Community fearful: Thieves poison dogs leaving 17 dead

The Gerhardsville community is concerned about crime after at least 17 dogs died allegedly due to poisoning by thieves in the past three weeks.

When resident Joanie Huysamen heard her dog bark last week, she never thought it would be the last time she would hear it. “I shushed our dog Princess the first time, but the second time I called her to the window when I smelled something funny on her. I knew something was wrong,” she said.

Dog poison

Huysamen woke up Rudi Feiertag around 4am when the dogs continued barking. “I walked to the gate and found our dog socially unresponsive,” she said.

Feiertag only later discovered chicken pieces covered in an oily liquid. “I found more than 10 smelly pieces of chicken,” he said.

An hour and a half later, Princess also died.

Feiertag discovered his tool shed was broken open and the weed trimmer was missing.

Another neighbour, Brian Michael lost all three of his dogs.

“Two of them died on Thursday and the third one died yesterday,” he said.

Michael said he thought the dog would survive the poisoning but found her dead yesterday morning. “Luckily, nothing has been stolen, but they killed my dogs,” he said.

Michael said he was worried the criminals would return to rob him.

Caryn Klempner has been a resident of Gerhardsville for five years and said her three dogs were poisoned in June.

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“It was an awful experience to have encountered. I would go as far as to say, it’s our worst nightmare as an animal owner.

“We used to leave two dogs out at night and the rest slept in the house. We usually let them all out in the morning,” said Klempner.

“I remember hearing the dogs barking at night. And for the life of me, I cannot remember why I didn’t wake up. The children went out to get into the car for school and found the one dog lying by the car in a bad state, still alive. She died in our arms on the way to the vet.

“We then had to find our other two dogs also ate the poison when we let them out. Thankfully, we managed to get them treated and they are alive.”

What kind of poison is it?

Klempner is part of the Subsector crime forum of Gerhardsville and said one of the neighbours has been targeted four times in the last month.

“They successfully poisoned his dogs and even when he got a new dog, they poisoned that one too. I think it’s the same people because similar items were stolen such as tools and generators. We subsequently had our generator stolen two weeks after our poison incident,” she said.

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Klempner said she has tried to establish what kind of poison was used to kill the dogs. “It seems they were now using brake fluid or anti-freeze on meat and not two-step. I don’t even want to leave my home alone any more. They are even throwing dog biscuits over the fence now,” she said.

Police spokesperson Colonel Noxolo Kweza said two cases of dog poisoning were opened at Erasmia police station and “currently no one has been arrested”.

– marizkac@citizen.co.za