Utah still holds the lead in the troubling pet news category this week. But I suppose it was only a matter of time until California made it onto the score board. Someone is trying to poison dogs in Silicon Valley. From KTVU.com:
Sunnyvale city officials warned local dog owners Tuesday about someone trying to poison pets after rat poison was found at a local dog park.
Police said that on two separate occasions in late February, boxes of rat poison were found at the Las Palmas Dog Park.
D-con Baitbits are designed to kill mice and rats in one feeding. The small green pellets were discovered out in the open at the park for dogs to discover.
An ominous threat that read “All dogs must die” was scrawled in blue marker on one of the boxes that was found.
The active ingredient in D-con is brodifacoum. This agent is a potent poison in dogs. It is in a class of poisons called anticoagulants. Brodifacoum and similar poisons cause uncontrolled bleeding. For a more detailed description of the poison’s effects, symptoms, and treatments, see my website: http://drbarchas.com/rodenticide
The Sunnyvale police department appears to be making an honest effort to deal with this issue. They ran a fingerprint analysis on the box, which unfortunately didn’t turn up any matches. They have issued warnings to the community. And, although a deranged sociopath is still on the loose in Sunnyvale, there is a silver lining to the cloud:
Sunnyvale leaders said that so far, they don’t know of any dogs that have been poisoned at the park. They want to keep it that way.
