CHAMPAIGN – Two neighbors of Champaign County Board member Giraldo Rosales have alleged that he hit a loose dog with his car Monday afternoon, and then drove away without checking on the animal's welfare.

But Rosales remembers the accident differently, contending that he did stop to check on the dog.

Meanwhile, the owner of Shug, a 22-month-old female Boston terrier, said the dog suffered a number of injuries but is relatively OK.

"She was a very lucky dog," said Patrick Floyd of Champaign. "She didn't have anything internal or any bones broken."

Floyd, however, has about $800 in veterinary bills.

Sarah Gossett, who was running on Hill Street at the time of the incident, said Rosales hit the dog and didn't stop until another motorist, coming from the opposite direction, flagged him down.

"I was coming down the street and saw this little black-and-white dog kind of bounce across the road, and the gentleman who hit the dog was kind of driving down the road at a normal speed," Gossett said. "He hit the dog and proceeded to continue on through the intersection until another woman stopped him. She said something like, 'Hey, you just hit that dog.'

"They talked for a couple of seconds and the last thing I knew, he took off," she said. "She said, 'Gee, he told me to get out of his face.'"

Gossett said the dog appeared stunned, staying under the moving car "for a couple of seconds."

"Come on," said Emily Klose, who was driving her car from the opposite direction. "He knew he hit the dog. He should have stopped.

"I rolled my window down and said, 'Giraldo, you just hit a dog.' He said something like, 'What am I supposed to do? It just ran out in front of me.' When I told him that he should stop and check on the dog, he just told me to get out of his face."

Rosales said he was driving the speed limit, a block and a half from his home, when the dog darted out.

"I never saw it run out. It never stopped. It just ran into my car," he said. "I stopped. There was a guy who came from across the street and he asked me, 'Are you OK?' Yeah, I was OK. I pulled over to the side, looked under the car and there was nothing. Then we saw the little dog run across the street. He kept running. No leash. No collar. No owner."

Rosales said he and his neighbor, Klose, have a long history of disputes, that she "despises me" and "she just wants to slam me politically.

"She never asked me if I was OK. She just said, 'Why did you run? Why did you hit that dog?' I just said to her, 'Look, get out of my face.' I just rolled up my window and pulled over to the side."

Floyd said Shug apparently escaped from a neighbor who had gone to his home to let the dogs out at noontime.

"I usually go home for lunch," he explained, "but on that day, I was taking home a sick employee. My neighbor offered to let the dogs out."

Floyd said he routinely lets the two dogs out into the fenced-in backyard. His neighbor apparently let them out the front door when Shug escaped.

"He called me right away and I got back here and looked for her for about 3 1/2 hours before a police dispatcher called me and said that someone had seen a dog matching her description at Spalding Park," Floyd said. "I found her curled up in a dugout and in shock. There are tire marks on her back and her stomach and a lot of road burns and a pad missing on her paw."

Floyd said police suggested he was at fault, not Rosales.

"The police called me the next day and made it sound like it was my fault and that if anyone should get ticketed, it should be me because it was a dog at large," he said. "I don't know what I'm going to do. The police pretty much told me that it's my fault."

Gossett, who is a next-door neighbor of Floyd's, said she had never seen the dogs running loose.

"Those are indoor dogs," she said. "I've never seen them out of the yard before."