My Ballard reader Kevin emailed in to report that he found a chunk of meat stuffed with rat poison while walking on the trails at Carkeek Park on Saturday morning. He found two pieces of poisoned meat (both pictured) in the middle of different sections of the Clay Pit Trail, on the south side of Pipers Creek.
Kevin reports that the piece of meat was approximately three inches long and one and a half inches thick. “It was too big I think to be intended for crows or anything small. The right size, however, for a dog to scarf down before its owner can stop them, on-leash or off. We did not find any more poison anywhere else, but we didn’t check every trail or grassy area,” writes Kevin.
Kevin did warn other folks that he saw with dogs in the area about the suspicious meat. According to a KOMO News report , Kyle and Allyson Barker immediately took their 2-year-old golden retriever Berdy (pictured below) to the vet around 10 a.m. on Saturday as they believed she had eaten a similar strip of poisoned meat before they could intervene. Kyle had reportedly pulled the meat out of Berdy’s mouth earlier in the morning and was not concerned about it until they passed Kevin who showed them the disturbing photos that he had taken of the poisoned meat along the trail.
According to the KOMO report, Berdy was taken to her local vet where vomiting was induced after the vets found that she had green pellets in her stomach. Berdy is now reported to be doing a lot better and is recovering at home. “It’s just kind of sick. I don’t know who would dislike dogs so much that they’d do something like this,” Kyle told KOMO reporters.
KOMO also contacted local vet Dr. Jeb Mortimer who believed that the intent of the individual who left the meat on the trail was malicious and said “someone is trying to kill dogs in my opinion.”
The Barker family are planning to contact Seattle Parks and Recreation to warn other dog owners and to hopefully catch whoever is responsible.
Dog owners who frequent the trails at Carkeek Park should be on the lookout for suspicious strips of meat and take their dog to the vet immediately if they suspect that they have ingested rat poison.
According to petMD.com common symptoms of animal rat poison ingestion include loss of appetite, impaired movement, paralysis of hind legs, muscle tremors and generalized seizures. Signs usually develop within two to seven days of the ingestion, however, it is possible that signs do not develop for up to two weeks.
Thank you to Kevin for emailing in the information and the photos in order to spread the word in our community about this issue. Photo of Berdy courtesy of KOMO News.
