Meg died of Strychnine poisoning but unlike what sometimes happens in more crowded neighbourhood, it is unlikely that it was an intentional act in this case. We live a long ways from our neighbours and anyway they for the most part are all Meg fans. She made friends wherever she went. Our house is a half mile off the county road so a drive by is unlikely also. But this is the season of the year when folks in this part of the world try to get control of their gopher population and it is the only time of year when you can acquire strychnine. Although it is strictly controlled and only given on an as needed basis, it is likely that someone in the area was poisoning gophers and a bird either got into the bait or ate a poison rodent and then flew over and died on our place. I spent most of yesterday and part of Sunday scouring the places that Meg could have been Saturday looking for dead critters and did gather up two magpies and a hawk. My bet is the magpies were victims of feeding on the dead hawk and it is possible that Meg might have been too. So it is some small consolation that it is extremely unlikely that she was the victim of some cruel misguided person, but nevertheless it is a terrible loss.
But it is the circle of life and she like others before her has gone onto the Rainbow Bridge to wait our reunion, and what a time that will be. We will be well mounted and have a pack of dogs like no one will believe to greet us as we make that crossing.
It is comforting to know that someone didn't intentionally poison Meg, but perhaps the chain of events that caused these things to happen could be reported to the authorities....
But then I would guess that ranchers need to get control of their rodent populations and this is just misfortunate... But that doesn't make any of us feel any better...............
Rest in peace Meg..
Retired Rod
It's just too bad that strychnine affects more than the targeted gopher population. :(
ReplyDeleteYes, that is an issue Judy. Many years ago we used strychnine here at Dogpound North also, but it was a pretty controlled operation. We always made sure the dogs were locked up and the poison was put deep under ground. To my knowledge we never had an accidental poisoning of any of the other critters and we policed the area to make sure no dead gophers were laying around for the coyotes or birds to get. In the years since we have tried other methods with varying success but the one that seems to work best is letting our pastures grow longer and the pesky little buggers don't seem to like that long grass as the hawks are not so easy to see so for the most part they either got hunted out or moved on to more groomed pastures.
ReplyDeleteSo very, very sad.
ReplyDeleteThat's really unfortunate about Meg, and I suppose as a "City Boy", (well, more like "Suburban Boy", but you get the idea) I could go on about letting a dog run loose, but presumably she was on their property.
ReplyDeleteWe used to have ground hogs (back in my "Farmer Boy" days), and found that a 30-06 was more effective and not as possibly dangerous as poison.
Kelly had read something on Facebook about Brenda & John losing Meg but I didn't know the details. Thanks for posting this. Having lost 3 dogs in one year we understand how John & Brenda are feeling. They, like us & many others are animal people & any pet loss is always a loss for all of us.........
ReplyDeleteThanks to John for his explanation of what may have happened to Meg and to you Rod for posting it. Very sad story.
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