 YR

Doesn't really make sense. I understand he was depressed, but he could have moved. Also, what vet puts to sleep a healthy dog? And why would the VET tell Santino his dog was becoming aggressive?

sita's mom, glad you think it would be just that easy to move to another place in NYC.  Did you miss the part about him being a 'struggling' actor--as in not really working much, as in not likely to be flush financially?

If he lived in a rent-controlled building, finding another rent-controlled apartment is nearly impossible these days, and without rent-control, it's unlikely anyone making less than $100K/year could afford an apartment in the city itself. Add to this the fact that more and more places will not rent to people with any sort of pet at all, while many others either restrict by the dog's weight (usually have to be under 25 lbs.), or by breed.  Guess which breed is most often excluded?

Darka, you need to keep in mind that in NYC, the number of homeless pit bull and pit-mix dogs is astronomical; it's actually not at all surprising that a vet would euthanize a healthy dog in that city, when the local shelters and rescues are full to overflowing with dogs in need of homes. I used to pull GSDs from the NYC shelters for a breed rescue group in NJ, and we typically had to be able to get them within 48 hours of notification for strays, and w/in 24 hours if they were owner-surrenders, because the space is at such a premium there. 

I do agree that his state of mind was probably already on edge to begin with, and the situation with Rocco just pushed him over the edge...That he put the dog down should have been a flashing red sign to his friends, though, because that's often the very last thing someone does before they kill themselves--make sure their pet is 'safe'.  Especially if the pet is one that would be difficult to place.  It's one reason why we really should be mindful of what we say and do when we interact with other people, because you can never really know if someone is unraveling inside, and all it would take would be *one more* harsh word for them to implode...

I still hope the people who complained are haunted for the rest of their miserable lives. 

He was obvioulsy an unstable individual.  Not sure the level of harassment, but it would take an awful lot for me to PTS my dog because of ppl b**ching! 

That being said, it is very difficult to find an apartment in NYC that will allow dogs, let along Pit Bulls.  It is also a rent controlled city.. and if you leave where you are, you may not find another apartment that you can afford.  Remember the story says "down on his luck" which equates in actor world to having no work. 

Very sad either way.