While a Greeley man remains in the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital, the pit bull dogs accused of attacking him Thursday night are being kept in quarantine until a decision is made whether to euthanize them.

Gregariio Rios, 54, suffered severe injuries to his head and face and one ear was almost torn off in the dog attack Thursday night. He is in the North Colorado Medical Center's Intensive Care Unit, reportedly in serious, but stable condition.

According to police, the owner of the dogs, Sherry Gerdie, who also uses the name Sherry Pisano, is serving a 10-day jail sentence for driving after her license had been revoked. While she was in jail, the two pit bulls were kept in an apartment in the 800 block of 12th Street and cared for by Victor Pisano. Victor was the one who discovered the badly injured Rios on Thursday night.

"He was going to feed the dogs, because I couldn't handle the male," Victor Pisano said outside his apartment Friday morning. "I went to the grocery store, and when I came home, I found him on the floor with blood all over."

Pisano said Rios asked him to get the dogs outside, so Pisano put them in his car and called 911. Rios was treated at the scene by paramedics, then taken to the hospital by ambulance.

Two dogs -- a male and a female -- were taken to the Humane Society shelter in Evans, where they will be kept in quarantine. "Normally, the owner has three days to ask for an appeal or the dogs become the property of the city," said Humane Society Director Elaine Hicks. "But we need to keep them in quarantine right now to make sure there are no rabies problems."

Victor Pisano said the male dog was the most aggressive and was the one he couldn't control. "The female is very disciplined and plays with the kids," Pisano said. At the kennel, the dogs were listed under the names "Tech" for the female and "Budha" for the male. They are in separate kennels with danger warnings on the doors.

At the Humane Society, Hicks said about one-quarter of their dogs are pit bulls or pit bull mixes. In some cases, they find pit bulls with the cropped ears, cropped tails and bite marks that indicate they were used for fighting.

Not so with Tech and Buddha, which appear to be pets, although they could be aggressive at times. Victor Pisano said they were worried about the male's aggressiveness that they were already considering having the dog euthanized.

"It's a long-standing argument regarding pit bulls,' Hicks said, "nature versus nurture. Any dog can become vicious if they are mistreated or trained to be aggressive. It's usually the way they are treated by the owners."

She added that a seemingly nonaggressive dog might bite someone when the other dog attacks. "Like many dogs, they can have a pack mentality," Hicks said.

After the 10-day quarantine, the decision will be made whether to euthanize one or both of the dogs.