Dog poison gang bust

Published Jul 7, 2015

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Johannesburg - Tinned meat, rat poison wrapped in plastic bags, pairs of pliers, Allen keys and lock nuts – all stashed in the boot of a car the police believe was going to be used to pull off a robbery at a house.

The assortment of rat poisons and dangerous equipment was enough to convince the police that they had made a breakthrough in the ongoing killing of dogs and break-ins in Crystal Park, Benoni, and parts of Joburg.

“We have to profile them and see whether they can be linked to the crimes,” Tryna Maritz of the Crystal Park police station said on Monday.

Various suburbs in Joburg and across Gauteng have reported a spike in incidents of dog poisoning in recent years.

In Crystal Park, 15 dogs have been poisoned and residents have had their houses and cars broken into since March.

In most of the cases, the criminals lace meat with poison, which they feed to the dogs by throwing it into the yard. The animals would immediately fall ill, making it easy for the criminals to get access to the premises undetected.

Now, the police believe the arrest of a suspected gang of four men in a white Toyota Corolla will help them to solve the spate of dog killings and robberies.

Maritz said the police were on patrol in Crystal Park in the early hours of on Monday, when they spotted a suspicious-looking car driving around. When they pulled the vehicle over and searched it, they found the tinned food, poison wrapped in plastic, gloves and “housebreaking tools”, including screwdrivers, pliers and Allen keys.

A further search revealed that the men were also in possession of 20 different devices used to take tyres and mag wheels off vehicles.

Maritz said while no incidents of dog poisoning had been reported recently, there had been a spike between February and April. She said 15 dogs had died from being poisoned. In some instances, she said, the dog was just poisoned, but nothing was taken.

Dr Ashley Katumbay, a senior veterinary surgeon at People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals in Mofolo, Soweto, said the organisation frequently treated animals that have been poisoned. He said that because some areas in Soweto have a rat infestation, many people had access to rat poison.

However, criminals were using rat poison to kill people’s dogs and break into their homes or steal their vehicles.

Katumbay noted that the survival rate of a dog that had beenfed rat poison was between 80 and 90 percent.

But that depended on the amount of poison the dog had consumed and the time it took for it to receive medical assistance.

Katumbay said once a dog was fed poison, the toxic substance attacked its central nervous system. It would start shaking and salivating.

“Some will vomit and also have diarrhoea. The heart rate will also be fast and its breathing will be shallow. We have a lot of these dogs that were poisoned, and most survive if brought to us early enough. Sometimes the owner was at work and arrived home to find it already dead or very sick,” he pointed out.

Maritz said the men were due to appear at the Benoni Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.

 

What to do if your dog is poisoned

Time is of the essence. Don’t attempt to force your dog to vomit, as corrosive poisons can cause more damage coming back up.

Contact your nearest vet or emergency vet and take your animal to them as soon as possible.

If you have more than one dog, take them all at the same time to get examined as they may also have ingested the poison.

Report the poisoning to the police and the local SPCA.

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The Star

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