New York Times columnist Mary Pillon wrote a front page story about Cruz The Samoyed after learning about it a few days earlier from CentralBark.com. We conducted a ten minute phone interview with her prior to the story. We informed her about what we learned from Cruz’s owner and some of the history of poisonings both in NYC (at dog parks in Sept) and at dog shows. During the interview, we stressed that Cruz’s death occurred during the Denver cluster of the dog show, and not to sensationalize the Westminster aspect of the story, which she did anyway. Unfortunately, she also did not give us the proper attribution or credit in her article. A search on the web revealed that this type of behavior occurs frequently. Ms. Pillon owes Oscar a nice-sized bone as an apology!
The top Samoyed of 2013, Cruz, died from the rat poison Warfarin last weekend at the Denver dog show cluster, only a few days after attending Westminster in New York. Cruz’s vet said the poisoning occurred sometime during that week, which most likely happened in New York. The poison could have been easily slipped into a dog treat. There have been a few dogs who have recently died from mysterious poisonings at dog parks in New York. Poisonings have also occurred at dog shows as early as 1895. In 2011, a number of dogs died from poisoning at the San Marino International dog show in Italy. After hearing this scary news, I will be sure to keep a very close eye on Oscar and will be careful not to accept any treats from strangers!
As a dog owner, I am extending a $2000 reward for any information that could lead to the arrest of the person who might of done this to Cruz also known as GCH Polar Mist Cruz’n T’Party At Zamosky.
