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For the second time in a week, a family dog in Carlsbad, California was found exposed to rat poison in his own backyard.
ABC10 reported, on Wednesday night, Roberta Murphy’s husband found their 8-year-old Chihuahua, Monroe, with something green in his mouth.
The Murphy’s knew right away what it was… they had just seen an alarming story on the news about a dog just a mile away from their home having died after ingesting rat poison that had been tossed over the fence and into the backyard.
What was in Monroe’s mouth was a green bar of rat poison that is typically placed in box traps. They were able to pull the poison from Murphy’s mouth and avoid disaster.
The dog they’d seen on the news, a 15-pound Dachshund mix, hadn’t been so lucky.
“I’m scared. We are searching the backyard a lot and we are being extra vigilant. Why would anyone do this?” asked Murphy.
The Murphy’s plan to put up flyers warning their neighbors.
This story unfortunately isn’t uncommon across the country. Dog parents should ALWAYS take a walk through the backyard before letting dogs outside and not leave them unattended while they’re out.
Claire Vinet
Jul 4, 2015 at 8:15 pm
The neighbors on both sides of us put this bright green-blue rat poison in their yards and it ended up in our yard. Poison control told me that rats love it, so they pick it up and carry it with them along the top of the fence and often drop it on the other side. The first time it happened, I saw it before the dogs, and picked it up. The second time, one of the dogs ate it. I called Poison Control and the person said that given the size of my dog and the size of one “brick” of the poison, I shouldn’t have anything to worry about.
People need to tie those things down. Of course, relying on others to act responsibly to keep your dogs safe is hardly a safe bet. Luckily, we have a very small yard, so I’ve opened up a couple of X-pens and used them like a fence around the periphery of the yard about 3 feet in, so if rats drop the poison on our side of the fence, the dogs can’t get at it.