LEWISTON – A 10-year-old Great Dane that had been trained to hunt bears terrorized a couple in their Hawthorne Place home Tuesday night, killing a cat and mauling a man’s arm before the pair could retreat to safety. The animal was later shot with a tranquilizer dart by an animal control officer.

Jan Barlow, 26, suffered a bite to his arm after the 185-pound dog lunged at him about 11 p.m. in the studio where the dead cat was found. A nursing supervisor at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center said he was still being treated in the emergency room at 12:45 this morning, and she could not give out any information on his condition.

“He was bit really bad. The dog bit him and shook him,” said Barlow’s wife, 23-year-old Rini Barlow. “I kicked him and then he wanted to bite me, too, but I ran to the laundry room.”

The couple took refuge in the closed room and called police. Rini Barlow said the dog, named Frazier, knew how to open a door by turning the knob.

When police arrived, the couple escaped to the front lawn while the dog barked at them from an upstairs bedroom. Jan Barlow was taken to the hospital while his wife remained at the house.

While police in the yard tried to figure out how to subdue the Great Dane, Rini Barlow screamed up at her pet as it glared from an upstairs window.

“You killed my cat. You killed Murphy,” she yelled, clutching a small Pekinese named Cocoa in her arms. “Why did you do this to me, Frazier? It’s not fair.”

The Barlow couple have no children. Rini said they’d had the dog for about a year-and-a-half after getting it from a rescue agency. The dog had been acting aggressively in the last month, she said.

“He’s like our kid, but he’s gone crazy,” Rini said.

She said she had come home from a 13-hour day at work Tuesday night to find her Siamese cat Cocoa dead in the studio of the two-story house near the end of Buttonwood Lane. The dead cat was still warm, she said.

When Jan Barlow tried to hug his wife, the Great Dane came after him and clamped its teeth on his forearm, Rini said. He was still being treated at the hospital early this morning.

When police arrived, they tried to enter the house to evaluate the situation. The Great Dane quickly came after a sergeant, who was followed by two officers.

“I just sort of backed away and closed the door,” Sgt. Michael Whalen said.

While police assessed the situation, Rini Barlow, smeared in blood, clutched the smaller dog and worried about a second cat still inside the house. She cursed the dog from the driveway of her home.

“He’s taking everything that’s precious to me,” she said. “Murphy was everything to me. I about had a heart attack when I found him.”

The Great Dane was raised to hunt bear, Rini Barlow said.

Police called in Animal Control Officer Wendell Strout to help get the dog under control. Strout quickly determined the dog was too big to get under control with a pole and rope. He did not have a carrier large enough to hold the animal and conventional means of subduing it would probably be ineffective.

“Somebody could get hurt,” Strout said.

He called for backup from Auburn Animal Control Officer Bentley Rathbun and a decision was made to shoot the animal with a tranquilizer dart. But first, officials needed to get close to the animal. Going in through the door was ruled out because the dog was expected to charge. Instead, Strout called for a Fire Department ladder truck to get him into the house through a window.

Shortly after 12:30 a.m., Rathbun climbed the ladder and fired a shot through the second -floor window, tranquilizing the dog.

Rini Barlow said she wanted the dog put down as soon as it was tranquilized and removed from the house.

The Barlows had put Frazier on a diet and hired an animal behaviorist recently because he had been acting strangely, but the attempt to help him appeared to have failed, Rini said. She guessed Frazier was too old to be retrained.

“I don’t want this to happen to someone else,” she said.