Rash of Mesa dog poisonings; reward offered

A rash of dog poisonings in Mesa has owners who often take their dogs to a popular park concerned about their pets' safety, and many have banded together to offer a reward in the hope of finding the culprit.

Alisa Reniker, medical director of First Regional Animal Hospital in Mesa, said Wednesday that there have been up to five confirmed poisoning cases stemming from the 23-acre Carriage Lane Park at 3140 S. Carriage Lane, which is on the Mesa-Chandler border.

Another five suspected poisonings have taken place since Nov. 30, but those are not confirmed, according to the animal hospital and dog owners.

The poison being used is a highly toxic chemical called strychnine, which often is used to kill rodents. It can cause seizures and lead to a suffocationlike death within 15 minutes of ingesting it, but death can be prevented if treated correctly, according to Robert Hammerman, administrator of First Regional Animal Hospital.

The park is south of Guadalupe Road and west of Dobson Road, and clumps of ground beef containing green specks in it - suspected to be the poison - were found there on March 1, according to the Web site, carriagelanecanines.com.

The discovery of the meat led Mesa Animal Control to open an investigation into the poisonings this week.

Reniker told the Tribune the animal hospital believes the strychnine poisonings are intentional, but Mesa Animal Control officers have not yet identified a suspect through its investigation to forward to Mesa police, said Detective Michael Melendez, a spokesman for Mesa police.

Dog owners met at Carriage Lane Park Wednesday to put up a $500 reward that would lead to finding the person responsible for the poisonings.

"We badly want for whoever is doing this to be caught," said Tom Julian of Mesa, whose 6-month-old Queensland and corgi mix, Chili, spent three days at First Regional Medical Hospital in a drug-induced coma after suffering strychnine poisoning. Julian believes the dog ate the poison at the park on Nov. 30.

"After we got back home, I looked in the backyard, and she was flat on her back with her tongue hanging out," Julian said.

Chili has since recovered.

Strychnine poisoning is the same type of chemical that killed two Chihuahuas belonging to former ASU football standout and Chicago Bears safety Adam Archuleta and his wife, former Playboy Playmate Jennifer Walcott. Their dogs were discovered in the backyard of the Chandler home of Archuleta's motherin December 2007.

There have been no dog deaths from confirmed poisonings at Carriage Lane Park, according to Hammerman.

"It's kind of strange," Hammerman said of the recent poisonings. "No one knows the source of the poison, or if someone is going out to the park and planting poisoned hamburger under a bush. There's a lake at the park, and if a duck were to eat anything like that laying around, you'd think ducks would come up sick as well. This usually happens when people let their dog off its leash or leave it unattended. Keep your dog on its leash and watch it at all times like you would your child."

In two of the confirmed strychnine poisonings, First Regional Animal Hospital had the dogs' stomach contents analyzed by Colorado State University, Hammerman said.

One dog is doing well, and the other dog, a Labrador-greyhound mix, is recovering after suffering a dislocated hip that was caused from seizures on March 1, about 40 minutes after returning home from Carriage Lane Park, according to its owner.

The Labrador-greyhound mix's owner, Reece Ponicki of Tempe, said his dog, Max, ate ground beef shaped like meatballs near a telephone pole along the canal, and he was able to get the dog to First Regional Medical Animal Hospital 10 minutes after it began having seizures.

"It looked like I was going to have to put him down, but the vet was able to sedate him into an induced coma, so he could recover from it," said Ponicki, who takes his dog to the park to see family and other dog owners. "I think the poisonings are a horrible crime. It's calculated and premeditated of killing something. I hope it doesn't escalate into this person killing people."

Christine Pomerenke of Mesa, who was walking two of her dogs along the canal on March 1, firmly believes that CJ, her 7-year-old German shepherd mix, died from strychnine poisoning after eating some of the tainted ground beef near a telephone pole along the canal.

"Before I knew it, she was eating something, but I got her away from it," Pomerenke said. "I didn't think anything of it at the time. About 20 minutes after I got home, I looked in the backyard and she had collapsed. It was like she had fallen asleep, but she was gone."

Pomerenke returned to the park and picked up the remainder of the ground beef that she believes poisoned her dog, and Mesa Animal Control is having the contents of the beef analyzed in a lab, she said.

Pomerenke believes the poisoning incidents seem to happen on the weekends on the north side of the canal in a long stretch between Alma School Road and McClintock Drive.