WATCH ABOVE: Show dog dies from poisoned meat after returning from Crufts Dog Show. Barry Ahrendt reports.
TORONTO – A murder mystery unfolded in Birmingham, England over the weekend when a three-year-old Irish Setter died after returning home from a second place finish in preliminary competition at Crufts, Britain’s top dog show.
The dog, named Thenadra Satisfaction, collapsed after returning home to Belgium from the show last Friday. A post-mortem examination revealed he had been poisoned after eating cubes of beef laced with slug killer, the dog’s owners said.
Jeremy Bott and his wife Dee Milligan-Bott, who co-own the dog, said there is no doubt he was “maliciously poisoned” but refused to point fingers at their fellow competitors and instead blamed the death on a random act of cruelty.
“We can’t and we won’t think that this was the act of another exhibitor, if we thought this we couldn’t go on, and the last 30 years would be a complete waste,” Dee Milligan-Bott posted on her Facebook page. “So I ask all of you to unite in finding the perpetrator who did this.”
WATCH: Owners of poisoned show dog do not want to point fingers at fellow breeders
Jeremy told reporters Monday he believed their dog, also known as Jagger, was “in the wrong place at the wrong time” and repeated again that he didn’t want to cast suspicion on his fellow exhibitors.
“Hopefully Jagger was just the wrong dog, at the wrong place, at the wrong time,” Bott told reporters. “We would like to thank everyone from around the world very much for your overwhelming support, messages, calls and kind words during these hard times.”
Milligan-Bott told the website “Dog World” she thought the real target in the poisoning could have been a second dog she owns, Thendara Pot Noodle, who won the “Best of Breed” title at Crufts. She also suggested it could have just been someone who “hates dogs.”
“Crufts is the biggest show in the world and our best one,” she told the website.”It attracts the largest number of members of the public.”
“I think someone went with poisoned meat knowing what they were going to do – someone who hates dogs.”
The Associated Press reported U.K. and Belgian police are aware of the incident, but said they haven’t been asked to investigate.
The mystery continues to swirl as The Telegraph reported the club is also looking into claims that six other dogs may have been poisoned at Crufts.
The Kennel Club, which organizes Crufts, said in a statement it will decide how to proceed once it sees a toxicology report on Jagger’s death.
“As with any international competition rumours of sabotage do occasionally surface. This of course is not in the spirit of competition and will not be tolerated,” the Kennel Club said. “Anyone caught attempting to deliberately sabotage another competitor’s performance, particularly if a dog’s welfare is put at risk, will face severe disciplinary procedures which could include a ban on competing at all Kennel Club licensed events.”
*With files from the Associated Press
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