Dog’s agonising death the work of poisoners: owner

The eight-year-old terrier, who would have turned nine later this month, took ill on Sunday and never recovered.

Owner Olive McNeill suspects someone may have spiked a broken light bulb with food and poison and fed it to the animal.

Brian was previously the target of what Olive believed was an acid attack in 2013.

The dog made a full recovery that time but on this occasion there was a far sadder outcome.

Olive described events as they appeared to her.

“From Sunday night (July 5) onwards he had been sick. Just throwing up. He wasn’t taking water or anything,” explained Olive.

“It was the same then on Monday. All day Monday until four o’clock. It was the same thing.

“We took him then to the vets on Monday afternoon and the vet done a scan. It showed up he had a lot of fluid in the stomach and then they took him and done an X-ray and he couldn’t figure out what it was at all.

“He couldn’t understand why there was so much fluid.

“And then they tried to drain him out then with the needles and they kept slipping out and every time they put the needle into him he was in agony.”

Having seemingly run into a dead end in terms of diagnosing the problem Olive was allowed to take Brian home for observation.

“They sent him home then and they said ‘if he’s no better bring him back again.’

“That was alright then. On Monday afternoon I brought him back, I cooked a chicken, you know, I’d asked the vet beforehand what would be best to give him to eat and I even tried him on that, you know, a wee dish of chicken. No.

“That was him. I couldn’t even try to coax him to go out the back.

“No energy whatsoever. Just didn’t want to be annoyed. Just wanted to lie there.”

Later that night Olive kept regular vigil at Brian’s bed at the back door and her worst fears were realised.

“In the early hours of the morning I went to check on him again, about twenty past three, half three he was dead.

“And then, yesterday, (Wednesday, July 8) this glass was found in the back yard.

“So I would say maybe it has possibly been a glass bulb with maybe food in it, or the top taken off it, or it was mixed with food, it could’ve been poisoned.”

Olive told the Sentinel that she has been too busy grieving the loss of her pet Brian to contact the authorities about the incident.

However, she said that she was considering contacting the police service to report the matter.