St. Petersburg police are looking into claims that someone is throwing poisonous dog food into yards and leaving notes on doors warning them to shut their dogs up.
Robert McCahan says his dog Anabelle died in one of the alleged incidents.
"It’s horrible," he said. "She's my baby. That's my kid. I don't have kids. When I come home every day from work she crawls on the couch and cuddles with me, sleeps in my bed. She's just my baby. I lost a piece of my heart."
Those are memories McCahan can't get back after he says Anabelle was poisoned by someone not once, but twice. In both cases, he says whoever it was left a note on his door.
"I saw the note so I came out here and started looking through the yard. Right about here was a bag of wet dog food. Just torn up and she ate it."
McCahan says he immediately called the police. According to the police report for the first incident, which happened in 2016, the note read "shut your (expletive) dog up or we will!! It barked non-stop!"
“She spent about three months in recovery. Finally got back to being a normal dog again, her playful self and now it’s happened all over again,” he said.
The note for the most recent incident, which happened March 10th, says "Your dog has barked non-stop for two nights straight!!! Shut him up! Your neighbors are tired of it! If you can't keep him in- get rid of him- we're tired of it!!!"
According to vet records obtained by 10 News, Annabel was poisoned by Tylenol in the first incident.
In this latest case it says a toxin sent Annabel's body into renal failure and caused seizures.
Three days later she died.
McCahan thinks whoever it was threw the bag of dog food over the fence.
Neighbors like Brooke Hester are concerned.
"I’m shocked. That’s devastating. Just in the last two to three days I've been doing walkarounds my backyard because I've heard they've been throwing the poison food over the fences."
While St. pete Police are investigating, they say it will be very difficult to prove without security cameras and say there's not much else they can do.
McCahan says there are other neighbors who claim their pets have died from similar symptoms. Those instances were not reported to police. Neighbors have been made aware of the issue through the Nextdoor App where a lot of people have voiced their concerns.
McCahan just hopes to get justice for his Anabelle soon.
"It's a felony charge. They will go to jail for years. We want them caught and to leave the neighborhood."
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