matt.chittum@roanoke.com 981-3331
   
   A male miniature horse named Tater was mauled Sunday evening by two dogs that attacked him as he grazed in his pasture off Hardy Road in Bedford County.
   After three hours of surgery and countless stitches, Tater seemed fine Monday afternoon. His mate, Sweet Tater, and their 7-month-old colt, Spud, were unharmed.
   But their owner, Carol Simmons, said she doesn't know when she'll feel comfortable turning them out of their pen. She worries that the dogs are still on the loose.
   "What are they going to get next? Are they going to be back? Are they going to go after some child?" Simmons asked Monday. "It could have been our grandkids out there. ... I'm just freaked out by it."
   Simmons, 57, said she and her husband, Gerald, were in their home about 6:30 p.m. Sunday when a man they don't know told them two dogs he believed to be pit bulls were attacking Tater in a lower field about 200 yards from their home. Gerald Simmons, a retired firefighter, is recuperating from heart bypass surgery, so Carol Simmons grabbed a shovel and drove her van to the scene by herself.
   "I don't know what I would have done," she said.
   She arrived at a part of the 23 acres the Simmonses own next to Turner Branch Road to find Tater ripped up and bleeding badly around his muzzle. The dogs, which she described as very dark and wearing collars, were still there.
   "There was blood just all over them," Simmons said.
   It was unclear how long Tater had been in combat. At 34 inches high and 350 pounds, he seemed to have held his own.
   Simmons shouted at the dogs, and they scurried off through her land headed west. Neighbors with guns searched for the dogs but never found them.
   Sweet Tater was in her pen near the Simmonses' house, but Simmons was worried because she couldn't find Spud. He turned up near the house a short time later with some dried blood on him, but apparently unharmed.
   "I really think that the dad must have said, in horse talk, 'Get the hell out of here,'" Simmons said.
   Bedford equine veterinarian Martha Moses sedated Tater and operated on him in the barn by flashlights for three hours, according to Simmons. Monday, Tater chewed hay and, but for the numerous stitches around his mouth, seemed unhurt.
   Bedford County Animal Control Officer Raymond Atkinson said investigators will be searching the area for the dogs. If they are located and can be identified as the dogs that mauled Tater, the owner can be charged with owning a destructive animal and held responsible for the Simmonses' vet bills. A judge would decide if the dogs should be destroyed.
   Atkinson said cases of dogs attacking livestock come up occasionally, but not often. "If people would just be more responsible with their pets, we wouldn't have the problem with it we do," he said.
   Simmons, the retired former owner of an auto insurance business, said her little horses are almost like dogs to her. "They don't do anything but eat, and I come over and play with them," she said. She delivered Spud herself.
   It sickens her to think she'll have to confine the horses to the small pen near her house instead of allowing them to roam and graze. But she doesn't feel it's safe to let them out.
   "You spend the money to buy the property to have your animals, and then you can't put them out there," she said.
   The only thing that would make her feel safe is if the dogs are found. They need to be destroyed, she said.
   "If it's not my horses, it's somebody's kid or somebody's cat."