I am absolutely fuming! Just got home and Will told me that he found a bag of rat poison (in a clear bag like the ones you get for coins at the bank that said rodenticide on it and had tons of green pellets) at the bottom of the garden on the path near our back fence. He thankfully found it before Betsy otherwise she could be dead right now. No one had said a word about rats or poison to us and our garden would not have anything to attract rats as it is just a well maintained lawn with nothing for them to hide in or attract them (unlike the house behind that has greenhouses, sheds, bird feeders, raised planters etc).
Just looked at what it says on the bag and it is Brodifacoum which apparently is only licensed for indoor use. I wish I had some evidence.
I think the random use of rat poison is absolutely disgusting. The idiots who spread this product around care not one jot if it's consumed by innocent dogs, cats, birds or other wildlife.
The thing is, we have a 6ft fence which they must have thrown it over. It’s not like it was just used in their own garden which would be bad enough.
Report it, JD. That’s disgusting. Who on earth would deliberately try to harm a guide pup in training?
I would like to think that it wasn’t targeted in that way. The dogs are hardly ever down the bottom of the garden as it is normally blocked off due to them having to toilet in a certain area; they are only there occasionally for supervised play. They are also very quiet and it’s possible the people behind the back don’t even know we have dogs due to the height of their fence. They still shouldn’t be using that poison outside or chucking it into other people’s gardens though! It was chewed open so I guess there’s a chance an animal they’ve just murdered actually brought it in but that wouldn’t have changed the outcome of Betsy had seen it first.
Legally rat poison should only be used in a lockable bait station. It's illegal to just throw the sachets down, it needs reporting.
I've never seen one round here, despite us living in our home for nearly forty years. They're probably terrified of my wife Crystal. I know I am!
I’m fuming on your behalf. This happened with our neighbour. Mid lockdown in the height of summer she put down poison (in bags) which she threw over the fence into a neighbouring garden. She got the (illegal) poison from a former rentokil employee. When questioned she claimed that it was her land - even over the fence. The irony was that she was excessively feeding the birds and drawing in rats. The lady in question claims to be an animal lover but would not agree that the poison was a danger to other wildlife. She actually admitted that she would be submitting the rats to an agonising and slow death. As a result of her throwing the poison around we had to keep our cat indoors for 14 days (until the last potential dying- a-slow death rat / mouse had died off and could no longer be intercepted. We had to get the neighbour to try and remove the bags which were at the back of his overgrown garden (which was accessed by his dog). To this day she still does not see anything wrong with what she did. We no longer speak to her. She still feeds birds beyond what you could imagine. I like birds but she buys industrial quantities of food and chucks it all over the place. Our garden is littered with fat balls that Magpies collect and drop. Her garden has that many pigeons it resembles Trafalgar Square. Just thinking about what she was doing makes me angry.
The only good things (if there is any) is that a few years ago they halved the strength of brodifacoum in the UK for none professional purchases so unless it's been sourced from a professional (who don't tend to use the sachets) then it is significantly weaker than it used to be. Also I can't remember the word for it but rat poison in the UK has a flavouring or something that makes humans and I believe dogs but could be wrong throw it back up again straight away. The reason it works in rats is they can't physically vomit. Not trying to play it down as it's a really shitty thing to do leaving it outside where anything could accidentally eat it but hopefully it means if it ever happens again then it's survivable. Also just a thought but birds pick up sachets like that fairly regularly apparently so it might not be a direct neighbour who's put it in your garden, a bird could have dropped it. Whoever is using it outside though is an absolute Tory voter
I had them in my old house in Wentworth. 3 winters in a row. Drove me nuts, little buggers. Quickly sussed I was vegan/AR & took the pee even more. My old terriers weren’t much help. Ben did have one cornered by the back door, but I opened the door & let it go. 5 minutes later I could hear him telling his mates all about it.. There was a leaking drainage pipe from my bathroom to an attached outbuilding. They were coming in for water. Once I fixed that, they buggered off. Then I started to miss them. Didn’t get any text messages or owt.
