Suspected poisoning of dogs scares Cust family
One beloved family dog is dead and another is in a critical condition after a suspected poisoning by a neighbour.
North Canterbury resident Brooke Wallis said yesterday that a fellow Cust resident had hurt their family ‘‘in an unimaginable way’’.
She said her two poodle-pomeranian cross-breed dogs, Clyde and Bonno, were chasing rabbits on Friday night when someone found them and ‘‘contained them’’.
Wallis would not name the person she believed to be responsible.
A neighbour heard the dogs yelping at a nearby address and alerted Wallis, who then drove to the property with her husband, Finn Wallis.
‘‘My husband decided to drive up to the culprit’s home to check, they didn’t appear to be home,’’ she wrote in a Facebook post.
‘‘He found our dogs in a holding pen at their home, with their legs tightly bound with bailing twine upside-down lying on their backs.’’
Finn Wallis broke the dogs free and got them home. Bonno couldn’t walk or move properly and appeared to be brain-damaged.
Clyde appeared uninjured but was ‘‘very traumatised’’ and was ‘‘soiling himself’’ every couple of minutes.
The couple contacted police and took Bonno to a veterinarian, who found no broken bones but suspected the dog could have spinal nerve damage.
The vet gave Brooke Wallis some anti-inflammatory medication and said to monitor him closely for 48 hours to see if his condition improved.
On their way home the neighbour suspected of poisoning was found in their driveway.
‘‘They told me that they were ‘looking for a dog’,’’ Wallis said.
Wallis nursed Bonno all night in bed while he squealed in pain. ‘‘It was heartbreaking,’’ she said.
The next morning Wallis’ daughter found Clyde eating balls of mince outside with powder and tablets in them. In the mince was an aluminium cut-off from the medication labelled ‘‘Phen’’.
The vet told Wallis it could be phenobarbitone, used to treat humans and animals with epilepsy.
‘‘I rushed both boys to the vet, they ran bloods and started treatment immediately. The blood tests confirmed phenobarbitone overdose. They had consumed so much that the tests were off the scale. Both boys were in critical condition and on life support.’’
Clyde died on Saturday night, while Bonno remained in a critical condition yesterday evening but was home with the family.
‘‘He’s breathing on his own, thankfully. But he may or may not make it. We decided to bring him home and make that decision for himself with the love and care of us and the kids.’’
The family was ‘‘absolutely devastated’’, Wallis said. ‘‘Our daughters are 14 and 7, and they’ve spent their weekend sobbing and scared that someone could come to our home and hurt our family in this way.’’
She could not make sense of why someone would poison the dogs.
‘‘Those boys are our life,’’ Wallis told The Press. ‘‘They live in our home, they’re our companions, they’re our friends like any dog is to any family ... It’s unbelievable to think someone could have it in them.’’
The family had spent about $6000 in the past few days on vet bills.
Wallis said she was thankful to the staff at the Rangiora Veterinary Centre who helped the family.