Durban - Police and a Durban neighbourhood watch have warned people to keep a close eye on their dogs and be on guard against criminals poisoning pets.
The alert comes after car thieves killed a homeowner’s dog in the latest poisoning incident to hit south Durban.
German shepherds Cujo and Diesel died after eating sausages laced with poison and a car was stolen from the driveway of their Yellowwood Park home.
The dogs’ owner, who identified herself only by her first name, Glenda, said it had been the second incident of dog poisoning in the area on the same night.
“I had come home in the early hours of Thursday morning with my husband. I saw the dogs wag their tails and run up to us as usual,” said the Penguin Walk resident.
She said after they had gone to bed, the dogs barked continuously.
“We thought they were barking at other dogs on the road. Then we heard three vicious barks, a sound they don’t normally make. It went silent, and we thought whatever it was had gone away. In the morning, my mother found Cujo dead at the front door next to his water bowl.
“Blood was oozing out of his mouth. Diesel looked as though he was asleep on the lawn, but he was dead,”Glenda said.
Her mother’s Toyota Tazz was gone and the driveway gate was open.
The 3-year-old dogs, who were brothers, had eaten sausages laced with black granules. Cujo had vomited the sausage before he died.
Two other cars in the yard were not touched. Glenda said the thieves disabled the car’s alarm and broke the corner glass.
“I am not sure how they got it up our steep driveway without us hearing anything. The car was found later that morning on the N2 near Winklespruit. The front wheel had a blow-out. It appeared that whoever drove it had hit a kerb.
“The interior of the car was ransacked and the spare wheel, spanners and other accessories stolen,”she said.
She said the thieves apparently tried to poison another of their dogs, Hugo, for a second time. He did not eat the sausage.
“People have to live like prisoners in their homes. Now we have been warned to keep our dogs inside. We are devastated. This was murder. How do they call themselves humans if they watched my dogs die? My dogs lost their lives for someone to have a 20-minute ride on the N2 freeway,” Glenda said.
The dogs were cremated by a vet.
Montclair police warned dog owners to keep their animals indoors or as far as possible from the front gate or road-facing boundary walls. The poisonings took place between 2am and 4am.
The Montclair Crime Eye Facebook page warned residents to be vigilant and alert when dogs barked continuously.
Police spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Thulani Zwane, said a case of vehicle theft was opened at Montclair police station.
Yellowwood Park Neighbourhood Watch spokeswoman, Sharon van Niekerk, said they had met the Community Police Forum and police.
“We are trying to come up with a method to prevent this from happening. We hope police can catch these car thieves who have been carrying out their attacks with impunity for just over a month,”she said.
Earlier this month, two dogs survived after eating poisoned sausages fed to them by car thieves in Yellowwood Park. In Kestrell Crescent, a 2-year-old Rottweiler named Hugo was found to have eaten a vienna sausage laced with black granules, suspected to be poison. A few streets away, a dog in Sunbird Avenue had a similar experience. Thieves had tried to steal cars at both properties.
Daily News