California: Someone is killing dogs by throwing poisoned hot dogs into their yards

CALIFORNIA -- Neighbors in Otay Ranch are concerned after three dogs have died in the last month, allegedly after being poisoned.

The owners say the dogs ate cut up hot dogs that had plant pesticides in them that someone threw into their backyards.

In Kayre Frank’s home dogs are family.

RIP Stella

“She started to get violently ill,” Frank said of his dog Stella who died on April 13. “She was kind of shaking and it was weird that she would lay down like that… she wasn't responding to me and so I got down and looked at her. She didn't look good, she foaming and she was shaking.

Frank took Stella to the vet where they did tests. By this time she wasn’t even able to breathe on her own.

“He said it looked like sausage,” Frank told NBC 7. “I don't have anything like that in the house so I knew that something was up…Someone had clearly put poison in a hot dog.”

Eventually they made the decision to put her down.

 

Hot dog with poison in it

“Somebody took the time to obtain this chemical, to put it in a hot dog, to throw it over the fence. Obviously knowing we had a dog. Two dogs,” Frank said. “You're sad, your devastated and then you're angry because you know that somebody did this on purpose.

Stella would have been five years old next month.

Both of Adrianna Martinez’s dogs died on April 8.

 

“He ran up into my bed and was crying, crying and I never heard him cry that way,” she said of Nala her golden retriever. Nala then collapsed. “He didn't have control of his body anymore…He threw up a wiener with black inside of it.”

She said her mother’s Maltese Henny began having seizures and could barely breathe.

After her mother rushed home to take them to the vet Martinez said Nala died in her arms “like it was too late for her…Within an hour…they were both gone,” she said.

RIP Nala and Henny

Nala was turning three and Henny was turning one.

“It's like I lost my little brother and sister,” Martinez told NBC 7.

Once again the vet said it was pesticide.

“Whoever did this has a personal problem with dogs....It’s evil. You know, you just don't do that to an animal,” she added.

 

Fliers are now posted throughout the neighborhood warning other dog owners of the danger to their pets.

The Frank family is offering a $500 reward to anyone with information leading to an arrest. Chula Vista police are investigating.

(NBC 7 San Diego - April 17, 2016)