POISONING OF DOGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 22, 26 January 1935, Page 8

POISONING OF DOGS.

It seems a curious coincidence that at the same time as the letter signed "Resident," of St. Helier's Bay, appeared in the paper 110 less than sis dogs belonging to residents of that district were found poisoned on the beach. Last Sunday a large dog bid his farewell to the world in terrific convulsions of agony on the beach, the result of strychnine poisoning, only to he followed later by a small fox terrier, then in rapid succession three other dogs. The total was six in all. This is surely a drastic and cruel means to adopt. Any medical man, or even a layman, knows the appalling and excruciating death caused by strychnine poisoning. But the seriousness of the position does not by any means end here. Do the public realise for a moment the consequences of poisoned food, laid with wha.tever intention, on a public beach, and such a popular beach as St. Helier's Bay? It is visited by thousands of happy young children, who scatter round and often wander in their play away from the watchful maternal eye. What more natural but that one of these -children will pick up a piece of tempting sandwich or cake, whatever the poisoner 'has used, and dispatch it in the way of healthy children? This is no matter for casual comment, but a very serious crime, and a public menace of such magnitude that its results can be of so far-reaching and disastrous a nature as to cause terrible sorrow and suffering to many homes. If the person who so thoughtlessly and ruthlessly laid this poison is 'known or suspected by any of the residents of St. Helier's Bay, I suggest that as a humane act to the public generally they giye the information to the authorities. If we cannot educate all our public to the humane treatment of animals, surely there is something to appeal to when it conies to the lives of innocent happy children. SECRETARY, S.P.C.A.