Talk about adding insult to injury. Not only did the Big Dig contractors bleed the state of money and do a crappy job, but one of them somehow obtained two of Chinatown's "Foo Dogs" during a renovation of Chinatown park.

From the Herald:

The marble foo dogs, sometimes called lions - which once stood guard under the Beach Street arch leading visitors to Chinatown - were taken by Paul Pedini, a former vice president of Big Dig contractor Modern Continental, who used the statues to decorate the rooftop garden of his Lexington manse.

Even though there are two replacement foo dogs in storage, Mayor Menino wants the dogs back. Pedini claims, "I took possession of (them) with the understanding that they were otherwise going to be discarded. My intention was to preserve them. No one from the city or the Chinese community expressed any opposition to my taking them, nor have they ever asked me to return them.” Even if Pedini thought it was okay to take them, someone should have checked with the neighborhood first.

The Herald noticed the foo dogs back on October 9, when they visited Pedini's "Big Dig House" in Lexington. Pedini built the house out of Big Dig castoffs and put the foo dogs on his roof garden. The house has earned praise for being made of recyclables and was profiled in the Improper Bostonian and the Globe.

Image of two foo dogs from Talaria Enterprises.