Dog baiting fears grow in Perth’s south after owner finds rat poison in public water bowl in Cooloongup

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Some pet owners have expressed concerns about walking their dog in public places after a reported incident of intentional poisoning in the city of Rockingham. Vets in the areas say more resources are needed to investigate and track such incidents.

Transcript

00:00Sophie Watkins walks her dogs around Hourglass Reserve every day, so when her pups went to

00:10drink water out of the shared dog bowl, she didn't think twice until she walked over.

00:15And after the dogs had had their drink, I just noticed there was bright blue pellets

00:19in the bottom. So I showed the vet the photo that I took and she confirmed that, yeah,

00:23that did look like rat poison that they'd had. But it takes 48 hours usually for rat

00:28poison to have any effect on dogs, so we just had to wait and see what was going to

00:33happen, which was pretty scary.

00:36Luckily the dogs were safe, but Miss Watkins says she won't be going there in the future.

00:41I've lodged a report with the RSPCA, but from previous experiences, I don't know if the

00:46RSPCA is going to follow it up either. And I know it's not a police matter, so I am quite

00:50concerned that no one's actually going to do anything about it.

00:53The RSPCA say it's aware of baiting claims being made online and is urging anyone with

00:58information to come forward.

01:00There's no government organisation that really goes and looks at tests for what people could

01:05be using to bait dogs.

01:08Emergency vet Catherine Swindles said there needs to be more funding to investigate such

01:12incidents.

01:13We know that there is definitely a correlation between people who deliberately hurt animals

01:18and later on can go on and deliberately hurt other humans.

01:21While the council said it's a matter for the RSPCA, it also confirmed rangers have been

01:25increasing patrols in dog exercise areas and have been speaking to community members

01:30to try and identify those responsible.

01:33Authorities are urging pet owners to be alert for poisonous bait in public areas.

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