Enid Woman Devastated After Losing 3 Dogs To Baited Poison

An Enid family is heartbroken after they lost three dogs in three days last week. A vet says the dogs ate a fast and deadly poison. 

Ruthann McCrary said she noticed something was wrong with the first dog Charlie on Wednesday after a walk around their property; by the end of the week all three dogs had passed away. 

"It's devastating. We lost everything in one fell swoop. They're gone," said Ruthann. 

Her home now sits quiet. Dog beds lay empty, toys not played with and the sounds of puppy feet through the halls is silenced after Sadie, Charlie and Eleanor ate baited poison set out on their 20-acres. 2-year-old Charlie was the first to pass. 

"He came up and my husband noticed that he was kind of acting weird and any loud noises he would just kind of lock up and he had several seizures, said Ruthann. 

Two days later Sadie and Eleanor would meet the same fate, on the same walk by a creek. Eleanor wasn't even a year old. 

"They were just out of his [Ruthann's husband] sight for maybe a minute " explained Ruthann. "Then they went back up to the shop and started having seizures," She continued, "so we just thought, get them in the truck and start going but it just happened so quick." "It's a horrible way to go. It's a horrible way to witness them, what they went through when they were dying." said Ruthann. 

She then had her brother-in-law, who is a veterinarian, preformed an autopsy on Sadie. He found she had eaten strychnine. The poison is a commonly used as a pesticide. 

"He also found some hide and hair from maybe a carcass." 

The next day, Saturday Ruthann and her husband found the culprit. 

"We went down to the creek, and we searched until we found a dead deer and piles of this green stuff with the pellets in it. That's the strychnine." 

Deer bait or food laced with poison is illegal in Oklahoma. A game warden told Ruthann some people set out the lethal traps to kill deer and harvest antlers. Now Ruthann is left to ask why it was put on her property. 

"It's devastating and I don't know why they would selfishly want to do that for something they want and it's not theirs to do." 

The family has reported the poison bait to their local game warden.