The heartless crime of dog-poisoning has reared its head again in several parts of Pretoria, and a bag containing poisoned Vienna sausages was recently found in a garden in Monument Avenue in Lyttelton.
Tshwane SPCA official Korky Levanon says the most common poison used is Aldicarb, which has been dubbed Two-Step. It is sold as Temik.
“Temik isn’t available for the public to buy. Only registered farmers can purchase it. The problem is that the poison gets stolen from farmers, and used to poison dogs. The poison is easily purchased at any taxi rank.”
The most common way the poison is fed to dogs is by putting it in Vienna sausages. The poison resembles gun powder, and is highly poisonous, says Levanon.
“All it takes is ingesting less than half a teaspoon of Two-Step and any animal or toddler is more than likely to die a horrible, painful death with the nervous system being affected and death by asphyxiation.”
In the Moot, three dogs were poisoned in two separate attacks the past month. In October, a Villieria woman’s Jack Russell survived a poisoning attempt and a purebred Bull Terrier died from poison in Mayville. Two other dogs survived.
Their owner, Johan Kloppers, has resorted to staying awake most of the night to make sure his other dogs are not poisoned.
Levanon says attacks of this nature are mostly related to crime.
“Unfortunately, because not everyone reports the death of their animals from poisoning, we do not have accurate statistics, but we do believe that most poisoning are crime-related.”
Levanon has urged dog owners to report poisoning attacks to the local police station.
“Without accurate statistics on how widespread the problem is, the police force and other enforcement agencies are unable to dedicate time or resources to combating this issue.”
Hannes du Buisson, head of the Lyttelton Sector 3 CPF has urged people to be cautious.
“Dogs are often poisoned when they are roaming free in the yard. We urge people to keep their dogs in the back of their yards to keep them safe. Criminals aren’t easily deterred by dogs, so they often just end up hurting them. Ideally people should take their dogs for obedience training so that they don’t accept food from strangers. People should also rather feed their dogs at night so that they won’t be inclined to eat poisoned bait.”
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