A family from Isanti County, north of Bradford, is looking for information about their dog, which appears to have been poisoned.
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Brian and Sharon Crawford found their dog Delta, a black German shepherd, dead on Dec. 10 of last year in their garage in the spot where she slept.
The Crawfords have determined Delta was poisoned between 9:30 a.m. and noon the day she died. Sharon Crawford went to visit her mother at an assisted living facility that morning. Brian Crawford, who owns Crawford’s Equipment off Highway 95 between Princeton and Cambridge, couldn’t find Delta when he came home from work at noon.
“She was just lying there dead where we found her,” Sharon Crawford said.
Delta’s death was initially a mystery. She was 1 1/2 years old and healthy. The Crawfords sent her to the University of Minnesota for an autopsy to determine what the cause of her death was.
The autopsy on Delta was inconclusive. The university sent samples to a lab in Michigan for further testing, where it was found that Delta had ingested a lethal combination of three prescription medications.
The Crawfords believe the poisoning to be intentional for a number of reasons. They live on a large farm plot with no nearby neighbors. Per Sharon Crawford, Delta did not even like taking the prescription she had from the vet. She believes the poison could have been hidden in something a dog would have liked to eat, like a piece of meat.
The drugs in Delta’s system were human medications, but they are used to treat different conditions. Two of the drugs would have interacted negatively.
“It wouldn’t be the same individual taking that combination of drugs,” Sharon Crawford said. (She asked that the Isanti County News not identify the drugs by name to avoid publicizing a method of poisoning animals.)
Sharon Crawford said all three drugs were in the top 10 on a list she and her husband found of medications that could kill a dog.
“We don’t know if it was random or if someone targeted us,” she said.
The lab analysis concluded the medications would have worked quickly and slowed Delta’s heartbeat, which might explain why she went to lay down in her spot in the garage before she died.
Brian and Sharon Crawford ask that anyone with information about who poisoned their dog contact them. Brian Crawford can be reached at 612-889-0001, and Sharon Crawford can be reached at 763-370-5620.
