April 1, 2008

DELTA, Colo. –- An eastern Colorado woman faces a cruelty to animals charge after a dog drank poisoned soup she left out for stray cats.

Susan Irene Weiss said she believed the antifreeze she mixed in with chicken soup would only make the stray cats sick and discourage them from coming back to her yard. But a neighbor’s Chihuahua found the soup first, and later died.

“She said, ‘Yeah I have a feral cat problem. They were coming into my yard and doing their business,’” said Delta Chief of Police Roger Christian. “She didn’t want them in her yard, and she felt that this is what she could do –- she didn’t think it was going to kill anything, she thought it was going to give them a tummy ache.”

Chief Christian said Weiss feels remorseful for the dog’s death, but he acknowledges the city does have a feral cat problem.

“The city of Delta has quite a few feral cats,” said Chief Christian. “We’re rural;, said Chief Christian. “aA lot of the cats are dumped all over the city, and there’s increasingly becoming more and more of them.”

But according to the Chief, what Delta doesn’t have is a Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Return program.

“We try to control (the cats) through our animal resource officers –- we try to rehab as many cats as possible and adopt them out,” he said. “We have a small feral cat problem.”

Luckily for the felines, the bowl containing the anti-freeze has been taken as evidence. And Weiss now knows that she can’t be poisoning animals.

While it’s unknown how long Weiss was practicing this method, there are no other reports of poisoned animals in the area.

“Well, it’s unfortunate that it happened,” said Chief Christian. “I know that this lady was very remorseful ... it’s one of those things we’re going to have to work through.”

The responsibility, he said, lies in the hands of not only Weiss, but pet owners, too. Delta city law requires animals to be kept in their yards if unattended. The Chihuahua’s death could have been prevented had his owner kept closer tabs.

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KREXTV.com contributed to this story.