We used to live in an open village where there is no gate and no guards. Aside from thievery, another major problem is the poisoning of dogs which are loose in the yard. But before that issue, it is a given that stray dogs were being snatched so a stray dog in that area was kind of rare. With the dogs in the yard, the poisoning is prevalent so the dog owners would tie their dogs farther from the gate or keep the dog inside their house.
The local community police had arrested some culprits who admitted to the crime. And the reason is they would wait for the owner to discover the dead dog and they will offer their help to bury the dog but in truth they will butcher the dog. The poison used is the simple MSG. Yes, that monosodium glutamate is mixed with pate or any food that is sticky and attractive to the dog. Just a tablespoon of MSG would kill a dog. And since the dead dog is clean, the culprits are aching to butcher it. Another angle is the thievery. When the dog is dead, there's no more barking when a stranger appears. So the moral lesson is not to let loose the dogs outside the house if unattended.
I have witnessed this problem too affecting dogs in our homestead. Your case has to do with the business aspect of the crime but in my area it has to do with vendetta and plain sadism as well as the familiar element of thievery. Over the years, we have lost a series of dogs through poisoning. In these cases, the common denominator to bait the dogs is pieces of meat. These outrages are usually carried out by neighbours or malicious passersby. Dogs which have been kept in homesteads as sentries are at an increased risk since they pose a threat to thieves and might also harass pesky neighbours. Some people go around this problem by keeping larger numbers of dogs if they can afford to maintain them or train them to detect poisonous compounds laced with meat.
Dog poisoning happens in my city a lot. People just don't poison dogs free on people's yards; they go on popular walking roads and drop some pieces of poisonous meat (or other treats) along the road and just wait until the dogs come out with their owners, watching the dogs to eat the pieces. It's awful and many people have put up Facebook pages to alert people if they see suspicious behavior on some roads, so people wouldn't walk their dogs in those areas. I don't really get it why would some people use their free-time, and money, to do such things to precious little pets!
This is so tragic and horrible that people would intentionally poison dogs like that. I lived in a small town and no one would do that. But people would let their dogs run around and sometimes people would hit them with their cars and keep driving. It was never determined if the people hit them on purpose or on accident but before I moved away, people had started to keep their dogs inside when they were at school or work. Other than that, most dogs would lick up antifreeze during the fall and winter and die. But that was never intensional.
I never experienced this before with my dogs but we suspect that this was the cause of one of our cat's death. She suddenly became weak and one day she just died. I don't understand why people can even think of poisoning innocent pets like dogs and cats. They just live based on their instinct and some humans who know the right from wrong choose to kill the innocents instead. That's just sick.
People who intentionally poison dogs have a reserved place in hell. My aunt had a problem with her maid and dog keeper (she was getting drunk during the job) and when she fired her, her husband's revenge was to poison one of the dogs... It was so sad. It was such a wonderful dog. Taking things out on innocent animals is the epitome of cowardliness and evil. The best way to avoid that is to always keep your dog inside the house unless you're watching. Unfortunately I'm afraid there's no way to guarantee one of your neighbors will be a good enough person not to do that
I'm trying to imagine the type of personality it would take to look at a cute, cuddly, soft, warm, fuzzy, happy creature... any creature, and be able to just destroy that animal without a care. This is a dangerous personality, the kind that would also feel no remorse when killing a human being, and that is probably the next step for a lot of people who start out by poisoning a poor little dog. Where I came from, stray cats were and still are a huge problem... not so much for dogs for some reason, but people don't seem to have any concern whatsoever when they hit a cat on the highway. In fact, I'm pretty certain some of those cats get hit because the drivers swerve to make sure they hit them. It's so sad, but you can't do a blasted thing about it, except try really hard to help stop the animal abandonment issue that causes all the strays in the first place.
I agree that dogs should be kept where strangers can't get at them as people are real horrible sometimes. I've seen the results when wild animals have died from poisoning and it's definitely not a pretty sight. It would be devastating to see those same symptoms in a treasured family pet, especially one who was perfectly healthy just the day before. In the past I always had outdoor dogs, large animals with thick, long hair who didn't especially like being cooped up inside where they found it too warm. But I never worried about people coming into our back yard and harming our dogs... that just wasn't common-place where I grew up. Today, I think all pets should be kept indoors as much as they can tolerate, it's just not safe out there anymore.
