We have two dogs and two cats and live in a rural village. This morning near our back gate we noticed two lumps of something on the ground. Closer inspection revealed that the two lumps were the contents of a corned beef tin. One of the halves looked as if something had taken a bite out of it on the corner.
We have no idea if one of our dogs or cats had a nibble and I guess only time will tell if the meat has any nasties in it. This is the second time we have had raw food thrown over our fence. Last time was some uncooked sausages.
Our dogs are small and luckily fussy about what they eat so hoping that they have not had a nibble. Doubt if the cats would touch corned beef.
The issue here is we have a rat problem due to the person next door to us in the council house managing a hedgehog rescue centre and the housing association do not seem to be bothered although we have complained about rats, flies and the stench!
Wasn’t there a long discussion here about this hedgehog lady a while back?
We had rats during lockdown when the takeaway closed. Tried traps but they caught birds as well as rats. So we put a bait box down on the rat run. It’s pet proof & effective.
People sometimes throw takeaway leftovers over our wall. Our dog is trained to obey the “leave” command. The cat is far too fussy to be interested in cold congealed curry.
With regards to the problem of meat products in your garden, do you by any chance have rooks or crows, magpies etc; living nearby? There is a chap down the road from me who feeds them on meat products as well as large chunks of bread and the birds sometimes drop meat or bread in our garden. I have to go out every morning before letting the dog out to look for anything that could be harmful. Fortunately it doesn't happen very often.
If you think it is malicious then I would certainly invest in CCTV. Even if it turns out to be the local cat or even a rat bringing stuff into the garden at least you will know.
Our dog has a free run of the garden although we keep a regular eye on her, and one night after dark I found her eating the remains of a pigeon. I don't think she could have caught it herself because it was after dark and pigeons are normally roosting by then, and she barks when she chases anything. I can only assume a cat brought it into the garden and the dog thought it was Christmas! Needless to say she had diahorrea for a couple of days after that.
Quote: Originally posted by Fiona W on 31/7/2021
Wasn’t there a long discussion here about this hedgehog lady a while back?
We had rats during lockdown when the takeaway closed. Tried traps but they caught birds as well as rats. So we put a bait box down on the rat run. It’s pet proof & effective.
People sometimes throw takeaway leftovers over our wall. Our dog is trained to obey the “leave” command. The cat is far too fussy to be interested in cold congealed curry.
Correct, but doubt if she would do it as she also has cats although they cannot access our garden as we have an electric fence around the garden to stop one of our cats leaving the garden and also keep the tree rats away. The electric fence is at the top of a normal wooden fence and inside the property.
To throw something over our fence is a bit of a walk and there are other properties nearer and easy to access that have dogs.
The meat was as if someone had opened a tin of corned beef, cut the contents in half and then thrown both halves over the fence which is what made us suspicious of the contents and wondering if it had been laced with nasties.
There are some odd people about who might do that sort of thing and judging by what you have described it doesn't sound like an animal or bird brought it into the garden. Looking on the brighter side perhaps somebody thought your dogs might appreciate a treat of corned beef, but does sound odd.
Talking of odd people, a couple of years ago a chap moved into a house across the road from me and immediately started weeding and feeding the large area of public green outside his house, treating it as if it was an extension of his garden. The green is a public area and my dog sometimes poops on it after her late night walk.
About the same time, I started finding poop on the pavement outside my gate and next to my car doors and was considering getting CCTV when one morning the chap came across and accused me of letting my dog poop right next to his fence and not picking it up. I told him in no uncertain terms to go away and stop being stupid as I always pick up.
After that, the poop outside my house stopped and I suddenly realised that he must have been putting it there thinking it was from my dog. It also suddenly dawned on me that it wasn't dog poop but cat poop and the reason why he was finding it right next to his fence was because he had freshly dug all the soil at the bottom of his fence (on the outside) to plant climbing roses and of course all the local cats found themselves a new and freshly dug latrine
So there are some strange people about and it worried me for awhile that he might chuck something into the garden to poison the dog but I think he just has a mental disability and has done other odd things around the village but is not really that malicious.
Quite coincidentally I found a headless, featherless, bird in my garden this morning (dead of course). It was only small so either a quail or more likely a baby pigeon. Fortunately I spotted it before the dog did. A bit odd that it was headless and featherless as if it had been prepared for a meal...weird or what?
We had a spate of dog poisoning about 18 yrs ago, meat with anti freeze, quite a few dogs died, it was thrown in to the dog walk field.
A few years ago we had large bonio dog biscuits appeared in our garden, this went on for over 3 month, about 3 times a week, none of our neighbours have dogs this was worrying. One morning I found the culprit, A magpie, dont know where the bonio came from but too large for my dogs. Not long after that it stopped, maybe its supplyer got sick of feeding magpies.
Could someone be throwing stuff over the wrong fence, intending it for the hedgehogs? Strange choice of foodstuffs, whatever the reason - and not cheap either, especially the corned beef!