DOG POISONING.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 1, Issue 117, 24 June 1880, Page 3

DOG POISONING.

There have been a lai’ge number of complaints recently by dog owners of their pets having been poisoned, and a gentleman told us yesterday that bread and butter well dosed with poison had been laid donn in various parts of the township. Several dogs he knew of had brought those pieces of bread into their kennels, and died shortly after eating. Besides being an unwarrantable thing to do as regards the dogs, there is danger that even children might be poisoned in this way, for a tempting morsel of food, lying conveniently amongst the tussocks or on a footpath may bo thoughtlessly eaten by a young child, with fatal consequences. It is a difficult matter to find out who are guilty of these poison" ing tricks, but it is not impossible, and when wholesale scattering of dosed bait is practised, as we hear it has been, and practised indiscriminately, it is time to take action. It is no trifling matter when more than a dozen people tell you in the course of a walk down town that they have had their dogs poisoned by food picked up on the street, and, though sheopowners may suffer, and they do, from the ravages of stray curs, and other people be annoyed by the barking and roving propensities of useless mongrels, wholesale scattering of poison endangers valuable sheep and cattle dogs, as well as mongrels. Half-a-dozen good sheep dogs have fallen a prey within the last few days, besides many dogs of an equally valuable breed. We hope that if the laying down of poison is only an experiment, the experimenters will be satisfied with their success, and not repeat it, lest very awkward consequences ensue.