Dog poisoning far from over
When their cleaning lady arrived at approximately 06:30, she found the gate open and the scooters gone and immediately informed Venter, who proceeded outside and found the body of his dog.
It seems that the sporadic wave of dog poisoning in Barberton has not decreased over the past few months.
On the morning of August 12, when Johann Venter woke up and went outside, it was to find his beautiful, much-loved dog, Sasha, dead.
According to Johann, who lives opposite Barberton Primary School on the corner of Stanley and Crown streets, Sasha was a harmless, loving Labrador/Rottweiler cross which had never bitten anyone.
He believes that she most probably approached the perpetrators for attention and says that the only danger she ever posed was to lick someone to death. Besides poisoning Sasha, the criminals helped themselves to his two scooters.
The last time Venter saw his dog was at about 01:30 when he went to the kitchen for a drink of water.
When their cleaning lady arrived at approximately 06:30, she found the gate open and the scooters gone and immediately informed Venter, who proceeded outside and found the body of his dog.
Just before 07:00, their small crossbreed, Besem, who is a well-known face to everyone in the surrounding area, was let out and unfortunately, she found a piece of the poisoned meat.
When she came back to the veranda, Venter saw foam coming from her mouth. Five minutes later she died in his arms.
Venter, who used to be chairman of the SPCA, said that both Sasha and Besem were adopted from this organisation. They took Sasha when she was still a puppy, two and a half years back, and decided to take Besem on the same day, as she would have been put down the next. Besem was at the time already three years old.
“I want to extend an open invitation to the spineless, low-life ***** who poisoned our loving dogs. I invite them and their good-for-nothing cronies to come back to my residence and face me,” a very heartbroken and truly upset Venter said last week.
More dogs were poisoned earlier during the same week and in the same vicinity. People are once more advised to keep their dogs indoors at night.
On Wednesday morning, Barberton Times received a letter from Venter which he asked us to publish if possible.
Part of it reads, “You are the **** of this earth and too scared to face me, knowing I’ll break every bone in your disease-ridden body if I get my hands on you.”
