Monroe woman says her dogs were poisoned, wants to warn other pet owners
MONROE - A Snohomish County woman has a warning for pet owners, after she says someone poisoned her dogs. One died, the other is still recovering. Snohomish County Animal Control is now investigating.
Kerrie Gonzalez is happy to see her yellow lab Blondie running around again. She says about two weeks ago, Blondie ate some kind of rat poison in her Monroe yard.
“We were pretty positive that blondie was not going to make it,” she says. “She has completely done a turn around.”
Unfortunately Gonzalez’s other lab, Kona, could not be saved. Her veterinarian says by the time he started showing symptoms of the poison, he had severe internal bleeding.
“Seeing such a young dog like that suffer that way is not very nice,” says Dr. Shawn Buccholz of Cascade Animal Clinic.
Dr. Buchholz has seen animal poisonings before, but she says in most cases, it’s accidental. A dog might get into some chemicals in a garage or come across something in a park or public place.
The Gonzalez family doesn’t have any rat poison in their home and they keep their dogs in a fenced-in yard. So Dr. Buchholz says it’s not clear how the dogs ingested the poison.
“It’s a possibility that they could have gotten something from somebody throwing it over.”
Gonzalez has filed a report with Snohomish County Animal Control, and they’re investigating the possibility that the dogs were intentionally poisoned. Animal Control put out a warning to pet owners earlier this year, after several dogs got sick visiting Willis Tucker Park in Snohomish. Right now, they don’t believe the cases are related, but Gonzalez isn’t sure.
“We still can't believe it, that's why we're here, because we don't want it to happen to anybody else.”
She’s warning other dog owners to keep a close eye on their furry friends, and to let animal control know if they see anything suspicious.
“Report it so we can see the pattern, see what's going on and get to the bottom of it.”
As for Blondie, Gonzalez says she’s going to be an inside dog from now on.
“She’s not going to be anywhere that anybody can get near her at this point and I don't know if that will ever change.”
Gonzalez paid a few hundred dollars for a toxicology report, because she wanted to know what exactly happened to her dogs. Many people don’t want to pay for those tests. Animal Control says that may be the reason so few poisoning cases are reported.