Mary Pletcher let her two companions — her Boston Terrier named Bailey and her pit bull Morgan — off their leashes to run and play inside the gates of the Towers Dog Park.
The park was virtually empty the night of Dec. 30, and, from a park bench, Pletcher noticed Bailey chewing something on the ground. Bailey has a habit of eating dirt and grass, Pletcher said, so she was unconcerned, thinking Bailey was sniffing around for a snack.
But almost a week later, Pletcher found herself driving both dogs to a veterinarian. “I didn’t know what they’d eaten because it was so dark,” Pletcher said.
Bailey and Morgan spent last week in an animal hospital undergoing treatments for kidney failure. Whether her dogs survive and recover remains to be seen.
“It’s just a question of how much they’ll be able to function,” Pletcher said. “It is probably safe to say that their life expectancy has diminished by years.”
TWO OTHER DOGS that frequent Towers park are also ill, raising concerns that they might also have been poisoned.
Police are searching for the person responsible, police announced Monday, Jan. 10.
Investigators have recovered the remains of a partially digested hot dog from the stomach of another victim that appears to have been laced with white pills, according to Arlington County Police Department spokesman Matt Martin. The hot dog was also green in color, an indication it might contain other chemicals. The hot dog was sent to a forensics lab for analysis and, Martin said, getting the results could take several weeks.
“Until we get those results back, we can’t even say definitively that a crime was committed,” Martin said.
He added that investigators are also looking into reports of a man said to linger in the park who has allegedly harassed and, by some accounts, even threatened dog owners. Yet without the lab results to confirm or disprove that the illnesses are linked to poison, he said, police are no closer to naming or apprehending a suspect.
“We’re aware of this gentleman from people who use the park,” he said. “They’ve made a lot of conclusions and we’re not saying they’re wrong, but we need to have definitive proof.”
JENNIFER PITCHER TOOK her dog to the vet after she found it chewing on a hot dog someone had stashed in the park near a tree. Pitcher said she was aware of strange hot dogs littering the park in late December and alerted police. She even tried to collect some.
“I dropped a whole bag of hot dogs off with the police department,” she said.
Pitcher thought the park was safe but more hot dogs appeared the next morning.
“Whoever it is, they must’ve come back that night,” she said.
A local dog owners group, Arlington Dogs, is offering a $2,600 reward for information leading to an arrest. Until that happens, many are avoiding the park altogether and keeping a close eye on their dogs.
“People need to be careful but we won’t tell people not to use the park,” said Judy Green, the group’s founder and co-chairwoman. “If we stop using it, this person will have succeeded in his terrorism.”
THE WHITE PILLS found inside one of the hot dogs have yet to be identified but the green color they exhibit could be anti-freeze, according to veterinarian and Arlington dog owner Dan Teich.
Teich, who has researched anti-freeze poisonings, said the odd color is consistent with the chemical, a synthetic used in most cars. The taste, he said, would not deter a dog from eating it and the symptoms of the anti-freeze poisoning can take days to surface.
“It tastes sweet in fact,” he said. “If it takes greater than four or five hours to get them to a vet when symptoms show, they usually die. The best thing to do is if you notice your dog acting in an unusual way, seek medical attention.”
The county’s parks department is working in conjunction with police to prevent further poisonings.
“We have increased maintenance staff activity in the area of the dog park and the frequency of visits by our park rangers,” said Division Chief Steve Temmermand.
Dog owners are now asking the county to light the park after sunset, but Temmermand said that will take time to accomplish.
“The lighting is an issue,” he said. “We are talking with people in the community around the park and, right now, we’re working to create a process by which anyone concerned with the lighting can make comments on it.”