WILKES-BARRE - Their bark may be worse than their bite. But an intruder posing as a utility worker at a home on New Mallery Place didn't wait to find out.
Maura Long, 27, describes her pair of 3-year-old pit bulls, Bella and Reese, as "couch potatoes" who enjoy the lazy life - Bella only gets out of bed if she hears food being opened, she said.
"So for her to make it down - my mind's blown," she said. "Two that are the world's worst guard dogs actually did their job. I'm shocked."
Long, who works the graveyard shift as a baker, said the man, dressed in navy blue Dickies and a hat, rang the doorbell Thursday morning saying he was there for a gas meter complaint.
The man claimed to work for UGI Utilities and insisted the problem was inside the house, she said. He didn't have a badge - he said he left it in a van - but he looked legitimate.
Long said she hadn't called in a complaint but then thought perhaps her boyfriend had reported something.
"He kept it general: 'I'm here to check for a meter complaint.' And I'm like, 'I didn't call anything in,'" she said. "I'm like, 'If you want to chill for a second and wait on the porch, I'll go check.'"
She went downstairs to check the meter and planned to call UGI to verify the visit when she heard her dogs "going nuts" - their nails were racing across the floor and they were barking and growling with the intruder yelling phrases not fit for publication.
"I thought they were trying to get out," she said. "And then when I ran up to check he was already in my house. รข€¦ He didn't make it far. He made it right into the door and that's where my dogs greeted him."
The intruder was pinned against a wall, and Long grabbed Reese to hold the dog back. The man then kicked Bella in the face and ran out the front door, she said.
Bella, who appeared unfazed, tried to chase after him but Long called her off, she said.
UGI spokesman Joe Swope said the man was definitely not an employee of the utility - UGI was not in that area doing any sort of meter work on Thursday morning.
"We have apparently had a couple of incidents recently of people impersonating UGI employees," Swope said.
UGI employees wear marked company uniforms and carry identification, he said. If there is any doubt about a person's credentials, customers should ask to see the ID and call UGI to confirm the person is legitimate, he said.
Wilkes-Barre police were investigating the incident.
Long, meanwhile, is grateful things turned out the way they did.
"Thank God my dogs stopped him. So for everybody that says pit bulls are bad, they came to my rescue pretty quick," Long said. "Without those two dogs, I could only imagine what would have happened. But they got him."
Their reward? "They got some Burger King for that," she said.
For the record, her pit bulls like triple Whoppers with extra cheese and strawberry milkshakes.