Dog Poisonings : Several Pets in a Neighborhood Die From Meat Tossed Into Yards

Meat patties apparently laced with strychnine were scattered behind houses in Canoga Park, killing four or five dogs in one block and sickening two others, Los Angeles animal control officials said Monday.

Lt. Richard Felosky of the city’s West Valley Animal Care and Control Center said one dog was taken to a private veterinarian. It was not known if it had died.

Felosky and residents said they knew of no neighborhood feud that might have provoked the poisonings, which occurred between 11 p.m. Saturday and 1 a.m. Sunday along a one-block stretch of Kittridge Street near Oakdale Avenue.

Owners of the dogs said they had received no complaints from neighbors about their pets.

“I couldn’t even begin to think of who it could be. It would just have to be a pervert, a crazy person,” said Joyce Hunter, whose husband, Tracy, awoke about 6 a.m. Sunday to find their poodle, Daisy, dead at the foot of their bed.

“I said, ‘That can’t be, that’s impossible.’ I started crying,” Joyce Hunter recalled.

The couple then looked outside to check on their other dog, a Doberman named Kimber, and found her dead in the dog run next to the house. Next door, at the home of the Rime family, they saw the Rimes’ springer spaniel, Harley, dead on the lawn and their keeshond, Kiesha, convulsing on the porch.

Tracy Hunter alerted the Rimes, who rushed both dogs to a veterinarian. Harley died but Kiesha survived and was recovering Monday at the family’s house.

The Hunters’ other next-door neighbor then came over, distraught over the death of her mixed Labrador retriever, Brandon, Joyce Hunter said.

“It wasn’t his time to go. That’s what hurts,” said Brandon’s owner, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Darla. “It’s murder for them to do this.”

According to Felosky, someone apparently threw poisoned meat patties into the houses’ back yards while walking along the edge of the Los Angeles River, which runs behind the houses. “It looks like somebody just went down the line of houses and threw something over fences in an obviously deliberate manner,” Felosky said.

Felosky said Los Angeles County veterinarians would analyze the carcasses and test the contents of the pets’ stomachs to determine what type of poison was used, but the symptoms, including convulsions and stiffened legs, pointed to strychnine poisoning.

He said the case was “unusual in that someone would seemingly indiscriminately throw it in a lot of different back yards at a time.”

“Our experience is that people have a bone to pick with somebody else or the animal and they take it out on the animal. This is not normal. It’s just a senseless act.”

Felosky said he had a suspicion who might be responsible for the poisonings, but refused to discuss details. “At this point it’s just speculation, based on interviews with the victims and on things that were seen in the area. It may or may not pan out.”

Darla and other neighbors said the poisoning was particularly dangerous because of the many children in the neighborhood who might have tasted the meat had the dogs not gotten to it first.

A $500 reward for information leading to the arrest of a suspect was offered by the Mercy Crusade, a private nonprofit animal welfare society in Canoga Park.