LONDON, Ont. - A London woman is facing a criminal charge for harming a pet dog. But it’s what the two-and-a-half-year-old Labrador mix allegedly consumed that has the dog’s owners shaking their heads.
The couple, who live in northwest London, took their dog Leo to the veterinarian earlier this week after discovering that he had eaten from a bowl placed inside the backyard fence line of their next-door neighbour - someone who Leo had had trouble with in the past.
“A concoction meat and a bunch of pills,” was in the bowl says dog owner Alex Peidl. “Maybe 20 or 30 pills mixed in. It was kind of jarring like being back there holding that bowl in my hand and thinking like this could kill my dog.”
Vomiting was induced by the veterinary clinic in an attempt to figure out exactly what the dog ate.
“It had almost like a blue tinge to it which she said was consistent with rat poisoning,” explains Peidl’s girlfriend, Jessica Pereira, after speaking with the veterinarian.
“They believe that this drug inside of this bowl was ecstasy. Floored me - it shocked me. I didn't understand what was going on. We just knew that our dog had potentially taken quite a bit of ecstasy, and that he was going to be treated for the ecstasy toxicity, as well as potential rat poisoning."
The couple then called police who launched an investigation. They say police told them their neighbour claimed she was trying to kill a skunk, and that the pills inside the bowl were aspirin.
A 58-year-old woman has been criminally charged with one count of kill, maim, wound, poison, or injure dogs, birds or animals that are kept for a lawful purpose.
As for Leo, he remains under the care of a veterinarian but is said to be in stable condition. He’s getting better but the couple is still scared sick.
“We're scared right now to just live in our house...we're never going to let our dog back out there unsupervised,” Peidl says.
“We're just so on edge,” adds Pereira, “because we never thought that this could ever happen.”
