Please, no more

For the second consecutive Sunday, I am addressing the recurring abomination of the rampant poisoning of animals in Tobago.

Within the past week, five dogs belonging to different people I know have been fatally poisoned.

I will recount one of those stories, to share the statement made to me by one of those affected.

On the night of October 16, I received a call from a friend (S), who was at the home of a mutual friend, Z.

"Elspeth..." Her sombre tone foretold tragedy. "Someone just poisoned two of Z's dogs."

S and another mutual friend had been visiting Z when one of her three dogs had stumbled inside, frothing from the mouth and convulsing. Within ten minutes, she was dead.

Exploration by torchlight revealed the corpse of the second dog under the house.

The third dog, who had not been in the garden with the other two, was unaffected, at least physically. Emotionally, he was traumatised.

A piece of newspaper with poisoned fish guts resting on it was found near the front gate, inside the fence. Circumstances suggest the poison was brazenly placed while the three friends were in the house, mere metres from the gate.

Why would someone feed that toxic meal to dogs who are contained within a securely fenced yard, bothering no one?

We can speculate, but we are not in the minds of the killer(s).

No reason is good enough to warrant that soulless act.

The following day I attended the burial of the two dogs. Their swollen bodies were placed together in a hole dug by the handyman who, along with my friend and her now deceased English husband, had loved and cared for those dogs over the years since they were bottle-fed rescue pups.

The surviving dog had to be enclosed in the house during the funeral, as he had gone into hysterics upon seeing large black garbage bags in which the lifeless bodies of his former playmates were carried from the van. (The animal shelter had kept them frozen overnight to facilitate next-day home burial).

The following is my friend's statement:

"I think the person who did that crime is certainly most unhappy and his or her mind needs some kind of repair, because a normal-thinking person would never dream of doing such a thing. I would like to know who did it so that that person can get the right kind of help and support, so that he or she will never do that again...because it is so horrific.

"And on my side, I am just devastated. I think people need to understand, I am 78, I lost my husband two years ago, I am still in grief over that.

"These dogs were fostered by us as pups because their mother had been chopped to death. We took them in and kept them. They had a beautiful life...the kind of life the person who killed them must have never had, or they would not have done such a horrible act.

"Now that they have been murdered, I feel vulnerable, fragile, open to criminal activity that can harm me. I feel I have to get security cameras. I feel I need a man's presence in my home at least a few days a week. It is very scary.

"And that is beside the grief. I am having periods of screaming and bawling and crying. I felt my insides could come out. I could pull them out because of the grief. I go through periods of being okay and then I see the dog bowls. I have one dog left and I feed him alone now.

"It is absolute pain. I think people do not understand how wonderful dogs make our lives, how much comfort they give us, how much they understand, how they protect. I never felt vulnerable before these two dogs died. Now I do. And I am in terrible grief yet again.

"If this act is a crime, then I think the whole community needs to get involved. Police, community leaders, THA, tourism division. If I write about this in the Guardian in England, people will think twice about coming to Tobago...if this is 'part of our culture.'

"All areas have to be involved and work on the society as a whole, against such acts, and Lannate has to be banned. It is what killed my dogs in ten minutes. A most horrible death; those images will stay with me."