San Francisco police are investigating a new episode of attempted dog poisoning in the city. A woman walking her dog near 24th Avenue and Ortega Street, adjacent to the city's Sunset Reservoir, reported finding meatballs near a path. In the wake of earlier poisoning incidents, officers responded and retrieved several meatballs that appeared to contain unidentified pills.
According to Bay City News:
It was the first finding of poisoned meatballs since a dog ate a suspected poisoned meatball in the Twin Peaks neighborhood in February. That dog, a 9-year-old Chesapeake Bay retriever and border collie named Timber, was forced to throw up at the vet and wasn't hurt.
But the meatballs have been causing dog owners anxiety since last summer when hundreds of them poisoned with strychnine were found distributed in the Diamond Heights and Twin Peaks neighborhoods and killed a dachshund named Oskar.
Despite a $5,000 reward, no suspects have been arrested. Anyone with information about the meatballs has been asked to call San Francisco police.
Tom Prete, of the KQED News Associate the Ocean Beach Bulletin, reports that Sunset dog walkers expressed alarm at the news of more poisoned meatballs on the streets:
Sunset District resident Shinju Nozawa-Auclair hadn’t heard of potentially poisoned meatballs found near the Sunset Reservoir at 24th Avenue and Ortega Street, but as soon as a reporter asked her about them she leashed her dogs Diana and Audrey and kept a close eye on them. She said it was “sick” that someone might have deliberately tried to poison pets in the neighborhood. ...
Sunset District resident Sheila Fitzell, walking along the Sunset Reservoir Monday afternoon with her three children and three dogs, said she hadn’t seen any meatballs but had received a handwritten note in her home mail slot warning her about potentially poisoned meatballs found in the area.
An Ocean Beach Bulletin reporter investigated the perimeter of the reservoir but found no further evidence of the potentially poisoned treats.