Eric Sarno was sick to his stomach after seeing what was thrown in his backyard for his dog, Zhanta, a four-year-old Rhodesian Ridgeback.
“I was immediately sick to my stomach. Then the heart just sinks,” said Sarno, a soccer coach and Nanaimo resident.
“This is just like the razor blades in the Halloween candy you know these are sick events. These are sick people that are doing things to harm,” he added.
It was on June 23, the same day Oceanside RCMP reported dogs being poisoned in Parksville, that Sarno said Zhanta found cubes of rat poison wrapped in bacon in the bushes in the backyard of his north Nanaimo home.
Zhanta was rushed to the vet, where her stomach was pumped and veterinarians confirmed that the contents were indeed rat poison.
“Bacon-wrapped rat poison stuffed in a bush where there’s a dog, yeah, it was intentional,” said Sarno.
Both the RCMP and the BC SPCA were notified.
Nanaimo SPCA’s Leon Davis said the rat poisoning is a one-off here so far, but it is very concerning.
“Really alarming yeah,” said Leon Davis, manager of the Nanaimo BC SPCA branch.”If there’s someone doing that kind of damage to animals, of course, that’s bad enough but that can also later translate later to harm against people.”
From now on Sarno said he will be watching his dog closely, and hopes by sounding this alarm that other pets will be safer.
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Skye Ryan
