Mum suspects cat was poisoned

Claire Wheelaghan, Mother of two speaks of how devastated her daughter was by the suspected poisoning of their pet cat.

Within hours of returning home that evening, the grey tabby was dead.

He died at Green Pastures vets in Moor Lane, Weston, where nurse Holly Hartell remains optimistic that it may still be an accident, but confirmed he had swallowed a lethal amount of the substance.

The incident follows a number of similar poisonings last year, when cats from across the Weston area were consuming a lethal amount of antifreeze.

Claire, aged 45, says what has happened to Buddy has left her family shocked.

She said: “Buddy came in limping at tea time and he just wasn’t with it.

“By 10pm we realised we needed to take him to the vets and by 11.30pm he was dead.

“My 16-year-old daughter Lauren is devastated and my 18-year-old daughter Chelsea is fuming about it.

“It’s not cold enough to be using antifreeze and there was too much of it in Buddy’s body to be able to save him.

“Hooch, who came from the same litter as Buddy, is lost without him.”

Vets at Green Pastures say this is the first incident of antifreeze poisoning they have been aware of in about a year and are hopeful it may have been an accident.

Holly said: “Cats drink from puddles on driveways and I wonder if car radiators may leak and this is how it is happening.

“But we would ask people to keep an eye out for anyone acting strangely and report any incidents.

“Symptoms to be aware of will include vomiting and twitching, but it is unlikely a cat could be saved if has suffered antifreeze poisoning.”

Source: Weston Mercury

2 comments:

  1. So sad to hear about this. Im sorry for the family's loss

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  2. This is so sad. It would cost the manufacturers of antifreeze less than 1p per litre to add a bitterant to all antifreeze products, this would make antifreeze unpalatable to cats and dogs.

    In North Somerset our vets are reporting many, many cases of this type of poisoning of cats. There was a case reported near Taunton (?) where a malicious neighbour had soaked cat biscuits in antifreeze and thrown them into the garden where cats live.

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