RIVERSIDE — A Riverside woman is warning others about the dangers of rat poison around family animals after her service dog died from ingesting the poison from an unknown source.
>>Coronavirus: Positivity rate nears 7% as Ohio reports additional 2,909 cases Monday
Dotty Podiak’s 12-year-old service dog, Blessing, is nearing retirement and was in the process of training his successor, Fate. Blessing was teaching Fate how to help Podiak, who is deaf.
“Fate was very friendly,” Podiak said. “She was trained and very well behaved. Fate’s job was to do Blessing’s job when he passed away,” Podiak said.
That was the plan, up until last month.
“I believe out of somebody’s negligence, they put rat poisoning out to kill the rodents,” Podiak said. “But they don’t realize these rodents will take the rat poisoning to other areas to die.”
After a blood test, a local veterinarian confirmed that Fate did ingest rat poisoning and at that point, it was too late.
“It’s devastating for us,” she said. “It’s traumatizing. I can’t even explain what it’s like to watch this and watch her life end.”
Podiak said there are only two ways Fate could have gotten ahold of rat poisoning because she doesn’t leave the enclosed yard. She said Fate may have licked or eaten a rodent that had ingested rat poisoning and then crawled into her yard to die. Or, someone intentionally threw something over the fence with rat poisoning on it.
“People, stop putting that poison out,” Podiak said. “I can’t express that enough. I just hurt so bad. I just want people to know what has been taken from me.”
What’s been taken from Dotty isn’t just a pet.
“I have to have my dog. They protect me from the noises outside, I don’t have a doorbell so they alert me, the door, the dishwasher, the dryer, any type of noise, they alert me.”
And now, she no longer feels safe where she lives.
“I have decided because of the negligence that took my dogs life, I have to move,” Podiak said.
She will now have to start from square one in training another service dog to help her with daily tasks. While she also searches for a new home.
She is currently looking for a female black lab and hopes Blessing has another couple of years in him to help train her.
Riverside police said they do not believe the poisoning was intentional and they have since turned the case over to the Animal Resource Center.
Cox Media Group
