Hultquist said, “My maid came through in the morning and Misty followed her out to the yard. She then called me asking if we had fed her a bunch of viennas. I said ‘Gloria we haven’t had viennas for months’.”
When she returned home, Hultquist discovered the viennas, which had been sliced open and stuffed with a strange pink substance. She added, “Its obvious that someone threw the viennas over my front wall and into my garden.”
She then took the substance to the Dr Rob Conradie at the Riverside Veterinary Clinic who told Sandton Chronicle, “Initially she brought the substance in the plastic bag to figure out what it was, and I had never seen it before so we gave her dog apomorphine in order to make it vomit out the substance.”
Conradie said he did not recognize the pink substance and could not confirm whether it was rat poison or snail bait, which is usually used as a fatal poison.
Ward 106 councillor Stephen Moore said, “I have heard about those types of crimes, but it’s never been reported in my area. Usually residents believe that the reasoning behind poisoning a dog would be to gain easier access into the house. But I have not heard of anything like that in my area.”
General manager at the Sandton SPCA, Candice Scorer said, “We often hear cases of dog poisoning in Alexandra. It is a countrywide tactic used by thieves to kill a dog in order to mitigate entering someone’s home.”
Scorer suggested that residents leave their dogs inside during the evening and keep them away from boundary walls to avoid dangerous interactions with strangers.
Hultquist said that she doesn’t know who could have attempted to poison her dogs, and why they would do it. She has set up a barrier to prevent her dogs from wandering into the front yard.
