People who deliberately poison pets are committing “premeditated animal cruelty” and could be endangering the lives of young children, according to GSPCA.
Incidents of pet poisoning in the city and county have prompted the GSPCA to issue an appeal to the public to be extra vigilant and to alert gardai.
In the Castlepark area over a week ago, a lady owner lost her cat and dog in the space of few days, according to Margaret O’Sullivan, PRO for GSPCA, who added that there was a similar incident in Connemara a month ago.
It’s not just pets that are being targeted as wild animals, such as foxes, have also been brought into the GSPCA.
Ms O’Sullivan said that there have been a number of cases of animal poisoning every year where a meat substance laced in poison is either thrown into a private garden or just left in open parks so that animals can ingest it and suffer “a slow, torturous death”.
“It’s terrible, to put down poison in order to kill. Children could find it as well. We are appealing for anyone to watch out for anything suspicious and to tell the gardai. It’s vital that they should be informed about it otherwise the people responsible won’t get caught. If there’s a body the gardai can do a post mortem to determine how the animal died.
“Anyone using poison is very worrying for us but by the time we find out the animal is already dead. People need to be very cagey and wary. Keep an eye out for their animals, keep cats and dogs in at night,” warned Ms O’Sullivan.
