Some pet owners have expressed concerns about walking their dog in public places after a reported incident of intentional poisoning in the city of Rockingham. Vets in the areas say more resources are needed to investigate and track such incidents.
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00:00Sophie Watkins walks her dogs around Hourglass Reserve every day, so when her pups went to
00:10drink water out of the shared dog bowl, she didn't think twice until she walked over.
00:15And after the dogs had had their drink, I just noticed there was bright blue pellets
00:19in the bottom. So I showed the vet the photo that I took and she confirmed that, yeah,
00:23that did look like rat poison that they'd had. But it takes 48 hours usually for rat
00:28poison to have any effect on dogs, so we just had to wait and see what was going to
00:33happen, which was pretty scary.
00:36Luckily the dogs were safe, but Miss Watkins says she won't be going there in the future.
00:41I've lodged a report with the RSPCA, but from previous experiences, I don't know if the
00:46RSPCA is going to follow it up either. And I know it's not a police matter, so I am quite
00:50concerned that no one's actually going to do anything about it.
00:53The RSPCA say it's aware of baiting claims being made online and is urging anyone with
00:58information to come forward.
01:00There's no government organisation that really goes and looks at tests for what people could
01:05be using to bait dogs.
01:08Emergency vet Catherine Swindles said there needs to be more funding to investigate such
01:12incidents.
01:13We know that there is definitely a correlation between people who deliberately hurt animals
01:18and later on can go on and deliberately hurt other humans.
01:21While the council said it's a matter for the RSPCA, it also confirmed rangers have been
01:25increasing patrols in dog exercise areas and have been speaking to community members
01:30to try and identify those responsible.
01:33Authorities are urging pet owners to be alert for poisonous bait in public areas.